Covenant theology is important for many reasons. Although covenant theology has been around for millennia, it finds its more refined and systematic formulation in the Protestant Reformation.
Its importance has been heightened in our day because of its relationship to a theology that is relatively new. In the late nineteenth century, the theology called “dispensationalism” emerged as a new approach to understanding the Bible.
The old Scofield Reference Bible defined dispensationalism in terms of seven distinct dispensations or time periods within sacred Scripture. Each dispensation was defined as “a period of time during which man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific revelation of the will of God”.
Scofield distinguished seven dispensations, including that of innocence, conscience, civil government, promise, law, grace, and the kingdom period. Over against this diversified view of redemptive history, covenant theology seeks to present a clear picture of the unity of redemption, which unity is seen in the continuity of the covenants that God has given throughout history and how they are fulfilled in the person and work of Christ.
Beyond the ongoing discussion between traditional dispensationalists and Reformed theology with respect to the basic structure of biblical revelation, there has arisen in our day an even greater crisis with respect to our understanding of redemption. This crisis focuses on the place of imputation in our understanding of the doctrine of justification.
Just as the doctrine of imputation was the pivotal issue in the sixteenth-century debate between the Reformers and the Roman Catholic understanding of justification, so now the issue of imputation has risen its head again even among professing evangelicals who repudiate the Reformation understanding of imputation. At the heart of this question of justification and imputation is the rejection of what is called the covenant of works.
Historic covenantal theology makes an important distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. The covenant of works refers to the covenant that God made with Adam and Eve in their pristine purity before the fall, in which God promised them blessedness contingent upon their obedience to His command. After the fall, the fact that God continued to promise redemption to creatures who had violated the covenant of works, that ongoing promise of redemption is defined as the covenant of grace.
Technically, from one perspective, all covenants that God makes with creatures are gracious in the sense that He is not obligated to make any promises to His creatures. But the distinction between the covenant of works and grace is getting at something that is of vital importance, as it has to do with the Gospel.
The covenant of grace indicates God’s promise to save us even when we fail to keep the obligations imposed in creation. This is seen most importantly in the work of Jesus as the new Adam.
Again and again, the New Testament makes the distinction and contrast between the failure and calamities wrought upon humanity through the disobedience of the original Adam and the benefits that flow through the work of the obedience of Jesus, who is the new Adam. Although there is a clear distinction between the new Adam and the old Adam, the point of continuity between them is that both were called to submit to perfect obedience to God.