Who's In, Who's Out? The Presbyterian vs. Reformed Baptist Debate on the Covenant of Grace

Debate Introduction and the Question of the Covenant of Grace

Good evening, everyone. Good to see you all. Praise the Lord. Welcome to the debate, Who is Included in the Covenant of Grace? My name is Wade Orsini, pastor of Apology at Church Utah and moderator for tonight's debate.

Before I move forward, I would like to give thanks. I'd like to thank the elders in Congregation and Mission Church for allowing us to meet here this evening. Thank you for all those who volunteered to make this happen.

I also want to thank Pastor Jason Wallace and Christ Presbyterian Church in Magna, Berean Presbyterian Church in Clearfield, and Apology at Church in Mesa, Arizona. As Christians, we ought to be people who seek out the truth.

The truth is so very important to us. I think we can all recognize God has deposited truth in the revelation of the Holy Scriptures and in His Son, Jesus Christ. And since God has spoken truth, it is humanity's job to seek it, observe it, and even to obey it.

I pray that we all share that same sentiment. But with that said, we are not going to witness some sort of fierce debate tonight of mortal enemies, men of two religious systems, chasms apart from one another, or even Calvinists versus Molinists or something like that.

We are going to witness the conversation that has played out time and time again in friendly circumstances, after church discussions, around dinner tables, and in my case, breaks between speakers at ReformCon.

This conversation is between God-fearing, Christ-loving, and Scripture-honoring brothers. And that's what it is. These are brothers. I can't emphasize that enough. If any one of us, a single person, leaves here tonight with a shred of disunity, then we've not done what we've sought to do here.

In Utah, especially, us confessional Christians, whether Paido or Credo Baptists, ought to stand firm together. So this isn't a battle between two armies, Presbyterians and Baptists. This is a discussion in the foxholes and trenches between brothers of the same army, while together we take ground on the enemy of this world, the Prince of the Power of the Air.

The proverb in the Word of God says, iron sharpens iron. We sharpen each other. We refine each other. We've lost the maturity and patience to do that these days. We often talk over one another when it comes to this subject, but both of these men have agreed to not misrepresent the beliefs that each one holds to.

And we need that. We truly need that. And some of you will leave here tonight even further affirmed in your covenantal stance, while some of you may even turn investigator. Some pastoral advice for you, though.

Tread slowly. Listen carefully. Turn to the Word of God. Look at your system in light of the Holy Scriptures, not the Holy Scriptures in light of your system. But with that in mind, I'd like to introduce you to the debaters of this evening.

To your right is Eric Yeager from the 1689 Baptist Federalist View. He is a layman and member at Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona. Eric is husband to his wife, Summer Yeager, of the Christian podcast Sheologians and father to five children.

I almost didn't want to bring this up because it's doubtful that any of you have heard of him. But Eric is here also under the blessing of his father-in-law, the apologist, Dr. James R. White. I'm sure he was hoping for a plug.

So there you go, Pastor James. When I was a deacon at Apologia Church in Arizona, it was Eric who helped many of the advanced theological training teachers, one I was a part of. He helped us understand the most consistent Baptist covenant theological view, 1689 Baptist Federalism.

I still have my handwritten notes from the phone calls that we've had together when we went over that. Welcome, Eric. And to your left is Zach Lautenschlager, arguing from a Presbyterian covenant theological view.

He is a layman and member at Berean Presbyterian Church in Clearfield, Utah. Zach is husband to his wife, Amy, and father to his seven children. If you didn't know, Zach has played an integral part in the formation of Red State Reform and Action for Life, organizations connected to EAN, End Abortion Now, with Apologia Church to end the wholesale slaughter of the unborn in our country.

Now, one of the most enjoyable things that you'll ever come to find about Zach is his vast knowledge of history. Truly, find him after the debate and hear him talk about American history. It's truly wonderful, especially the biblical principles that led the founders of our country.

You've got to hear him. Welcome, Zach. You may have already noticed, but besides the common bond that these brothers have in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are both connected in some way to Apologia Church in some regard.

These brothers have actually sat in the same worship service in the same oak wood pews to hear Jeff Durbin preach too long. They have partaken of the same supper of our Lord as congregants. May both they and us audience members remember that.

Again, please give us a round of applause for both debaters tonight. From this moment forward, I will ask you to hold all applause until the very end of the debate. The question each debater will be seeking to answer tonight is, who is included in the covenant of grace?

Who is included in the covenant of grace? As we all have been discussing this topic for many years, we realize the debate typically moves towards baptism, mode of baptism, and to household scripture passages.

We have all agreed here tonight in the formation of this debate that it should lie in the understanding of the covenants. This is really a debate about covenants, not so much about baptism, and that's what we've come to discover tonight.

And so that is what we shall do. Real quickly, the debate format is as follows. Each debater will have an opening statement for 20 minutes allotted. Then we will have a time of rebuttal for each debater, 10 minutes allotted.

At that point, after rebuttals, we will take a 10-minute bathroom break. Please at that point get back to your seats quickly, and I would ask you during that time of break that you would refrain from getting into conversation with the debaters so they could go use the facilities, come back real quick, but I would encourage you to talk with them after the debate.

Coming back from the break, we will have cross-examination between the two for 15 minutes. Then we will have each a closing statement, five minutes total. At that point, we will end our debate with 20 minutes of questions from the audience, and I will ask you in the back, right outside these double doors to the left, there is a table with paper and pens and a basket, and if you have specific questions for the debaters tonight, I would have you write that question on that piece of paper, put it in the basket, and please do so by the end of the break, because at that point, I'm going to review the questions, and we're going to try to go through as many as possible, but as you know, if there is a lot, we might not be able to reach them all.

Now, before we fully begin, I would like to ask Pastor Jason Wallace to pray for us and ask the Lord to bless our time, so if you would come up, brother, please. Let us pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we rejoice at the unity that you have given us as brothers and sisters in Christ.

For the years of ministry that members of this congregation, the mission, and the OPC churches have had together, standing together on the basis of truth, we pray, Father, you would bless this evening, because we long for greater unity.

We long for clarity. We long to speak with one voice to the world. We recognize our own sinfulness, our own frailties, Lord. We do not look for perfection, but we long that your church would be one. Help us this evening, Lord.

Pray for my brother Eric and for my brother Zach. We pray that you would give them clarity. Help us all, Lord, to be good Bereans, to search the scriptures, to know what is true, to hold everything to the light of your word, to seek your glory, the peace, the purity, and the progress of your church.

It's in Christ's holy name we pray these things. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Pastor Jason. We will now start with Zach Lautenschlager taking the first opportunity at the opening statement. You will have 20 minutes.

Zach Lautenschlager’s Opening Statement on Hermeneutics and Covenant Membership

Thank you all for coming tonight. My name is Zach Lautenschlager. You can call me Zach. You're supposed to laugh. I want to express thanks to Pastor Wade for putting this together, for conceptualizing it as we were sitting around as brothers discussing these topics.

And when we got done and he couldn't answer the questions, he said, let's have a debate and Eric will be the champion. And I said, that's a great idea because I want to get to know Eric better and hang out with you brothers.

And debating sounds like a fun way to do that. And that's the spirit of this debate. The Bible tells us that iron sharpens iron. And that is a metaphor for one brother speaking with another. Now, if you scrape two pieces of iron together hard enough to change the shape of at least one of them, that's what you're doing when you're sharpening it, there are going to be some sparks.

If there aren't sparks, you're probably not actually changing the iron. But the scriptural admonition there is not to sharpen our iron so that we can cut one another. It's to become sharper in our understanding of God's word.

That's the point. And that's the spirit in which we do this tonight. Our goal is to further the discussion and, you know, debates, I think sometimes are more beneficial for the debaters than for the listeners.

In the same way that, you know, when you have to get up and talk, you have to study your talking points more. You have to delve into it further. You have to study other perspectives. And so that's very exciting.

That's fun to do. But there's another thing that we hope this debate will do. And that is lend to the discussion on how we discuss things as brothers. How many discussions have you been on, a part of, or watched online?

And you turn your phone on and scroll to that part of Facebook and it singes your eyebrows. And these are brothers talking about baptism. Reformed brothers who probably agree on almost everything else.

And they're ready to call in, I don't know, maybe drone strikes on one another sometimes. Keep talking, I'm triangulating your position. Well, you know what? A little, some sparks, that's okay. But when we're done, you know what?

If we didn't know that brother or sister before this discussion, it should have been a good enough exchange to where we go and friend one another because we like each other better now. If we're not able to do that, I'm not saying you have to friend people necessarily, but if you don't feel some kinship when you're done, maybe you need to take a step back.

So that's the goal. Now that doesn't mean don't make your point, right? It doesn't mean don't sharpen the iron. Quite the opposite. It's serious. We should take these matters seriously. At the same time, we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously.

And that's the balance we want to strike. 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 tell us all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Other translations say thoroughly equipped for good work. Now, Paul wrote this about the Old Testament. It does apply to the entire canon. It applies both to the new and the old, for that is all scripture.

But when Paul wrote it, scripture was the Old Testament. And for most people, scripture was in Greek. It was the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. That's what Paul was talking about.

And so God gives us point blank an explanation of the importance and value of the Old Testament. This scripture, along with a few others, is the basis for what we call hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the study of how we study the Bible.

It is based, as we understand it, on the Reformed principle of sola scriptura. And it is a system of rules that tell us how the Bible requires us to interpret the Bible. Historically, this concept has also been referred to as the analogy of faith.

And it applies the truth that the whole Bible is the word of God, all of it necessary for faith and practice. Now, this necessary requires that all things stated in the Old Testament be applied to this day unless it is expressly changed by the New Testament.

Now, this is the core of hermeneutics. When we hear it, and sometimes theologians will throw that term out, right? Who's hermeneutics? And why does he have such an odd name? Well, it's a Greek word, and it means how we understand the message from God.

That's what it means, hermeneutics. Now, when we say the analogy of faith, we mean it is analogous with placing faith in God. We also place faith in the consistency of his word, that he has not given us a conflicting revelation.

That is why we must look at it and say, well, we are told that certain things have changed since the Old Testament, but we are told point blank, expressly. We live in a Christian world today in which some people will expressly tell you, no, none of that Old Testament stuff applies unless it's repeated in the New Testament.

That's abominable. You can't read 2 Timothy 3 .16 and 17 and come away saying, yeah, well, we definitely don't need that Old Testament stuff. All Scripture, the entire Old Testament, is what Paul was saying, is breathed out by God.

And without it, you will not have the complete revelation of God. In other words, you will not have everything you need for faith and practice, for every good work. Now, this understanding of hermeneutics, the biblical understanding of hermeneutics, also necessarily acquires that the more clear passage be used to interpret the less clear.

What that does is that saves us from eisegeting. Now, these are two words that theologians throw around. You've probably heard them, exegesis and eisegesis. Eisegesis means coming to the Scripture and letting it inform us and then moving forward.

Eisegesis means coming to the Scripture and informing it. In other words, laying our opinion over God's Word. We are made in God's image and then we are fallen, which means it's not enough for us in our fallen sinful humanness to be in God's image.

We want to be God. And that's the ultimate problem, right? Who do we worship instead of God as fallen sinful human beings? Ourselves. So what is our religion? The worship of me. And what is the revelation of this religion?

My opinion. That's eisegesis. And we are all prone to it every day. We are all human. And so that is why we must use the more clear passage. Something that is said very clearly when we are coming to another passage that says, well, this passage could mean that and it could mean this.

Now, we'll have some examples as to what that means. All this comes down to the importance of interpreting Scripture by Scripture. We must start every discussion, every debate right here. The importance of interpreting Scripture by Scripture.

Now, this is an established understanding across the entire Reformed world and beyond. This is nothing new. And it is agreed to universally by Presbyterian and Baptist alike. R .C. Sproul Sr. and John MacArthur both signed one of the major polemics of our day, the Chicago Statement on Hermeneutics, drafted by J .A. Packer.

And it articulates most of the hermeneutic principle, if not all of it. So to be clear, that's not a distinctly Presbyterian thought. Examples of failing to obey 1 Timothy 3, follow the analogy of faith, and use biblical hermeneutics would be the dispensational understanding of the covenants, which no one is representing here today.

It's because we all believe it deeply violates hermeneutical principle. The dispensational understanding of God's covenants with us begins with the assumption that the Old Testament has at least limited value and application.

Now, not all dispensationalists will tell you that unless it's repeated in the New Testament, it doesn't apply, but they're going to act that way. They're going to come and bring assumptions that say, eh, there was a big reset when Jesus died, and that Old Testament stuff, that's passing away.

They will assume that unless it's repeated in the New Testament, it doesn't apply, in other words. And they will use less clear passages to interpret the more clear. The result, if you're using an unbiblical hermeneutic, is eisegesis.

And when we're talking about a dispensational perspective, it is the false teaching that there is a different church and a different gospel between the Old Testament and the New Testament. That is the assumption.

Now, if you look at those same passages using a biblical hermeneutic, which means the Old Testament is the Word of God, and yes, we are told in the New Testament in some places that parts of the Old Testament do not apply in the same way, or at all, but we assume that everything else does, you're going to come away with continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Same church, same gospel. Here's another example of bad hermeneutics. You'll hear this sometimes thrown around in baptism debates. Well, the New Testament doesn't command that women should take communion.

Now, very few people who try to make that argument are actually proposing it as true. They're trying to make a point. But the point is that nowhere in the New Testament does it expressly say that women should be admitted to the table for communion.

And then we have verses like 1 Corinthians 11, 27, 28, which say, Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the blood and body of the Lord.

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Now, what does that word translated man mean? Well, you will see it translated differently in the ESV, which is my usual translation.

It is translated a person. If you look at the New King James, which is what I just read, it says a man. Why is that? Well, the Greek word is anthropos, from which we get anthropological, anthropod, anthropology meaning mankind or man.

Now, when we say in English, a man, we usually mean a member of the human race who is male. But when we say man without the definite oracle, we may mean a male and we may mean either gender, but a member of the human race, mankind.

The same is true in the Greek. You have to assume which one it is. The local context, you can argue that this is given to the whole church. So obviously it means mankind in this case, but you can't argue it conclusively.

And this is the blessing of 2 Timothy 3, 16, and 17. Because you can go to the Old Testament for context and say, okay, this concept of eating and drinking together as a ceremonial rite or sacrament is not new.

There's a lot of it going on in the Old Testament. And God, in his infinite wisdom, says again and again and again, Deuteronomy 12, 18, Deuteronomy 16, 11, and 14, Leviticus 10, 14, Numbers 18, 11, and 19.

Your sons and your daughters shall partake of this with you, male and female expressly. It's not left. There's no doubt. And that includes the Passover expressly, all the feasts. And there were multiples at that time.

This is one of the things that we're expressly told has changed. The sacraments have changed a little bit, a lot. But one thing that hasn't changed, whether or not males and females can partake in a sacrament that involves eating and drinking.

Now we can go back to all of the New Testament passages in which it doesn't expressly say women may partake and say, guess what? The Old Testament gives us context and it answers that question, point blank.

Does anthropos mean male or mankind? Clearly, it means mankind where women are included. Now see how easy that is? It's a lot of fun when we actually use the entire Bible. The question we are trying to answer tonight is who is included in the covenant of grace or said another way, who is included in the covenant community?

First of all, what is the covenant of grace? This is my perspective and this is the Presbyterian perspective. God relates to his people through covenants. Now everybody has to agree that our names for those covenants and the ways we choose to describe them are man-made.

We can talk about the Adamic covenant. We can talk about the redemptive covenant. We can talk about the Mosaic, the Abrahamic, the Davidic. We can talk about the new covenant. But these are observations.

Now they are legitimate observations, but it's important to recognize that they are human observations. Scripture does tell us that God began relating to man through grace as soon as he fell into sin.

As soon as man fell into sin, God's gracious actions toward us started. That is scripturally clear. Romans 4 tells us that God saved Abraham and David through faith. Hebrews 11 tells us of numerous other Old Testament saints who were saved through faith, as does the Old Testament itself.

Romans 4 .16 tells us that this Old Testament faith was of grace. In the same breath, the same phrasing in which God tells us that Abraham was saved by faith in the same way that he tells us David was saved by faith, he says that it is of grace, telling us that just as New Testament faith is now by grace, so was Old Testament faith, confirming the eternal truth of Ephesians 2 .8.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. It's sola fide. As members of the Reformed faith, we believe that God quickens all the elect, Old Testament and new, giving us faith by his grace.

It is not our work. So, as humans, we observe God's overarching gracious action to all the elect, Old Testament and new, and from the Presbyterian perspective, refer to it as God's covenant of grace. So, that is how we would say, what is the covenant of grace?

That's one half of the question, right? Who is included in the covenant of grace? Okay, so what's the covenant of grace, and who is included? The Bible refers to the elect, Old Testament and new, as the ekklesia, or the assembly.

Ekklesia is the word most often translated church in the New Testament, which was, of course, written in Greek. But, we also understand that that word is used throughout the Old Testament. When Jesus read or quoted, mostly quoted, from the Old Testament, when Paul quoted from it, when anyone quoted from it in the New Testament, they quoted from it in Greek, just as we quote from it in English.

And that Greek word, ekklesia, is throughout the Old Testament again, and again, and again, and again, and again, throughout Deuteronomy, specifically 4 and 5, and chapter 31, and then throughout the rest of it.

You can look at it in Judges, you can look at it in multiple other places. Ekklesia is the word God uses to describe the covenant community. In Deuteronomy 4 and 5, when God commands Moses to gather the ekklesia of the Lord, it is in order to proclaim the covenant, the Mosaic covenant.

The church, in the Old Testament, is exactly the same word as the church in the New Testament. People who place their faith in God, who professed faith in Him, and their children, are referred to as the ekklesia of the Lord.

The end of Deuteronomy, and what does Deuteronomy mean? It means the repeating of the law. The end of Deuteronomy, in chapter 31, the last thing, one of the last things we have is the song of Moses. Now, at this time, you can see the song of David, you can see the song of Deborah, you can see the song of, what's her name?

Moses' sister. Miriam, thank you. And this is an expression, it's almost a summary of, okay, here's everything that happened. We saw the whole thing, now you want to watch the trailer. Do you want to have all of it packaged up together in an artistic way?

It's the song. So, the song of Moses recited before the entire ekklesia of Israel. Same concept. Now, one thing that we are told point blank, perfectly clearly, is that children of members of the ekklesia are included in that ekklesia.

Now, that ekklesia simply means covenant community. That's what it is. And in God's gracious action, by God's grace, these children are included in that covenant, or in the covenant of grace. Now, you may have a different definition of covenant of grace, and that's okay.

It's just a man-made phrase. It's an observation. But it's not an observation that children of believing parents are themselves members of the covenant community. It's not up for debate. What we're actually arguing over is whether or not that's still the case.

Because we are told point blank. Genesis 17 and 18, Psalms 105. In Genesis 17, God tells Abraham, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you, throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

Genesis 18, that's Genesis 17, 7. Genesis 18, 19, for I have chosen, this is God speaking, for I have chosen him, that's Abraham, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.

And Psalm 105 tells us just how long that lasts. God remembers his covenant forever. The word that he commanded for a thousand generations. Do you know how long a thousand generations is? We're not there yet.

And in Hebrew, that word thousand is a strong poetic device saying forever. That's why it says forever a thousand generations. Now what including children in the covenant does and does not mean? It is a command or call to holiness or being set apart.

This is what God says. He says, are holy. Set apart to him. That means he claims our children. He says, they're mine. In fact, he refers to them that way sometimes. It is not salvation. Never has been.

It's not a guarantee. Membership in the covenant of grace, if you want to call it that, if you're going to use the term covenant of grace to describe general covenant membership, it can't mean salvation.

Now this is what the Bible tells us clearly. The debate is whether or not the New Testament changed it. That's the discussion. To claim that children are now excluded must be proven from scripture. Anything else would deny the truth of 2 Timothy 3.

It would be to assume discontinuity. That's just another way of saying, I'm going to assume that I can trim out parts of the Bible without warrant. That my eisegesis, my worship of me, the religion of Zach, and the revelation Zach has given, says that I don't like this part of the Old Testament and so, boop, let's trim it out.

Okay? Now that's what I would be doing if I assumed discontinuity or if I made an insufficient argument for removing children from the covenant onto the New Testament. Therefore, the burden of proof lies on the Baptist perspective.

The Old Testament tells us point blank, children are part of the covenant community. If you want to make the argument that in the New Testament that is no longer true, you may not assume. That is to deny God's Word.

You must prove it. Thank you, Zach. We will now have Eric give his opening statement. 20 minutes allotted. There is a decided unfairness here in the height of the stools compared to the reality, the physical realities.

Zach thinks he's using it for sympathy. Perhaps. I do what I can. All right. Well, thank you. I, you know, I don't have a whole lot to add. My name is Eric Yeager. I was introduced at the beginning. Thank you, everybody, for being here tonight.

This is a very, very important discussion. I am glad I'm going to echo what Brother Lautenschlager said. This here is to prove the fact that we're united in Christ. We've been purchased by the same blood.

We are part of the same body. We will spend eternity together with one another, and if you look around the room, you will spend eternity with the people here. This is important. This should be, this is unfortunately an issue that divides us ecclesiastically, so we need to talk about it.

But we're united in Christ, and so thank you, Pastor Wade. Thank you to everybody who was involved. Thank you, Pastor Wallace, for letting Zach be here this evening, and I think we will get going with that.

So good evening. Once again, it is my honor to be here tonight. The question before us is, who is included in the covenant of grace? Membership within the covenant of grace always has been, is, and always will be reserved for the elect alone.

Let's make sure we have a basic understanding of two terms, grace and covenant. Grace is unmerited favor, but not all grace is identical. Not every type of grace justifies sinners before a holy God. The type of grace illustrated by God in sending rain upon the just and the unjust is truly gracious.

Humanity has not earned this favor, and though they receive it, it is not the type of grace that justifies sinners before a holy God. God condescending to make a covenantal relationship with Adam is truly gracious, but mere covenantal condescension does not merit Adam's eternal presence with God.

Much as grace can be used in several ways, so too can the term covenant. There's covenants between human parties, covenants between God and man, and even the covenant of redemption between the members of the Trinity.

Each of these covenants have different parties and are different types of covenants. There are covenants between equals and covenants between a greater party and a lesser party. If covenants have different parties, they are different covenants.

Much as Solomon's covenant with wife number one was a different covenant than his covenant with wife number 700. Different wife means different parties. Different parties, different substance, different covenants.

Some covenants grant blessing to the lesser party strictly out of a loving kindness of the greater party, while some covenants require obedience from the lesser party in order for that party to receive that blessing.

If covenants have different precepts, different rules, they are different covenants. For example, the precepts of do this and live versus the precept of live and then do this. These are different ways of receiving covenant blessing.

Different precepts means different substance, means different covenants. Some covenants, though having the same parties and precepts, have different promises. For example, I can have two different covenants with the same bank.

One to pay x dollars for a house and one to pay the same amount over the same period for a different house. Same parties and terms, yet different results or promises. Different promises, different substance, different covenants.

If two covenants have different covenant conditions, then they have different substances. And if they have different substances, they are different covenants. Not much ink has been spilled on this topic and while nuances do exist on particular points, there's broad agreement on these categories amongst the reformed covenants.

Our oath-bound arrangements comprised of parties, precepts, and promises or penalties. The oath aspect is vitally important. Prior to the binding of an oath, a covenant is not a covenant. There may be the sure promise of a coming covenant, but until the oath, these promises remain just that.

They remain promises. Much as a marriage engagement is the promise of a coming covenant, the covenant is not in force until the oath ceremony. What is the covenant of grace? It is the oath-bound arrangement that Westminster Larger Catechism 30 brings the elect into a state of salvation.

With whom is the covenant made? Westminster Larger Catechism 31, with Christ as the second Adam and in him with all the elect as his seed. And looking at this topic, we must use the same hermeneutical principles that we would use in every other area of the Bible.

We recognize the genre of literature that we're reading and we read it accordingly. The covenant may be its own genre or it can be set into other forms of literature. What is the immediate context of the various historical covenants?

What are the parties, the precepts, the promises that are contained within each covenant? After identifying the immediate context, we then look at how the covenant fits into the larger narratives. Finally, we can analyze the typological usage of these texts by the apostles and then form our covenantal system.

If we use our conclusion to interpret our initial analysis, or if we use a metaphysic different than the apostles, we have erred. This is the result not of exegesis, but of tradition. In analyzing the historical covenants, two terms are vital to a proper understanding.

When a new historical covenant is established, we read that a covenant is keroth, it is cut. When an existing covenant is being affirmed, we typically see the term hecum, and I don't speak Hebrew, so I hope I pronounced it right.

In bringing to pass his unchanging eternal plan in history, God condescended to make a covenant of works with Adam. Adam broke this covenant and as the federal representative of humanity, he and his posterity received the penalties of the broken covenant.

In Genesis 3 .15, God promised to bring about the seed of the woman to reverse the curse. And then with Noah, God promised to maintain order. And finally, we get to Abraham. In Abraham, we see three specific promises.

He received the promises of a lineage, a land, and a Lord, culminating initially in the land of Canaan and ultimately finding its fulfillment in Christ. In Genesis 12, God promises that he will make Abram a great nation.

He will bless him and make his name great. In him, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. This was a sure promise, but if you look at the text, these promises were not at that time sealed by an oath.

No oath, no formal covenant. At that time, it was only a promise. That oath comes in Genesis 15. Yahweh comes to Abram again, reiterates his previous promise. Abram believed God, it was credited to him as righteousness, and then a covenant is cut.

A covenant is keroth. Abram brought animals, split them in half, a deep sleep fell upon him. Yahweh alone passed through the animals and accepted the full responsibility of its fulfillment. And then in verse 18, it says, on that day, Yahweh cut a covenant with Abram.

We see here the parties, Yahweh and Abraham and his descendants, the precepts, they're all on God. I will bless you and you will be blessed. The promises are a lineage, a land, and a Lord. We see later that while these promises are guaranteed corporately, they are not guaranteed individually.

In Genesis 17, when Abram was 99 years old, we read this, quote, walk before me and be perfect that I may make my covenant between me and you. I may multiply you greatly. God expands his blessing from one nation to many nations.