A CRITIQUE
OF NEW COVENANT THEOLOGY
By Jim Gunn
To Whomever:
Back in July 2002 I first became
aware of New Covenant Theology {NCT} through a series of articles
in the “Sound of Grace”,
John G. Reisinger, Editor. My initial reaction was as the Athenians
in Acts 17:19, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you
speak?” After an initial investigation my reaction to the idea of
God abrogating or materially changing the Ten Commandments was negative.
However, there was a seemingly compelling argument being made for NCT,
specifically the “law of Christ.” What moved me to greater interest
in NCT was that a fellow elder in our local Baptist church [we have
plurality and equality of elders] said that he had been a follower of
NCT for many years. Because of a serious difference in the interpretation
of the Word of God regarding the Ten Commandments it was necessary for
me to do a more in-depth study.
Following the example of the fair-minded in Berea who “…searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so,” {Acts 17:11} I began to accumulate and study NCT material. Books and tapes that I have studied are listed at the end of this paper.
In an honest quest for the
truth regarding New Covenant Theology as propounded by John G.
Reisinger, Tom Wells, Fred Zaspel, et al, I am now convinced that they
have little “new” to offer. This opinion is based on an assimilation
of all of the material that I have studied to date.
There is much that NCT argues
for that I do wholeheartedly support, viz., the progressive nature of
divine revelation until the completion of the NT; the primacy of the
NT over the OT; and the preeminence of Jesus Christ over everything.
However, these tenets of NCT did not originate with NCT.
New Covenant Theology
opposes ‘Covenant Theology’ and ‘Dispensationalism.’ If NCT
defines Covenant Theology as Presbyterianism, so be it and so do I oppose
any notion of a ‘covenant’ made by God with children of believing
parents. However, NCT seems to oppose the idea of a ‘Covenant of Grace’
that transcends human history.
Dispensationalism is fairly
well understood although it now is a moving target. As I understand
Dispensationalism, and I have studied it extensively, it is an untenable
eschatology. Essential to Dispensationalism is the separation of Israel
and the Church forever, the priority of the OT over the NT in interpreting
prophecy, and a focus on the Jews because they are Jews. God, as the
teaching goes, will have respect to a people because of their birth
certificates. But this is also the major weakness of every form of eschatology
that teaches that there is yet to be an eschatological national Israel.
But if NCT is opposing the
continuity of the Ten Commandments {TC} into the NT then I do not agree.
Are the Ten Commandments used of God in the NT present age or are they
abrogated or materially changed? Have the TC been replaced by the “law
of Christ”?
The law. One of my main
sticking points with NCT, as I studied its various materials, is their
argument that the “law of Christ” has abrogated or materially changed
the Ten Commandments. This also is not an original or a new interpretation
by the proponents of NCT as to the continuity or lack thereof of the
Ten Commandments into the NT.
The Sabbath is usually
brought up as the ‘proof’ that God has materially changed His law.
Because of a change in the observance of the Sabbath, NCT extrapolates
that to the other nine commandments. However, there are good explanations
for the transition of the Hebrew seventh day Sabbath to the Christian
observance of Sunday.
When Jesus said that He was
the Lord also of the Sabbath He meant the OT commandment and taught
that it was the spirit of the commandment and not the letter
of the commandment that mattered. So did the spirit of the law of the
Sabbath change in the NT? If not, did the spirit of the other
nine Commandments change?
My understanding of the Ten
Commandments is that God gave Moses this “moral law” that was
already written on the hearts of all men and in doing so specific
sins are made known. E.g., Cain knew it was wrong to murder a good while
before the 6th commandment was given to Moses. But now there
is a written law that says do not murder!
Jesus, in the Sermon on the
Mount, did not abrogate nor materially change the law; He explained
the spiritual nature of the law as it was intended. Of course
Jesus is the fulfillment of the law but the law has not been
abrogated or materially changed in its purpose. The purpose of the
law is to give the knowledge of sin, conviction of sin and condemnation
under the holy law of God, and by grace, to lead someone to Christ.
The law was never intended as a way of justification. In other words
the so-called ‘Covenant of Works’ was not new to Moses and was not
ever intended as a way of justification.
At the Southern Baptist Founders
Conference, July 2002, I asked Dr. Tom Nettles if he knew about NCT.
He did not offer much in the way of a definition. Admittedly, the conference
schedule was tight and now having some appreciation of the difficulty
of understanding precisely what NCT is teaching, it is my opinion that
Tom did not want to entertain a lengthy discussion between conference
sessions. That was one of the reasons I asked Tom to come to Vineland
Park Baptist Church to conduct a seminar on NCT. We have not been able
to arrange such a visit but I am still hopeful that it will materialize.
At the time [July 2002] I asked Tom about NCT I did not know that Tom
had written an introduction in the book, New Covenant Theology,
by Wells and Zaspel.
In fact both Dr. Tom Nettles
and Dr. Don Carson wrote a plea for understanding in the book,
New Covenant Theology. It does not seem to me that either Nettles
or Carson are endorsing NCT; they are only saying that it should be
considered. I sincerely hope that this critique is made and will be
received in the spirit of the admonitions given by Nettles and Carson.
Dr. Carson was the featured
speaker at the Beeson Pastors School in July 2002. After he spoke
there I asked Dr. Carson about NCT and he referred me to the 2002
John Bunyan Conference on NCT.
I subsequently purchased the tapes of that conference and have listened
to them. In a Q & A session
at the 2002 John Bunyan Conference on NCT,
John Reisinger states that NCT, in effect, equates the old covenant
with the Ten Commandments.
Having just read [November
18, 2004] A Reformed Baptist Manifesto, Samuel E. Waldron with Richard
C. Barcellos, I learned that John Reisinger no longer holds this view,
i.e., the Ten Commandments equates to the Old Covenant.
Dr. Carson spoke at the 2002 John Bunyan Conference on NCT. Carson preached from Hebrews on how the priesthood of Christ after the order of Melchizedek is superior to the Aaronic priesthood and he [Carson] is faultless.
In these sermons on the priesthood
of Christ I did not infer that Dr. Carson claims that Christ abrogated
the Ten Commandments. The law system and priesthood were all pointing
to Christ and are fulfilled in Christ, but that does not mean that the
TC do not remain in their original intent and purpose.
Dr. Carson spoke at the
2003 Southern Baptist Founders Conference in Birmingham.
In his sermon on Matthew 5:17 ff he explained that “fulfill” is
used in the prophetic sense as Matthew frequently uses the term. I did
not infer from this message that Carson is saying that Jesus abrogated
or materially changed the Ten Commandments.
After the lunch break on July
17, 2003 I had the opportunity to again ask Dr. Carson about NCT. He
graciously agreed to discuss the matter with me. I asked Dr. Carson
about John Reisinger’s statement that the Ten Commandments had been
abrogated. Carson said that Reisinger did not mean that the Ten Commandments
are absolutely done away with but rather the ‘Covenant of Works’,
which includes the Ten Commandments.
Carson said there is continuity
of the Ten Commandments into the New Testament. He also said there is
the question of the Sabbath.
Does not the spiritual
implication of all of the commandments carry over into the NT?
Joseph knew adultery was a
sin against God before God gave that commandment to Moses. Of
course we should not commit adultery but neither should we look on a
woman to lust. If I can break the commandment on adultery in
my spirit is it possible that I can keep the Sabbath in the spirit
of that commandment by remembering my Creator, resting in Christ, and
attending to worship with the church?
In all of the NCT material that I have read it seems to me that very little attention is given to Romans and Galatians. They do not offer much in the way of exposition of the texts in Romans and Galatians that specifically deal with the continuity of the Ten Commandments into this present age.
If I understand Paul’s arguments
in Romans, the Ten Commandments are still serving their intended purpose.
If, however, your view of the
purpose of the law in any way relates to justification then the law
must be made void. But that is exactly what Paul says has not been done
in Romans 3:31. “Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly
not! On the contrary, we establish the law.” Paul is clearly referring
to the law in the OT Scriptures in Romans and Galatians and not to the
“law of Christ” in the NT.
In Romans 7:7 it is the 10th
Commandment [Do not covet], which I believe embodies the other nine
commandments, which God used to show Paul the spiritual nature
of the law.
In Romans 13:9 Paul quotes
five of the TC, which must mean they are still being used for their
intended purpose, viz. to give the knowledge of sin.
As a Pharisee and a doctor
of the law Paul could have written a book on covetousness and it would
have been technically correct. But Paul did not know that he was personally
covetous until the Holy Spirit applied the spirit of the law
{TC} to his heart.
In my opinion, NCT does not
adequately deal with the teaching of Paul on the law in Romans and Galatians.
The ‘law’ as Paul uses the term is sometimes the entire OT economy,
but in Romans 7:7 it is the 10th Commandment.
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached and wrote about the Mosaic covenant in 1952.
“Now I want to emphasise that the making of this subsidiary covenant with Moses on behalf of the children of Israel at Sinai in no way whatsoever interfered with the covenant of grace that had already been given to Abraham, and that had previously been hinted at in the Garden of Eden. Now let me explain that, because there are some people who regard this as an entirely new covenant. But it was not; and I can prove it in this way: in Romans 4:13 we read, ‘For the promise, that he should be heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.’ This is most important. Listen again to Galatians 3:17: ‘And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.’ In other words, Paul’s great argument in Romans and Galatians is that the subsidiary covenant made with Moses at Mount Sinai, did not interfere to the slightest with the great covenant of promise and of grace that God made with Abraham.”
God the Father, God
the Son, Crossway Books, 1996, page 232.
The Gospel.
When the book New Covenant Theology {page 31} deals with the gospel preached to Abraham it says that it was not “the gospel” but the “promise of the gospel” whatever that might mean?
On this same page, referring
to Romans 1:2, it states, “Paul looks on the gospel as “promised
beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures” plainly implying
that it had not yet come in OT times.”
Pardon me, but if a man cannot
find the gospel in the OT it is because he does not know the
gospel. In Romans, Paul uses the OT to preach the Gospel because the
Gospel is not a NT innovation, or God’s “Plan B.” Please study
carefully Romans 16:25-27 and see if it can mean anything other than
the gospel itself is in the “prophetic Scriptures”?
Furthermore, Paul uses Abraham
as the paradigm of justification by faith in Galatians and in Romans
and whatever it was that Abraham believed is the gospel. Do we
have a complete record of what exactly God revealed to Abraham? Paul
says he had the Gospel. No one believes that Abraham had all the details
about Jesus of Nazareth but he believed the Gospel. “Your father Abraham,”
said Jesus, “rejoiced to see My day and he saw it, and was glad.”
What Abraham saw was Substitution
in a sufficient Savior {Genesis 22:13}.
Of course everything related
to Jesus the Christ in the OT is in some way a ‘promise’.
Until the atonement was actually
made there was ‘promise’. But what Abraham believed by faith was
accounted to him as righteousness. We may have more facts than did Abraham
but we do not believe a different Gospel than Abraham believed.
Paul begins Romans by claiming
that the ‘gospel of God’ is taken from the Old Testament Scriptures.
There is only one Gospel and only one covenant of grace. There is no
‘new covenant’ if you mean by that term that it only occurs after
the advent of Jesus Christ into the world. If that is not what NCT is
saying then what is it that is ‘new’ in their theology? God’s
children were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world and
in time they are called and justified by faith: The same faith that
justified Abraham or Paul’s use of Abraham as the father of the faithful
fails.
The NCT treatment of Jeremiah
31:31ff does not seem to allow for the ‘new covenant’ to mean regeneration
in the OT. NCT seems to say that what is ‘new’ is ‘new’ in time.
My understanding of Jeremiah 31:31 ff is that what is ‘new’ is the
revelation of Christ. What is ‘new’ is not ‘new’ in its origin
but in its application to individuals. Go back to Paul in Romans 7:7
and ask to what ‘law of Christ’ is Paul referring?
Dr. Tiberius Rata {Beeson Divinity
School} “Is the New Covenant Brand New or Renewed?” argues
that ‘new’ in Jeremiah 31:31ff means ‘renewed’ and not ‘brand
new’. Other scholars take issue with this definition of ‘new.’
Do not think that I am in any
way diminishing the ‘law of Christ.’ But the ‘law of Moses’
is as much the ‘law of Christ’ as anything written in the NT. The
question is the administration and application of ‘the law.’ Jesus
is not opposing Moses because Moses wrote about Christ and if you believe
Moses you will believe Christ. The problem with the Pharisees was that
they did not believe Moses and therefore would not believe Christ.
Part of the confusion, at least
in my experience, that is introduced by NCT is over the practice
of the church and the application of regeneration before the institution
of the visible church. I believe the church as practiced in the NT began
at Pentecost.
But regeneration, which puts
one into the true Church, is the same in the OT and in the NT. Otherwise,
how could Jesus expect Nicodemus to understand regeneration unless Jeremiah
and Ezekiel and other OT prophets wrote about it? That is not to say
the prophets themselves understood everything they wrote.
Jude 3 refers to our “common
salvation” which I take to be regeneration, the faith “which was
once for all delivered to the saints,” before the NT was completed.
The ‘new covenant’ in Jeremiah is as old as God and becomes ‘new’ as the Holy Spirit applies the law to the heart and in grace regenerates the dead sinner.
Therefore I have about satisfied
my mind that NCT is seriously flawed. I was nearly daunted by the scholarship
of Wells, et al. “Who am I?” I thought.
But great men can make great
errors.
Providentially, as I mentioned,
I had an opportunity to speak briefly with both Dr. Don Carson and Dr.
Tom Nettles at the 2003 Southern Baptist Founders Conference. If my
assessment of NCT is even close to being accurate then it does not seem
to me that either Carson or Nettles are wholly in the NCT camp. They
have friends in Christ in the NCT camp but when I asked them both questions
along the line of this critique they did not disagree but rather affirmed
my doubts. To be fair they did not have this critique or the time to
explain their views in much detail. If I have misrepresented Carson
or Nettles it is only because of the limited time we had to discuss
this matter.
The sticking points for me
with NCT are the abrogation or any material change of the Ten Commandments
and the Gospel preached to Abraham. If I have misrepresented NCT then
please correct me.
Providentially, and not at my instance, NCT came up at dinner on July 16, 2003 in a discussion between Dr. John Thornbury and Dr. Emil Bartos. I was present and offered to send them my critique on NCT. Since I discussed this matter with both Dr. Don Carson, and Dr. Tom Nettles and refer to their comments in this critique I sent this paper to them.
{I have not received a reply
from either of them as of March 17, 2007.}
The materials that I have studied
on NCT:
A Series of articles on
NCT in the “Sound of Grace”,
John G. Reisinger.
Christ: Lord and Lawgiver over the Church, John G. Reisinger,
published in 1998.
In Defense of the Decalogue: A Critique of New Covenant Theology,
Richard C. Barcellos, published
in 2001.
The Place of the Law
in a Grace-Filled Life, lecture by Dr. Frank Thielman.
New Covenant Theology,
Tom Wells and Fred Zaspel, published in 2002.
Critique of Dispensationalism,
lecture series: “Doctrine of the Last Things,” given at Beeson Divinity
School, circa 1998, by Dr. Paul Basden.
A paper by “Dave NSBC”
on New Covenant Theology.
“The New Covenant,”
The Gatepost, Parts I, II, III, IV, by H. Conrad Murrell, 2002-2003.
God the Father, God the Son {Chapters 19-20-21 on covenants};
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, published
in 1996 preached in 1952-1955.
God’s Ten Words:
A commentary on the Ten Commandments, Buddy Hanson, published in 2002.
Tapes; 2002 John Bunyan Conference on NCT,
Tom Wells, Fred Zaspel,
Don Carson, et al.
The Law and the Gospel,
Ernest C. Reisinger, published in 1997.
Tape; Is the New Covenant
Brand New or Renewed? Tiberias Rata, Beeson Pastors School, July
2003
Romans, The Law: Its
Functions and Limits, Exposition of Chapters 7:1-8:4, Martyn Lloyd-Jones,
Zondervan, 1973
Galatians, Timothy
George, Broadman, 1994
Whatever Happened to
the TEN COMMANDMENTS? Ernest C. Reisinger, published in 1999.
The Israel of God,
O. Palmer Robertson, published in 2000
The Baptism of Disciples
Alone, Fred Malone, published in 2003 [covenants]
The Perpetuity of the
Law of God, Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No.
1660, May 21, 1882
A Reformed Baptist Manifesto,
The New Covenant Constitution
of the Church, Samuel E. Waldron with Richard C. Barcellos, Reformed
Baptist Academic Press, 2004
Owen on the Old and New Covenants and the Functions of the Decalogue in Redemptive History in Historical and Contemporary Perspective
Richard C. Barcellos*
Eschatological Fulfillment and the Confirmation of Mosaic Law
(A Response to D. A. Carson and Fred Zaspel on Matthew 5:17-48)
By Greg Welty
A Response to Mike Adams's "In Defense of the New Covenant"
by
Greg Welty
Covenant Theology: From Adam to Christ, Nehemiah Coxe & John Owen;
Reformed
Baptist Academic Press 2005
Pastor Jim Gunn
Vineland Park Baptist Church
Sunrise Blvd. & 20th Street
Hueytown, Alabama 35023
Original: August 16, 2003
Updated: November 23, 2005
Updated: March 17, 2007