As we move on to the “covenant of grace” one thing to look for is how passages explicitly assigned to the covenants one can locate in the Bible are reassigned to support this theological covenant, which can’t be located in the Bible. Perkins, along with CT’s the world over, makes assertions about the “covenant of grace” that the Bible claims are about the New covenant:
“The covenant of grace offers Christ as the mediator for sinners…The covenant of grace also promises the Spirit to believers” (189).
Citing the Westminster Confession 36: “[Christ is] the only Mediator of the Covenant of Grace.” (191).
But, of course, Scripture designates Christ as “the Mediator of the New covenant” (Heb. 9:15; 12:24). It never calls Him the Mediator of the covenant of grace. Yes, but, the New covenant is the final iteration of the covenant of grace, or so we are told. But is that where Scripture places the emphasis? Does the author of Hebrews build his argument to its crescendo by telling us that the covenant of grace is what Christ our High Priest mediates? It does not. What it does do is repeat Jer. 31:31-34 (Heb. 8:8-12) as now instituted through the cross-work of Christ, even though there is still much left to accomplish (Heb. 10:19-25; 12:25-28) This requires of us as responsible Bible interpreters that we don’t read the New covenant as if it were the covenant of grace, which supposedly has been functioning since the Fall (e.g. 197, 209), but as a covenant which Christ instigated in Luke 20:22 and will fulfill upon His return (cf. Heb. 9:11-15!).
Many things stated in Part Three of the book are quite true. But they are set in the foreign context, and that context, the extra-biblical “covenant of grace,” forces them to do service in opposition to the biblical metanarrative. Although many passages are cited in this section (197-240), to my mind they are not used the way the inspired authors use them. Perkins rightly states, “There is no one, regardless of time and place, who rightly relates to God in some other way than through Jesus” (198). This is entirely correct. But it is not correct via any “covenant of grace.” Because the “covenant of grace” only accommodates one people of God, it so must promote a first coming hermeneutics whereby all the covenant oaths God made to Abraham (Gen. 15 and 22), Phinehas (Num 25), David (Psa. 89), which all involve the nation and people of Israel (Jer. 31:31-37; 33:14-26), are reinterpreted, crucial details go ignored (e.g., 358-359, 365-366), and it ends up being applied to the Church. This issues out in CT double-speak. For example,
2 Corinthians 1:19-20, which in context refers to the promises of God in Paul’s Gospel, is made to assert that every one of God’s promises is given to Christians, which is patently untrue (199-200). This is needed due to the requirements of the covenant of grace. Those requirements include gutting any Divine oath (such as in Jer. 31 & 33) and applying it spiritually to the Church, and then claiming that God meant what CT requires Him to mean all along. So on page 200 we read, “This aspect of fulfillment assumes that God inspired the Scriptures and intended its promises, even in their original meaning, to point to Jesus Christ.” To translate this a little, what Perkins means, and goes on to spend many pages trying to prove, is that God’s covenant oaths in Gen. 15; Num. 25; [Psa. 105:5-11; Psa. 106:28-31]; Jer. 33:14-26, etc., are fulfilled in Jesus and in the Church in Him (201ff.). He even cites Ezekiel 34:11-16 and 37:24-27 and applies them to Christ in His first coming (201-203). So, Ezekiel 37, which is clearly and unequivocally about remnant Israel entering into its covenant promises, including a rebuilt temple (Ezek. 37:12-14, 21-28), ends up being “fulfilled” at the first coming. This ends up with statements like:
“Christians have received the fulfilled inheritance of God’s covenantal promises to the ancient fathers” (195).
“When they saw Christ in the Old Testament, the apostles did not change the text’s original meaning. Rather, they had previously not understood God’s own intended and inspired meaning” (206).
Supposedly, that “intended and inspired meaning” was not what the original words of the oaths conveyed! Enter, “redemptive-historical hermeneutics” (199) – a way of reading the Bible to ensure it stays within the dictates of the extra-biblical covenant of grace. The God of Covenant Theology can swear blind that He means what He says in Jer. 31:31-37 and Ezek. 37:15-28 and have a completely different “intended and inspired meaning” to be announced hundreds of years later when He chooses to come clean.
Clearly, there is too much in this book for me to comment on entirely. There are good things in the book. While I would distance myself from formulations involving the “covenant of grace,” I particularly liked the remarks about union with Christ (218-233). There is a valuable footnote (220-221 n. 12) covering modern departures from classic ideas of union with the Savior. The chapter entitled “The Time of Tension” (243-270) is also very well done (though again Perkins has the wrong covenant).
Part Four of Reformed Covenant Theology runs through “The Administration of the Covenant of Grace” in the biblical covenants. It is well done, but it exemplifies how being forced to read God’s actual covenants (e.g., Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, New) reshapes the central oaths that God took. Unsurprisingly, the oaths of the covenants are not treated as the principle hermeneutically incontrovertible markers they were purposed to be. For instance, in common with many Reformed contemporaries, Perkins asserts that there are two Noahic covenants; one in Gen. 6:9-8:22 and another in Gen. 9:1-19 (305). This cannot be upheld at the exegetical level if one is concentrating on what God pledged to do (Gen. 9:11).
For many CT’s and non-CT’s the place of the Mosaic covenant in the covenantal scheme of Reformed Theology is difficult to understand. Is it, as many earlier writers claimed, a sort of republication of the covenant of works? (335), or is it a blend of the covenant of works as to sanctification while administering the covenant of grace (336-338)? To be honest, what the discussion illustrates to this reviewer is how imposing foreign assumed “covenants” upon Scripture, however ingenious, needlessly complicates matters. This whole section leans of types and transformations to make its case.
Skipping the Davidic covenant, which Perkins believes is fulfilled at the first coming, he introduces his treatment of the New covenant like this:
“The new covenant fulfils every promise and type as Christ’s arrival and completed mission abrogate every previous symbolic ordinance, directly revealing the covenant of grace’s substance. This covenant not only grants the reality of eschatological blessings but also has the exact appearance and form, rather than shadowy types, of those realities (Heb. 10:1).” (362).
To be clear, Heb. 10:1 refers back to the earthly sanctuary and cultus discussed in the previous chapter of Hebrews. It does not refer to converting the prophetic covenant promises of Gen. 15; Num. 25; Isa. 2; 9; 11; 32; 65; Jer. 23; 30-33; Ezek. 34-48; Hos. 2-3; Zeph. 3; Zech. 3, 8, 12-14 etc into types and symbols to be molded into the requisite shapes to fit an extra-biblical scheme. We must recall that the “Covenant of grace” has no identifiable oath recorded on the pages of Scripture, yet it is given the power to transform clear oaths into types and shadows to fulfill its eschatological demands.
