Horton - God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology

INTRODUCING
COVENANT
THEOLOGY

INTRODUCING
COVENANT
THEOLOGY

MICHAEL HORTON

2006 by Michael Horton

Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com

Previously published under the title God of Promise

Ebook edition created 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-3902-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked KJV is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture marked NIV is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. www.zondervan.com

Scripture marked NKJV is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked NRSV is taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Italics in biblical quotations indicates emphasis added by the author.

To my teachers, colleagues, and students at Westminster Seminary California, for exhibiting for me the richness of covenant theology for faith and life.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I N ADDITION TO the Reformed tradition more generally (and the fresh examination of that tradition by Richard Muller and many others), I am especially indebted to the work of Geerhardus Vos, Herman Ridderbos, Louis Berkhof, and Meredith G. Kline.

As the dedication suggests, this book is the outcome of years as a student of the likes of Robert B. Strimple, W. Robert Godfrey, Dennis Johnson, Mark Futato, and, of course, Meredith Kline. I am also grateful to those from whom I learned so much at Oxford (especially Alister McGrath, who supervised my thesis on a major figure in English Reformed scholasticism) and in my two postdoctoral years at Yale. Yet, now as a professor at my alma mater, I owe special gratitude to my colleagues who constantly refine my thinking and model remarkable churchmanship and pastoral practice along with it. Thanks especially to Bryan Estelle, who took the time to go through the manuscript in painstaking detail, whose suggestions spared me (and my readers) from several mistakes.

As for the students, they routinely challenge me almost as much as my colleagues to greater faithfulness to the task of training servants for that enormously weighty calling that we share together in Christs body. I am grateful also to Paul Brinkerhoff and Don Stephenson at Baker Books for their interest in this project and attention to detail. Finally, thanks to Lisa and those four children of the covenant who remind me daily of the practical implications of trusting the God of Promise.

THE BIG IDEA?

W E LIVE IN a world of broken promises. A fragile web of truthful communication and practical commitments connect us to one another, and when any part of that web comes under significant stress, the trust on which our relationships depend can easily break. Self-interestthat is, outright violation of our commitments (what we have done, in the prayer of confession) isnt all that tugs on this web; often the pursuit of things that are in themselves worthy but subordinate goods (what we have left undone) tug on it as well. Either way, we transgress the law of love.

As Jesus reminds us, there is an inseparable connection between the two tables of the Law: love of God (the vertical dimension) and love of neighbor (the horizontal). In the fall of humanity in Adam, recapitulated in the history of Israel, human relationships fray as a result of prior infidelity to their covenant Lord. Yet before, during, and after humankinds broken promises, the promise-making and promise-keeping God is present and will not let the web fall apart.

Gods very existence is covenantal: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live in unceasing devotion to each other, reaching outward beyond the Godhead to create a community of creatures serving as a giant analogy of the Godheads relationship. Created in the image of the Triune God, we are by nature outgoing, interdependent relationship establishers, finding ourselves in the other and not just in ourselves. Unlike the persons of the Trinity, we at one time did not exist. But when God did decide to create, his decree was not that of a lonely monarch, but of a delighted Father, Son, and Holy Spirit establishing a creaturely, finite analogy of their eternal giving and receiving relationship. We were not just created and then given a covenant; we were created as covenant creaturespartners not in deity, to be sure, but in the drama that was about to unfold in history. As covenant creatures by nature, every person has a relationship with God. What exactly the nature of that relationship happens to be after the fall will be taken up at some length in this book, but there can be no doubt: everyone has a relationship with God, and that relationship is covenantal. Since that is true, it stands to reason that we would want to know more about the nature of that relationship.

So what exactly is a covenant? Anticipating the definition in the next chapter, we can start by saying that from the most commonly used Hebrew word for this concept (berit), a covenant is a relationship of oaths and bonds and involves mutual, though not necessarily equal, commitments. As we will see shortly, some biblical covenants are unilaterally imposed commands and promises; others are entered into jointly. Some are conditional and others are unconditional. In other words, under the overarching concept of oaths and bonds we encounter a substantial variety of covenants in Scripture.

How remarkable it is that a great God would stoop not only to create finite analogies of himself, but that he would condescend still further to establish a partnership with them, commissioning them to exercise his own righteous and generous reign over the rest of creation.

My goal for this brief survey is to show the richness of this covenantal web and its centrality to the organization of the Bibles diverse teaching. Reformed theology is simply covenant theology, according to I. John Hesselink. In other words, Reformed theology is guided by a concern to relate various biblical teachings to the concrete covenants in Scripture as their proper context. But is that the usual perception today? People readily associate Reformed (i.e., Calvinistic) theology with the so-called Five Points of Calvinism, with its famous TULIP acronym (total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints). Encountering the God of sovereign grace is one of the most life-changing experiences in the Christian life, but it is only the beginning of what Reformed theology is all about. While some friends and critics of Reformed theology have reduced Calvinism to five points, or further still, to predestination, the actual confessions, catechisms, and standard doctrinal works of the Reformed tradition all testify to a far richer, deeper, and all-embracing faith in the God of the covenant.