Why We're Not Presbyterian | Theocast

Have you ever wondered about what's the difference between a confessional Baptist position on covenant theology and a

Presbyterian and Reformed position on covenant theology? I know that many of you have wondered this because you've asked me about it personally at events where we've been together.

So John and I have that conversation today. What's the difference between our position as confessional Baptists and the position of Presbyterian and Reformed friends that we have on covenant theology?

And you're gonna find out that it really all comes down to the covenant of grace, how we understand the covenant of grace is promised and revealed and then established in the scriptures.

We hope this is a clarifying conversation for you. We hope it's helpful. Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word.

It's called pietism. You ever felt like the Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy, that you wake up worrying about how well you're gonna perform instead of thinking about what

Christ has done for you? It's dread versus joy, really. That's pietism. Pietism causes

Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope, not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing.

And we have a little book for you. It's free. We want you to download it. And we're gonna explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism,

Reformed theology, really, how it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ.

And when Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like? You can download it on our website.

Just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

We are still doing that every week through conversations about the Christian life from a

Reformed confessional and pastoral perspective. Your hosts today are John Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

And I am Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Ashland, North Carolina. Here at Theocast, we are trying to take the clutter off of the gospel and clarify it.

And we are trying to reclaim the purpose of the kingdom of Christ. Those things are related. The clearer the gospel is, the more clear the mission is.

Amen. That's right. So, John, a couple of announcements before we get going. We're gonna try to launch quickly into our content today.

But two things to make you aware of. One is the Theocast community. If you're not yet a part of it, why?

Why not? There's about 1 ,200 or so folks over there. It's like social media, Facebook, but better without all the ads and the weird stuff.

It's people like you. It's only about Christ, that's it. It's just not Jesus. Yeah, who are trying to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ and who are meaning to encourage one another in Him and trying to better understand what the

Lord has revealed in His word. And so if that sounds good to you, jump on the community. You can figure out everything you need to know about that at theocast .org.

I think it's pretty straightforward. The other announcement is, this will be coming out, this podcast should be coming out at the end of March, which means about three weeks or so from when you're hearing this, the

Covenant Conference with Chad Byrd in Asheville, North Carolina, hosted by Covenant Baptist Church will be happening. And not sure if registration will be full by this point, but you can always go over to covbapt .org

and register for that. If you're thinking, man, I'd love to hear Chad. It's limited seating. It's limited seating.

So, man, I'd love to hear Chad Byrd talk about discipleship and how the Lord is with us in the

Christian life. Come on, man. And how kind and merciful the Lord is. If that sounds good to you, register.

And hey, make a weekend of it and stay for church. I'll be in the pulpit that Sunday preaching the first sermon from a series in Exodus.

So, there we have it. There you go. All right, John, let's get to it, man. I love listening to men who depend desperately on Christ.

Amen. Chad's one of them. Chad is one of them. Speaking of. It's encouraging to the soul. Yeah, that's right.

We're not quite sure what the title of this podcast is. It might be, while we're not Presbyterian, it might be, who knows. I'm not sure what we've come up with yet.

Or why we're, yeah. Yeah, why we're Reformed Baptist. Who knows? But it doesn't matter.

Let's talk. For a long time, Theocast, for years, has enjoyed talking about the gospel and code theology and Reformed theology.

We obviously partner with all kinds of Presbyterians and Reformed and Lutherans and Episcopalians and Anglicans.

And Episcopalians, yeah, and Baptists. And this does not mean that we don't, that doesn't mean we don't have convictions concerning the text where our differences lie.

We love to partner where, we love to partner with people who get the gospel right and understand how to preach

Christ from all of scripture. And so it's really what the podcast is about. But Justin and I are Reformed Baptists. We hold to the 1689.

And that is our conviction from how we preach, teach, and present. To be honest with you, this is why the podcast is the way it is.

It comes from our theology. But before we begin, and I'll let Justin also let his voice be heard here.

This is to add our discussion in with, speaking the truth in love, speaking the way we understand this conversation to be held and should be held in the space where we can be open to reason.

What does James describe humility? Is it meek, gentle, grace, and merciful?

And then he says open to reason. And so that's what we're doing here. That's what we're gonna present. And this is a topic about covenant theology today.

Yeah, the only thing I have to add before we get into the subject matter is agreeing with you, man, that this is the kind of stuff that we should talk about and we should do so with charity and understanding and not painting people with a different perspective in a bad light, but to articulate as well as we can their position and then try to articulate as well as we can our position.

I think that talking about these things is healthy on a number of levels and actually fosters more

Catholicity and more ecumenism, if I can say it that way, where we work with other people of different traditions.

So I've said this before, I think here, shout out to Sean McCann, my best pastor friend in Asheville, who is a

Presbyterian. He and I get together once a month and it's always encouraging. And one of the reasons that it is encouraging is because he and I are both staunchly confessional.

Me, the Second London Confession, him, the Westminster Confession. And we know where we disagree and we also know where we agree.

And because we are able to acknowledge plainly where the disagreements lie, we can have wonderful edifying conversations about any number of things pertaining to the

Christian life, the pastoral ministry, the church, et cetera. And I think this kind of clarity shouldn't be feared, but it actually should be encouraged.

And in no way is this meant to be like, hey, we're smarter than you or we're right, you're wrong. This is not meant to be polemical.

We just wanna offer these things because there aren't that many people saying this kind of stuff from a confessional

Baptist perspective and we thought we would offer our take today. I mean, just to speak to that,

Justin, we did a conference with Dr. Bob Godfrey, Chris Gordon, who we spent a lot of time with and laughed and loved and cried and talked about theology, spent time with Dan Borvin, who's a pastor in Anaheim, who we love as well.

Yep, and obviously you're about to have Chad here. So we love our brothers. So now that that's been, exactly.

So now that that's been there, there are differences. So someone ought to say, well, what's the difference? Which happens all the time, Justin, in emails and in the community and the

Facebook group, what's the differences? So we wanted to add some clarity here. And at the end of this podcast, we'll provide some resources that we think are helpful and you need to understand today's episode is, exactly.

You need to understand today is an overview. Justin and I will provide what we call the nerd side of this later.

Probably won't come out on the pod, it's come out on our YouTube channel, but this is an overview of the differences. So we already last week talked to you about really the covenant of works and where we agree.

And that was a fun, covenant of redemption, covenant of works, and where we agree, that was fun. The divide happens in the covenant of grace.

We're not understanding of that. Now we both agree, both Westminster and the 1689 is gonna agree that the covenant of grace is legitimate and that it is fulfilled by Christ.

So that's wonderful. But Justin and I would come from a tradition of old, was part of some of the framers of the 1689.

And it's got, it's kind of a nerdy title. It's called 1689 federalism. And we're gonna not try to go and explain what that is, but more on to help you understand why that came to be, because the many of the writers and those who held to the

Westminster, eventually as a reformation was happening, they started, they were, as they were studying scripture, they were like, ma 'am,

I don't think we understand the covenant to be the same. And that's where the birthing of the 1689 came out of and really federalism came out of.

So Justin, that's kind of the introduction. Maybe you can throw your sauce on that and then start walking us through the

Abrahamic covenant. Yeah, word. So the only other thing I would say is that we would affirm with our

Presbyterian and reformed friends, that there is one covenant of grace in all of scripture. So do not hear us saying today, when we begin to talk about the fact that we actually see more discontinuity between the old and the new covenant than our

PNR friends do. Don't hear us saying that we're introducing two different covenants.

It's one covenant of grace. The difference is how we understand this to be revealed and then established or accomplished and exactly what that looks like.

Our Pedobaptistic friends. So our Presbyterian and reformed friends understand that the covenant of grace is established formally with Abraham in the

Abrahamic covenant. That that is the formal establishment of the covenant of grace and that circumcision is the sign of that covenant.

And that's gonna matter a lot for how baptism is administered and the like.

And we're gonna get into some of that more next week. So stay tuned for that. Yeah. That said, the way that we understand the covenant of grace is revealed and then established starts this way.

So like our Presbyterian and reformed friends, we understand that the covenant of grace is promised in Genesis 3, 15.

That the promise of the seed of the woman who's gonna crush the head of the serpent, that is the promise of the covenant of grace.

It's the first revelation of the gospel. So we all agree on that. Where we would begin to differ is with the

Abrahamic covenant. We understand that there are two things going on with Abraham in a formal sense.

So there is first the promise to Abraham and his physical descendants that they would be numerous.

The Lord is gonna give him numerous offspring, numerous descendants. They will have a land of their own and kings will also come from Abraham's line.

So that's one piece of what the Lord establishes with Abraham. And we understand that is the covenant that God makes formally with Abraham and that circumcision is a sign of that covenant where the

Lord promises descendants, land, kings. We also understand that in addition to that, there is

God's spiritual promise to Abraham's spiritual offspring, which is the preaching of the gospel to Abraham.

So Paul, for example, in Galatians, looks back on Genesis 12, three and says that the gospel was preached to Abraham pertaining to his offspring singular, i .e.

Jesus, who would save him and who would save the nations, all of those who are of faith.

And so those are the two things that we understand formally are going on with Abraham. So in other words, let me try to simplify this.

We understand that the promise of the covenant of grace is made to Abraham, i .e. the preaching of the gospel, but we do not understand that the

Abrahamic covenant is the formal establishment of the covenant of grace like our Presbyterian and Reformed friends do.

Yeah, and specifically the reason would be, our confession talks about this, where it's promised in Genesis 3, 15, and then it's added with further clarification through the covenant.

So that's the position we're gonna hold is that each covenant, Mosaic, Davidic, after is gonna bring greater clarity in the types of shadows that leads us to the new.

So in the Abrahamic covenant, we would see that there is an unconditional promise being made, but the covenant itself has conditions.

So there's a promise inside the covenant, right? There's a promise there, because that's what Abraham believed and he was counted as righteous.

But it's very clear that if you're not circumcised, you're not a part of the covenant and you're cut off from the covenant.

Right, yeah, Abraham believed the promises of God realized in the Christ, which is what saved him.

And then there's a conditional component to the physical covenant, but there also is a sense in which the

Lord says, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna establish you, I'm gonna give you a land, right? And kings will come from you.

And he does that because if you pick up later in the Old Testament, later on in the book of Joshua, the book of Nehemiah, et cetera, there is clear language that everything that the

Lord promised he would do for Abraham, he has done it, i .e. he gave the people land, he made them numerous, kings have come from Abraham's line, et cetera.

And so, like John said, we understand that that covenant of grace is promised in Genesis 3 .15 is revealed further and further through the old covenant, the three covenants that are subservient to it,

Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic. So we've touched on Abraham and some of the differences there, John.

Let's move on to the Mosaic covenant and how we would understand that, if you're cool with that. Right, and before you do, there is a connection here that we would see that the, because sometimes we can look at it and see that circumcision was just a sign of the covenant of grace.

But the problem was with that is that that's not how the New Testament, Old Testament further explain it.

Like once you get into the Mosaic covenant, they make, it is a part of the law, it's a part of the system. A great example of this is just be

Galatians 5, when he says, I testify, verse three, I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision, he is obligated to keep the whole law.

And so there's an obligation that's connected to the covenant. Same thing with Genesis 17, that anyone who is uncircumcised is to be cut off because they've broken the covenant.

Which, so you can see, Paul is connecting. That's right, he's connecting the circumcision to the

Mosaic law to the Abrahamic. I just wanted to make that connection as you lead into it. That's good.

Go ahead. So the Mosaic covenant, that is the covenant made with the people through Moses.

So Moses is not the covenant head, he is actually just a mediator through whom the law is given.

And we see this covenant being made in Exodus 19, 20 and following at Mount Sinai.

And so we would understand that the Mosaic covenant, again, is not formally a part of the covenant of grace or under the covenant of grace in a formal sense.

But we would understand that, again, the promises of the covenant of grace are interwoven with the

Abrahamic Mosaic Davidic covenant. But that the formal nature of the Mosaic covenant is the giving of the law and it is incontrovertibly conditional.

The people will enjoy the blessings of land and prosperity and children and all that if they are obedient to the law.

And then, of course, we acknowledge that there is the gracious provision of the sacrificial system, the priesthood and things like this that are typological in nature, meaning these things, it's interesting that as soon as the law is given, the priesthood and the sacrificial system are established.

Why? Because those things are established first and foremost to point to the Savior, to the

Messiah, what He would come and do, who He would come and be for His people in their place and as their mediator.

And so for us, this is how we're gonna understand the Mosaic covenant, clearly conditional as it pertains to the people of Israel living in the land of Canaan.

If you want to live there and be blessed by God, you better keep the law. I mean, this is Deuteronomy 28.

And then there is this typological component as well where it is teaching us more about Jesus.

So this is how we understand, again, that the promise of the covenant of grace that is realized and fulfilled by Christ, it's there, right, in types and shadows.

So we wanna maintain that. Having said that, the covenant of the

Mosaic covenant, excuse my stumbling and buffling, the Mosaic covenant itself is conditional and it's conditioned upon obedience to the law.

So a couple of New Testament passages that really help us interpret it this way in that we have a hard time, this is why we'd have a hard time saying that this is part of the covenant of grace because covenant of grace is seen as unconditional, completely fulfilled and met by Christ.

So Romans 2, 25, for circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

And even at the council in Acts 15, they're talking about it being a yoke upon the disciples that even their forefathers couldn't hold, right?

So when you look at it, the circumcision is tied to an obligation of the law. It is a type and shadow and it's used for the new because we're cutting away the heart of flesh, we're putting in a heart of stone.

So it is a wonderful word picture and illustration of what is to come, but it is clear to see that the

New Testament writers connect circumcision, not only just to the Mosaic, but it would be connected to the

Abrahamic in that part of the covenant that it is symbolized if you obey the law, as Deuteronomy tells us, then you live.

If you do not obey the law and you can live by it, which is what Jesus quotes, right? What does the law say?

Live by it, that's how you gain eternal life. And so just to be clear, this is where a lot of times when we're discussing with our paedo friends, they'll say, well, so you believe in two forms of salvation.

No, the law was set up for Christ to become righteousness for us. It was the bar by which someone needed to meet.

And so Jesus fulfilled that law. It's Romans 2, you already referenced verse 25, but it's Romans 2, 13.

It's not the hearers of the law, but the doers of the law, who will be justified, right? And so exactly, and this is what

God was doing. That would make it a covenant of works, an obligation. And the point of it all, we understand the law and the prophets bear witness to the righteousness of God that will be given to sinners by faith in Christ, Romans 3, 21 and 22.

One other comment before we move on from Moses, Paul in Acts 13 in Antioch, Acts 13, 38, 39, he says to a

Jewish audience that Jesus has come and done what he's done so that we might be set free from the things from which we could not be set free by the law of Moses.

And so this is, again, where we see, right, that we see how the

Mosaic covenant and the giving of the law was absolutely a condition placed upon the people, a yoke placed upon the people, and that ultimately, right, this law was given to drive people to the

Savior. And so in that regard, we don't understand the law and the giving of the law in the

Mosaic covenant to be the covenant of grace formally, but we understand the promise of the gospel is always there, that the saints of the old covenant are believing, just like we do, but that this

Mosaic covenant is conditional, and in that sense is a type of a covenant of works. It is not the covenant of works, but it is a type of covenant of works conditioned upon the obedience of the people.

Anything else on Moses, John, before we move on to David? Yeah, there's just a thread, and I think you're gonna pick it up when we get to David, but you're seeing that not only are there obligations, but the narrative expands.

So, you know, the first obligation is circumcision, and then that expands to really reveal to us, well, how do we know who the seed is?

Like, how do we identify him? And so, well, he's identified as one who will be the final sacrifice, who will be the lamb who takes away the sins of the world, and who fulfills righteousness.

Because what does Paul tell us? Where the first Adam failed, the second Adam succeeded. Well, the first, he's making the connection of bringing many sons to glory, or fulfilling glory.

So the Mosaic law becomes extremely valuable to us because everyone failed the obligation where Christ succeeded in fulfilling it, which then leads us to the

Davidic covenant. Hey guys, real quick, some of you are listening to this, and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions.

So where do you go? How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources? We have started something called the

Theocast Community, and we're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like -minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there, and you can share it and ask questions.

You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. So now we come to the covenant

God made with David. This is given in 2 Samuel 7, but there are many other texts that allude to it and speak about it as well.

And this covenant is effectively this. The Lord says to David that I am going to establish a household and a kingdom and a throne for you, and one of your sons will sit on that throne forever and will reign over the people, provided, now here again, it's conditionality, provided that he keeps the law.

And if we survey, not only, exactly, not only 2 Samuel, but if you survey the books of Kings and Chronicles, this becomes very clear that the responsibilities of the

Davidic king are really threefold. One is that he is to guard right worship.

He is to see that the worship of God is right and just and good.

And this is where you see repeatedly, think about this, as you read Kings and Chronicles, one of the things that is written about pretty much every king that's mentioned is how he interacted or not, how he handled or not, the idolatry, the high places, the asherah, all these things, right?

And so it's interesting. When kings are commended, it's when all that idolatry is torn down, and all that false worship is torn down, and he leads people to worship the

Lord rightly. So that's one, he's to guard right worship. Two, he is to keep the law, as we already said, the law of Moses.

And thirdly, he represents the people. It's very plain. And again, you read Kings and Chronicles, this comes through.

When the king is righteous, the nation prospers. When the king is not, the nation suffers.

And this is verbatim stated by the Lord for example, in 1 Kings 9, like four and following, where the

Lord says to Solomon, if you are obedient, I will establish your throne over Israel forever.

So again, if you're righteous, you will reign in righteousness over Israel forever.

However, if you are disobedient to the covenant, Israel will be cut off.

So you represent the people in this regard. If you disobey, it's not that you will be cut off. If you disobey, the people will be.

So again, you have this representation paradigm with the Davidic king, which is gonna be massively significant when the prophets start saying, and then

I'm done, it's a second, John, throw it over to you. When the prophets start saying language like, I'm gonna raise up for David a righteous branch, and he is gonna execute justice and righteousness in the land.

Like this should scream, oh my gosh, this is a perfect Davidic king who's coming, who's gonna execute justice and righteousness in the land.

And in his days, Israel and Judah will be saved. The both kingdoms, all of God's people will be saved.

And the name by which he will be called is the Lord is our righteousness. And then he even says that the

Levitical priests will never lack someone to make sacrifices. David will never lack a man to sit on the throne.

So clearly this one is gonna be the fulfillment of all of these things that have come before. And of course, the prophets are speaking of Jesus who comes from the line of David, who would be our priest, right?

That's right, prophet, priest, and king. And this is where the word federalism comes from. Federal meaning representation, the representation of the federal head.

So Jesus, so Adam represented us and fail. He was our representative of humans.

Jesus becomes our representative of a human and fulfills the covenant of works and presents it to us in the covenant of grace.

And this is, I think, most clearly seen in the Davidic covenant because it's the king who wins the righteousness for the nation, right?

And because of his works of righteousness, the nation is blessed by it. Well, what does Paul say?

In Adam all died, in Christ all are made alive, right? We are blessed with the righteousness of Christ.

So, but you can see this is an obligation that must be fulfilled.

So this is still a covenant of work. This is not a covenant of grace, right? Because it's being -

It's a conditional covenant. The kings keep failing. It's conditional. There's a condition on it. We don't get to an unconditional covenant until there's a new one.

But that's kind of my connection to all of this is that what's beautiful about the Old Testament and why you and I geek out about Old Testament theology is that it's so ambiguous and so unclear when

God's like, I'm gonna make things right. It's gonna come from you, Eve. We're like, oh, awesome. How?

Who? She thinks that's her first son. It's like, no, it's definitely not him. And as the story unfolds, the picture -

I mean, Noah's name means rest. You know, it's like - That's right. Is this gonna be him? Yeah, so - All that.

So covenant theology, what's beautiful about it from our perspective, from a 1689 Federalism perspective is that you are presented the covenant of works off the bat and then you have a promise of the covenant of grace and to make sure we are worshiping the right

Messiah, make sure that we are worshiping the correct Jesus because there's many false prophets and many false sages.

He gives us a shadow that just gets clearer and clearer and clearer as we get closer to the substance.

And then that's what leads us to the new because when Jesus comes in as the new covenant, we have a clear as day picture.

This is our hope. This is where our faith goes right here. And so while we acknowledge -

Which leads us into the new. Yeah, while we acknowledge that the covenant of grace is promised in Genesis 315 and is there throughout the

Old Testament, the promise of Jesus effectively, and how all of the saints of all time are saved through faith in Christ and how his benefits are applied even to old covenant saints retroactively, we affirm all of those things.

We do not understand that the covenant of grace formally is established until Christ comes and establishes the new covenant in his blood.

And so that's the difference. Can I make one more comment to that? Please. I'll make one more comment to that, Nate, and then

I'll throw it over to you. So when you look at the promise given to Adam and Eve, it's unconditional. There's nothing for them to be, there's nothing for them to do.

You're talking about Genesis 315. That's why it's - Right. That's right, in Genesis 315, he promises that he is going to restore that which is lost through the seed.

And that's why it's a promise that we know this covenant is coming, but it's not enacted. And that's why each subservient covenant after that is conditional in nature.

It shows the condition or requirement that no one can meet it, but you'll notice the promise is still connected in there.

Like, this promise is just, the covenant is explaining the promise.

But when we finally get to the new, that's when it started. Right. And the people that are established through Abraham are the people through whom the

Lord would bring the Christ, right, who would save us all. And so that's what happens.

You know, that's what the Old Testament does and reveals the Savior to us through types and shadows and institutions and all those things.

Then we get to the coming of Christ in the new covenant, and that is the covenant of grace is formally established.

And so while we affirm one covenant of grace in all of Scripture, we would not agree with our

Presbyterian and Reformed friends in saying that there's one covenant of grace with two different administrations, the old and the new.

So one covenant, two administrations is not what we would say. We would say promised, revealed, established, right, with the coming of Christ.

And this is why like the writer to the Hebrews uses language of how Jesus is the guarantor and the mediator of a better covenant.

Like it is, there is something new about the new covenant that is distinct from anything that came before it.

That's because it's founded on better promises. That's because it is founded on the blood of Christ, right?

And that's what ratifies the covenant effectively. And this covenant is completely unconditional.

It is received passively by faith with an open hand. And in this covenant, all of the work that Jesus accomplished, everything that he earned is then given by God's grace to sinners.

And that is the promise that was made in Genesis 3 .15 is fully realized and established with the coming of Christ in his perfect law -keeping life, his suffering his whole life and pointedly in his death, his triumphant resurrection, his ascension and his imminent return, even as he intercedes for us now.

That's the establishment of the covenant of grace. That's right. So sometimes when this happens, well, two things,

Justin, I know that this language for someone that's listening to Theo Cassin may not come from a Presbyterian background. When they hear one covenant, two administrations, we might wanna just provide one quick clarification for that if you don't mind, and then

I'll add to that. So when you say two administrations, what do you mean by that? You're asking me?

Yeah, I'm asking you to clarify it and then I'm gonna add something to it. Yeah, got it, got it. I thought you were gonna say it. Great, so when you say one covenant of grace, two administrations, what are you meaning by that?

Right, our Presbyterian and Reformed friends mean that the covenant of grace is formally established with Abraham, and there is an older way in which that was administered under the old covenant arrangement.

And then it is that same covenant that is still in place that is then administered in a different way in the new covenant era.

And so that is how our brothers and sisters - Right, so if I were to reword that real quick, yeah, so like administered meaning that someone is brought in under the blessings of the covenant in the old through circumcision, correct?

Are you with me on that? True, yes, yes. What I mean is that when we say administered, like that word is not a word that we use often, so some people are kinda like, what does that even mean?

But our Presbyterian and Reformed friends, as I understand it, would argue not just the administration in terms of how somebody becomes a part of it, because there's gonna be a consistency in how they argue for that circumcision baptism.

But then - No, that's what I'm saying. I think part of it is, yeah, part of it is, though, that this, there's just different institutions, different forms, right, are existing, right, in the old versus the new.

So that's, largely, that term administration is referring to that. It's the same covenant, it's the same substance, right?

But then the forms and the institutions are different. That's what I understand the position to be.

Right, that's what I was trying to get at, is that they would say, okay, so circumcision brings you into the covenant of grace in the old.

And then we have a new administration within the church, we have a new function of people, and we have a new practice.

And so it's the same covenant of grace, it's the same promises in Abraham, but now the sign is now baptism.

Right, and it's not just the sign, though. It's like there used to be the sacrificial system, there used to be the

Levitical priesthood. Now there's Jesus, who is the fulfillment of those things. Right, yeah.

That's right. So just so people understand, it's kind of where are you saying the covenant starts and the benefits of the covenant are received formally.

And that's what we're arguing, we're gonna argue now, that the covenant is promised, but didn't start with Abraham and the sign of the covenant of grace is not circumcision.

So we have a sign that's given to us in the new. So Justin, now we may have caused more confusion than help there,

I don't know. But that, just so people understand, two administrations, which means it was, the covenant of grace had one way it was administered or given to with a people in the old.

And it's the same covenant. Exactly, it's the same covenant, but there's something new added to it.

It's not a new, it's not, when we say a new covenant, they're saying there's new features to it. It's the same covenant, there's new features to it.

And that's where we're gonna say, okay, here's where the divide is. It's not that there's new features added to the covenant of grace, it's that it's actually a whole different covenant.

And so go. It's not just different institutions, different forms, a different sign and a different way of living under the same substance of a covenant.

That is not how we would understand it. We would understand that there is actually something substantially different in terms of it is a different substance.

Everything that came before was a different, it was a type and a shadow that was pointing us to the actual substance.

But that's how we would draw more distinction between the old covenant arrangement and the new.

And so then what is it that makes the new covenant new? Okay, well, and again, please don't misunderstand us.

Everything that Jesus accomplished, we understand, was counted to the saints of old who trusted in him.

Like Abraham, they rejoiced to see his day, they saw it and they were glad, right? That's exactly how all of the saints from Adam and Eve onward were saved.

Did they have a complete revelation of everything that Jesus would do like we do? No, but they were trusting those promises of the

Lord and were thereby counted righteous on account of Christ. So that does not change at all.

Can I jump in there real quick? That is so huge that you say from Adam forward, because it is true.

Anyone who believed the promise, because we would believe that, I mean, the covenant of grace didn't start at Abraham.

So salvation didn't start at Abraham. Yeah, I'm just saying salvation didn't start at Abraham. Salvation started from the promises of Adam and Eve.

Right, so just like, maybe this is helpful too, to people out there. The ways that our

Presbyterian and Reformed friends would understand people were saved from Adam to Abraham, i .e.

trusting in the promise, is exactly how we understand people are saved from Abraham to Jesus. It's just there's a greater amount of revelation that's being given.

Great connection. Right, in terms of the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants are revealing a lot and pointing us to who the

Savior would be and what he would do. But there still is this, it's all by faith in the promised one.

And so none of that changes. That said, there is more than just a different way of living in the new covenant arrangement.

There's more than just different institutions, different ordinances, and the like. This is a completely different substance.

Like it is as different, we've used this illustration before, but it is as different as when you go to the

Mexican restaurant and you get the menu plopped down in front of you and you see the picture of the meal, the picture of the burrito, or the picture of the, you pick your thing, right?

The enchiladas, whatever your flavor is. You see the picture of it, but then they actually, they take the menu away and bring you the plate of food.

That's the substance. And so we would understand that everything that existed before was akin to that picture.

And then the substances come in Jesus. And so this, again, is the writer of the

Hebrews. Why would we ever go back to the shadows and the types when the substance is now here?

And all of the language of how, even the apostles, the way that they all write and preach, something different has happened.

Everything that the Lord's been doing, it's now accomplished, right? It's now established.

And here is the way of salvation, plainly, for all to see.

It is by faith in Jesus Christ, because there is no salvation under heaven by any other name. And you're freed from everything that you couldn't be freed from before.

The blood of bulls and goats would purify your conscience. It would make you ceremonially clean, but the blood of Christ cleanses the conscience so that you can serve the living

God. The Holy Spirit was with you and you knew him, but he will now be in you.

It is different than it was before. So Old Testament saints were regenerate, but they were not indwelled by the

Spirit of God. That's our understanding. That's a new covenant reality. And I could go on, but John, I don't wanna say everything.

I want you to be able to jump in here on the newness of the new covenant. So in all discussions that have happened throughout the history, and then obviously the ones that you and I have had with our friends, there seems to be, and I don't say this to be,

I'm not trying to be rude here, but there's like a flattening a little bit of the differences between the two covenants, where there is not, doesn't seem like there's much difference between the two.

And the word that's often used is that when you guys read the new covenant promises in the Old Testament, you have what's called an over -realized eschatology, where the fulfillment of Christ and his completion is not fully come yet.

We're waiting for the final of that, which we agree. We're waiting on glorification. But the New Testament seems to shine light on the readings of the prophets.

And it seems to be there's an agreement on what the new covenant provides. And that would be that the differences between the old, you already mentioned it.

Jesus often spoke of the Spirit's work upon a person in that they would be with them.

We know that the Old Testament believers were regenerate. It's how they come to faith. It's how Abraham believed. But there's, he's constantly talking to the disciples saying he is with you.

But when I leave, he will be in you. The day of Pentecost, we see this. Peter finds people on the road who are

Old Testament regenerate believers, but don't have the Spirit yet within them. And with that indwelling of the

Spirit, you are, there is a massive contrast between the Old and the New Covenant.

In the Old, one could be of Abraham and not be of Abraham, not be of Christ.

In the New, when Jeremiah and his people described this - but not his spiritual offspring. That's right, you're not his spiritual offspring.

So in the New, they're saying, okay, here's the difference. Everyone that's in this covenant, the new covenant, the distinction is everyone is of Christ because they have a new heart and the

Spirit now through the Word dwells within them, which then means the

New Testament writers explain this. They are in union with Christ.

Everyone that's in the New Covenant has all of the benefits, which means he's the mediator.

He's the one who leads us into all righteousness. Obviously not imperfection. We are great high priests.

Not sorry, not great high priests. We're of the royal priesthood. This is Peter talking about those who are in this New Covenant community.

They hold the position that you act and you are part of the royal priesthood of God.

So there isn't a distinction of those who are in the covenant and aren't priests or in the covenant and aren't in union. Those two distinctions we don't see in Scripture where there's,

I would say, a dual membership. Now, I'm gonna go ahead and throw this before I throw it back.

Well, I'll let you finish because I'm about to take it into a direction. Go ahead. And yeah, and we're pivoting hard now towards our podcast for next week.

But in what you're about to say, I trust. So just to pick up a little bit on the language of the prophets, the language where the

Lord is going to take out our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh and he's gonna put his spirit within us,

Ezekiel 36, or in Jeremiah 31, where he says that everyone who's under this

New Covenant will know me. So those are places that we would look and see how the people who make up the

New Covenant community, i .e. the people of the covenant of grace, all of them know the Lord and all of them have been born again of God and have experienced the circumcision of the heart, which is regeneration and indwelling.

And that's gonna mean a lot for how we administer baptism. But we'll talk more about that next week.

Having said this, it's important that we do see the connection between the circumcision of the heart, that regeneration and indwelling peace, and how in the

Old Covenant, the people of God, i .e. Israel, were marked off by circumcision, but then in the

New Covenant, the people of God will be marked off by the circumcision of the heart, which is regeneration and the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit. And so we would understand, last comment from me, John, one of the differences that does exist, and I think this is significant, while we agree with our

Presbyterian and Reformed friends on the covenant of redemption high level, we see an inextricable connection and a congruity between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace, meaning all of the elect for whom

Christ would do the work in the covenant of redemption are those who are the participants in the covenant of grace.

It's not a mixed group of people. It's actually the elect who are a part of the covenant of grace, those who have experienced the

New Covenant reality of regeneration, indwelling, faith in Christ, repentance toward the Lord in faith.

That's why we will administer baptism the way we do, which is next week's conversation. I'm done. You can make your comment.

I'll add to that. Yeah, and I think that's what makes it, I mean, there's a lot of things that make it new, but what makes it so new is that being brought into the community in the old was brought in by heritage, by birthright, right?

You were brought in because you were of the line and to make sure that you received the benefits of it, you had to be circumcised, which just to be clear, it was a circumcision of males only, which we're gonna get into next week.

The reason why we have a hard time connecting the covenant of grace to the old in this way in that the new is so new, you don't read anywhere where the promises of the covenant are administered to those who are of bloodline and those who are not of faith.

The promises are always given to those who are of faith. That's what makes the new so different.

And the implications of that, obviously, now listen, when it comes down to new covenant promises, our union in Christ, man, we scream at the mountaintops with our brothers, like, man, we're so thankful for union in Christ.

We agree on union in Christ. Like when they talk about the benefits of union in Christ, if we were to do a conference on union in Christ, man, we would say all the same things, would we not?

It'd be beautiful. But union with Christ, yeah, 100%. Yeah, so our paedo brothers and I agree on the benefits of union in Christ.

I probably have learned the most about union in Christ from my paedo brothers, to be honest with you. But when are we in union with Christ is the question and that's where we come into administration of baptism, the sign of union in Christ, the sign of it.

That's what we're gonna talk about next week. So I'll turn it over to you and you can close us down. Inevitably, we will be touching on some of these subjects again to launch our conversation on baptism.

So we do encourage you to tune in again next week for more of an outworking of how our differences and how we view the covenant of grace, what that looks like in the church and how we understand that and maybe at a more deeper, at a deeper and a more practical level,

I should say. So we hope these things have been encouraging and clarifying in some way for you and maybe you better understand the confessional

Baptist position, but more than you did anyway before you tuned in. We're grateful that you took the time and listened today.

We'll put resources in the show notes. Resources, things like this. And yeah, we look forward to talking more about the covenant of grace and baptism next week.

We'll talk with you then if our Lord has not returned. Grace and peace. Amen. Hey everyone, before you go,

Justin and I first wanted to say thank you and if this has been encouraging to you in any way, please feel free to share it.

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