For two reasons, we thought it would be helpful to produce an introduction to a particular take on the covenant of grace that was prominent among Baptists for much of our history. First, I (Daniel) have been preparing to teach on the covenant of redemption at a family conference which has caused me to go back and look at some of what I wrote in my dissertation again. Second, and more importantly as an impetus, there seems to be something of a widespread misunderstanding of what Baptists were saying when they spoke of the covenant of grace, and this has caused some misuse of their writing by present-day writers. Even with that background, this article seeks to be clarifying rather than polemical. In fact, it will be very minimal, straightforward, and introductory.
Some Baptist History
First, there’s a confessional statement. When one reads the Second London Confession, we see that there is a “covenant of grace” (7.2) which is revealed first to Adam and then “by farther steps” in the progress of revelation and redemptive history; finally, it came in its fulness in Christ (7.3). This covenant, however, is “founded on that eternal covenant…about the redemption of the elect” (7.3). Thus, we see a distinction between what is called the covenant of grace, which is first promised and then completed, and the covenant of redemption, which was between the Father and the Son in eternity.
Second, there’s a history. In the 1690s, one Particular Baptist, Benjamin Keach, was embroiled in a fight against Baxterians (or Neonomians). In early 1693, Keach preached a funeral sermon against them in which he said that we should no longer distinguish between the covenants of redemption and grace. He said that he once did, but he had come to reject the distinction and called the whole thing simply the covenant of grace. While I did not find the particular moment until after my dissertation (though I included it in an article that the Journal of International Reformed Baptist Seminary will hopefully publish), one can see that this shift was very recent in his thinking, between a publication the previous year and the one in early 1693. It seems Keach had come across Samuel Petto’s work, Covenant of Grace, and had been compelled that it was 1) right and 2) useful in arguing against the Baxterians.
There is much to the argument, but this article is intended more as a survey of the history. It is easiest to understand Keach as arguing for the singular covenant of redemption rather than the singular covenant of grace because he was primarily arguing that it was a covenant made immediately with Christ and that man is brought into it by consequence of Christ’s work.
Third, there’s a successor. John Gill—Keach’s successor at the Horselydown Church in London—maintained the same position against the distinction, and it seems this was the position of Baptists long afterward. Consider the Baptists’ “Catechism for Girls and Boys,” which asks, “What is the covenant of grace?” The answer: “It is an eternal agreement within the Trinity to save certain persons called the elect, and to provide all the means for their salvation.” That answer would seem, based on common affirmations of the distinction between the covenants of redemption and grace today, to be more appropriately associated with the covenant of redemption.
Fourth, there’s evidence of continuity. We see Spurgeon, Keach’s and Gill’s successor in the congregation, making the same argument. In a sermon entitled “The Blood of the Everlasting Covenant,” he says,
Now, in this covenant of grace, we must first of all observe the high contracting parties between whom it was made. The covenant of grace was made before the foundation of the world between God the Father, and God the Son; or to put it in a yet more scriptural light, it was made mutually between the three divine persons of the adorable Trinity. This covenant was not made mutually between God and man. Man did not at that time exist; but Christ stood in the covenant as man's representative. In that sense we will allow that it was a covenant between God and man, but not a covenant between God and any man personally and individually. It was a covenant between God with Christ, and through Christ indirectly with all the blood-bought seed who were loved of Christ from the foundation of the world. (1)
In this sermon, we see one of the clearest and most concise expressions of the “Keachian” understanding of the covenant of grace, i.e., (for the sake of simplicity) the covenant of redemption but under the title “covenant of grace.”
Further Explanations
Several clarifications should be made based on what we see in these writers. First, the “collapsing” (to speak somewhat pejoratively) was not exclusively Baptist. As mentioned, Keach got it from Petto, who was an Independent (i.e., Congregationalist), and others have expressed the same doctrine. In fact, an Independent church meeting at Horselydown included the same idea in their local church confession. Even more recently, Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley have included this understanding in their Reformed Systematic Theology. Second, to refer to it as Baptist is not to say that all Baptists held to it. As mentioned above, Keach did not always hold to his understanding, and the Confession of Faith makes what seems to be a clear distinction. The Confession’s principal editor, Nehemiah Coxe, also refers to the covenant of redemption.
Third, and this is perhaps most important, this means that one must be careful about reading early Baptist writers speaking of the “convent of grace” across time. When they do so, they operate with a different distinction than others. It is under this rubric that someone like Gill could speak of the old covenant as “a covenant of works” (comments on Rom 10:4) and still speak of the covenant of grace being administered across time. He says, “I have considered the covenant of grace in a former part of this work, as it was a compact in eternity, between the three divine persons, Father, Son, and Spirit; in which each person agreed to take his part in the economy of man’s salvation: and now I shall consider the administration of that covenant in the several periods of time, from the beginning of the world to the end of it.” (2)
Finally, we (at Baptist Dogmatics) should say that we do hold to the distinction between the covenants of redemption and grace. We say this because our explanation of a historic development could be taken as an advocacy for it. It seems best, in our opinion, to preserve the distinction maintained in the Confession, one in which we say that the covenant of redemption is the grounds and security of the covenant of grace, but that in the one, Christ purchases a people and in the other, those people “close with God” (to use an old Puritan phrase) by faith in Christ. The Son receives his throne and the ends of the earth are given to him (Pss 2, 110), and they offer themselves to him freely (Ps 110:3).
Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Blood of the Everlasting Covenant,” New Park Street Pulpit, vol. 5 (October 2, 1859). https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/the-blood-of-the-everlasting-covenant/#flipbook/
John Gill, A Complete Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity: Or A System of Evangelical Truths, Deduced from the Sacred Scriptures, New Edition., vol. 1 (Tegg & Company, 1839), 491.