We love our Confession of Faith. That statement could startle one in an environment like ours, one in which creeds and confessions of faith are viewed skeptically as impositions on the Bible and the Christian. However, we hold to these documents because we believe they accurately summarize the biblical teaching.[1] Since we believe the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/89), hereafter 2LBCF, accurately summarizes the Scriptures on each point of which it speaks, we not only agree with it, but our hearts are warmed by the truth it communicates.
We remain convinced that the covenantal theology standing in the background of, and expressed in, the 2LBCF represents an accurate handling of Scripture. Our aim in this article is to interact with what has been called “progressive covenantalism” and offer some preliminary assessments of how this proposal intersects with and diverges from the covenantal theology most prominent among early confessors of the 2LBCF and recovered more recently by various pastor-theologians.[2] To interact with progressive covenantalism, we will first provide a basic explanation of covenantal theology contained in the 2LBCF. Next, we will point to some particular ways progressive covenantalism expresses commonalities with the 2LBCF. Finally, we will point at some ways progressive covenantalism diverges from the Confession.
Second London Covenant Theology
First, the 2LBCF is purposely broad in its expression of covenant theology in chapter 7. While its differences from its parent documents—the Westminster Confession (WCF) and Savoy Declaration (SD)—are quite noticeable, it is also true that the language could be affirmed by confessional Presbyterians and Congregationalists.[3] In the 2LBCF, the language of “promise” and its distinction from the completion finds its emphasis. Paragraph 3 says,
This covenant is revealed in the gospel; first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman, and afterwards by farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament; and it is founded in that eternal covenant transaction that was between the Father and the Son about the redemption of the elect; and it is alone by the grace of this covenant that all the posterity of fallen Adam that ever were saved did obtain life and blessed immortality, man being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those terms on which Adam stood in his state of innocency.[4]
While the covenant of grace was promised in the Old Testament, and it was made known by its types and shadows, the covenant is only fully present in Christ’s coming. The old covenant elect believed upon the same Christ, and the same grace was communicated to them, but the old covenant was not in itself the covenant of grace.
Progressive Covenantalism: Some Important Intersections
Consider some important ways this intersects with the proposal for progressive covenantalism. Stephen Wellum says, “Progressive covenantalism argues that the Bible presents a plurality of covenants that progressively reveal our triune God’s one redemptive plan for his one people, which reach their fulfillment, telos, and terminus in Christ and the new covenant.”[5]
A first, and important, point of intersection is the emphasis on continuity from the Old to New Testament, from the promise to fulfillment. Standing in notable difference from dispensationalism, progressive covenantalists and their confessional brothers agree that the “church is not a parenthesis in God’s plan or a present illustration of what national Israel and Gentile nations will be in the millennium and/or consummation as recipients of ‘distinct’ blessings.”[6] Between us, there is a common emphasis on the fulfillment that comes in the first advent of Christ and the presence of the new covenant.
Second, we both want to recognize the particular purpose of the old covenant, both in its typological significance and particular contextual significance. Wellum says, “[Michael] Horton misses various nuances of the land promise in the old covenant. . . Possession of the land is tied to Israel’s obedience, but Israel’s land is also typological: it looks back to Eden and what was lost, and forward to the new creation won by Christ.”[7] Both of these emphases are shared (with some differences) by adherents to the 2LBCF. Largely, confessional Baptists hold that the old covenant is a covenant of works for the land. [8] Not only was the land lost in their disobedience, but this arrangement hearkens back to the covenant of works and points forward to Christ’s work.
Third, we both emphasize the “newness” of the new covenant. While all Christians seek to affirm that Christ’s work also purchased freedom for the saints of the old covenant (2LBCF 21.1), these two Baptist systems agree in their emphasis on the “newness” of the new covenant. Unlike the old covenant, which typified the new but was characterized by earthly promises and the inclusion of an earthly seed, both progressive covenantalists and confessional Baptists look at Hebrews’ interpretation of Jer. 31 and draw out the important differences between the old and new covenants.[9]
Progressive Covenantalism: Some Important Divergences
While progressive covenantalism intersects with the emphases of Confessional covenantalism at many points, there remain some important points where it does not cohere with the 2LBCF. Here are two.
First, consider our understanding of the covenant of works. Confessional Baptists believe that the covenant of works was, first, something added to nature, since it is a covenant (2LBCF 7.1), and, second, definitively broken in the garden.[10]
Progressive covenantalists, however, place great emphasis on the continuity of what they call the “covenant of creation” and its fulfillment in Christ. The way they tend to discuss this differs from the particular points of distinction which confessional Baptists hold. We believe covenants are grounded on nature but not identical with it; covenants are positive. However, in many ways, progressive covenantalists seem to identify nature and covenant with their proposal of a creation covenant. There are signs they are changing their view on this point[11], but the standard works (Kingdom through Covenant, Progressive Covenantalism, and “Progressive Covenantalism” in Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies, in addition to Biblical Studies), all represent less distinction. By contrast, the standard 1689 Federalist works (Getting the Garden Right, The Mystery of Christ, and From Shadow to Substance) have all been clear on this.
Second, consider our understanding of the moral law and the tripartite division of the law. Confessional Baptists recognize the particular way the moral law—summarized in the Decalogue—was integrated into the old covenant, but we also recognize it as a distinct and enduring law which has continued to today. This law was “written on the heart of man” and “delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments” (2LBCF 19.2). Since we have a distinction between the moral and positive laws, with the latter being necessary for covenants, we can speak of the “abrogation” and “expiration” of ceremonial and judicial laws with the conclusion of the old covenant (2 LBCF 19.3-4).
Progressive covenantalists speak of applying the whole Old Testament in ways that seek to uphold the covenantal situations, but they do not view the Decalogue as the summary of the moral law. This appears most practically in our disagreement over the application of the Sabbath command, but we see that more foundational differences are present.
Keeping Dialogue
Progressive covenantalism has helpfully made arguments that are similar to confessional Baptists. Together, we disagree with both dispensationalists and paedobaptist covenantalists in our understanding of the relation between the old and new covenants. Together, we believe that the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants must both be taken together, and we seek to emphasize both as pointing ultimately to Christ. Together, we believe that there are key reasons for seeing the makeup of the new covenant community (i.e., the church) as different than the old covenant community. Together, we seek to distinguish between the types and antitype in ways that consistently affirm the fulfillment of God’s promises in Christ. While key points of disagreement remain, we rejoice that both groups strive to make known the gospel of grace offered in Christ.
[1] Admittedly, this is not the uniform way of wording an expression of confessional adherence. For some, among whom I count myself, the statement is made that a particular confession of faith is held to because (Latin: quia) it is biblical, that is, it accurately communicates the teachings of Scripture. For others, the statement is made that a particular confession of faith is held to insofar as (Latin: quatenus) it is biblical, that is, with the exception of any places where it contradicts Scripture.
[2] Particularly Pascal Denault, Richard Barcellos, and James and Samuel Renihan.
[3] Samuel Renihan makes the same point: “The language is carefully broad and specific at the same time. Any of the Particular Baptists’ opponents could have subscribed to these statements… The model they confessed was not so exclusively or distinctively Baptist that others would disagree with it.” Samuel D. Renihan, “From Shadow to Substance”: The Federal Theology of the English Particular Baptists (1642-1704), Centre for Baptist History and Heritage Studies, vol. 16 (Oxford: Regent’s Park College, 2018), 188-89.
[4] Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/89) 7.3.
[5] Stephen J. Wellum, “Progressive Covenantalism,” in Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views on the Continuity of Scripture, ed. Brent E. Parker, and Richard J. Lucas, Spectrum Multiviews Books (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2022), 75.
[6] Wellum, “Progressive Covenantalism,” 105-06.
[7] Stephen J. Wellum, “A Progressive Covenantalism Response,” in Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views on the Continuity of Scripture, ed. Brent E. Parker, and Richard J. Lucas, Spectrum Multiviews Books (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2022), 208.
[8] For the development of how the Particular Baptists understood the old covenant as a covenant of works, see Samuel D. Renihan, “Above and Beyond: Seventeenth-Century Particular Baptist Covenant Theology,” SBJT 26, no. 1 (2022): 90-114. https://sbts-wordpress-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/equip/uploads/2023/02/SBJT-26.1-17th-Century-Particular-Baptist-Cov-Theology-S.-Renihan.pdf
[9] For example, see Stephen J. Wellum, “Progressive Covenantalism,” in Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views on the Continuity of Scripture, ed. Brent E. Parker, and Richard J. Lucas, Spectrum Multiviews Books (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2022), 98; Samuel D. Renihan, The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant, and His Kingdom (Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2019), 160-70.
[10] Samuel D. Renihan, The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant, and His Kingdom (Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2019), 74. “The Covenant of Works depends on positive laws. It is much more than the moral law. And with no more Eden and no more sacramental trees, there are no more positive commands to obey.”
[11] Michael Carlino, for instance has recently sought to make a harder distinction here: https://christoverall.com/article/longform/the-noahic-covenant-reaffirms-gods-universal-demand-on-his-creation-a-progressive-covenantalist-response-to-david-vandrunen/