What is federal theology?

Covenant theology is based around the concept that there are three main covenants in the Bible. One is between the persons of the Godhead; the other two are man-ward. They are: 1) the Covenant of Redemption [3] , 2) the Covenant of Works, and 3) the Covenant of Grace.

The Covenant of Redemption is a covenant made in eternity between the persons of the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, that would involve the Son becoming man and, through His sacrificial work at the cross, being the redeemer for fallen mankind, or, at least, and this is significant, for the elect as given to the Son. This leads to the error of a limited atonement for the elect only. It is said that the Father designed it, the Son would undertake it and the Spirit would apply its results.

The Covenant of Works is a covenant God made with Adam before the fall that promised life to him if he was obedient to Him in it. Adam failed in his obligation since he disobeyed, and broke the covenant. He sinned therefore, and brought in condemnation and death to all mankind who he had represented.

A second requirement of a philosophy of history is a proper unifying principle. In covenant theology the principle is the covenant of grace. This is the alleged covenant that the Lord made with man after the sin of Adam, in which He offered salvation through Jesus Christ. In short, the covenant of grace is God's plan of salvation, and therefore the unifying principle of covenant theology is soteriological.

The covenant theologian, for all his opposition to dispensationalism, also makes certain rather important distinctions. However, it must be noted that his dispensational distinctions are viewed as related to the unifying and underlying covenant of grace. Nevertheless, within his concept of this covenant he does make some very basic distinctions. Louis Berkhof will serve as an example.[24] After rejecting the usual dispensational scheme of Bible distinctions, he enumerates his own scheme of dispensations or administrations, reducing the number to two -- the Old Testament dispensation and the New Testament dispensation. However, within the Old Testament dispensation Berkhof lists four subdivisions, which, although he terms them "stages in the revelation of the covenant of grace", are distinguishable enough to be listed. In reality, then, he finds these four plus the New Testament dispensation, or five periods of differing administrations of God. Thus, the covenant theologian finds biblical distinctions a necessary part of his theology, even though the covenant of grace is his ruling category.

The Covenant of Grace promises salvation and eternal life to those who place their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Other covenants, such as the promise of the redeemer immediately following the fall in Genesis 3, the one with Noah, the Abrahamic, the Mosaic (the law), the Davidic, and the new are included in the Covenant of Grace. This may look in some points similar to that held by dispensationalists. However, there are important differences, as may already be observed, when the system is developed. An aspect of covenant theology is that Christ obeyed the law for His people — ‘the elect' — and that the obedience of Christ has two parts. These are His ‘passive obedience' in which He suffered on the cross and His ‘active obedience' in which He kept the law in His life.

Covenant theology is based particularly on Romans 5:12–21 where Adam and Christ are compared (and contrasted) as heads of their respective races [4] . There is seen in it a unity between Adam and his race which is to be compared with that of Christ and those who are His. The Covenant of Works, it is said, was made with Adam as federal head and involves all his posterity as being in union with him. Hence, unregenerate men stand as one with Adam and therefore sinned in him, and his first sin, his disobedience, is imputed to them. This is often called ‘original sin'. By direct comparison with this, it is claimed that, through the Covenant of Grace, the righteousness of Christ, His obedience, is imputed to those (the elect) united to Him by faith. This is based on a wrong exegesis of Romans 5:18–19.

A covenant sets forth the terms on which two people can be in relation with each other. Scripture speaks of two great covenants between God and men, the old covenant and the new, the covenant of law and the covenant of grace. Both the old and the new covenants set forth the terms on which God can bless His earthly people. The great difference between the covenants is that under the terms of the first covenant the blessing depended upon man doing his part, whereas under the second covenant the blessing is secured by the unconditional promise of God. The mediatorial work of Christ lays a righteous basis for God to bless the believer in sovereign grace according to the terms of the new covenant.

Although there is no difficulty here, it is important to have light with regard to these two covenants, because some have very vague ideas on this point, and many souls, putting themselves under covenants — that is, in relationship with God under conditions in which He has not placed them — lose their simplicity, and do not hold fast grace and the fulness of the work of Christ, and the position He has acquired for them in heaven.

A covenant is a principle of relationship with God on the earth — conditions established by God under which man is to live with Him. The word may perhaps be used figuratively, or by accommodation. It is applied to details of the relationship of God with Israel, and so to Abraham (Gen. 15), and like cases; but, strictly speaking, there are but two covenants, in which God has dealt with man on earth, or will — the old and the new. The old was established at Sinai. The new covenant is made also with the two houses of Israel.

It is important to keep in mind that a covenant is a disposition of God, and that it is the terms upon which God sets a people in relationship with Himself upon earth. It could have no reference to a people called out of the world to heaven. Therefore there is no covenant made with the Assembly of God, though the great and leading principles of the new covenant have a very distinct bearing upon the blessings that are ours. There was a covenant made with Noah (Gen. 9:1-16), also with Abraham (Gen. 15), and with Israel at Sinai. The new covenant will be made in a coming day with the same people, Israel (Jer. 31:31-34). These two covenants, both of which are made with God’s earthly people, are the covenants referred to in Hebrews; and with these covenants we have most to do.

First, it reminds us that man as man is fallen, and under condemnation, and that relationship with God must be on other than natural grounds. Only in grace could God give even a law to man now, although not, of course, the full grace that is made known in the gospel. The law as the terms of the covenant was necessarily the sign, therefore, of covenant-relationship.

There are really but two covenants in Scripture ― the old covenant and the new. Still the word covenant is used in several places in connection with the Lord, when it is but the enunciation of certain relationships into which He was pleased to enter with man or the creature (Gen. 9:8-17, etc), or by which He should be approached by man, but without conditions. The context must decide the sense.

Suffice it to say that on Reconciliation his teaching, if so it is to be styled, is as thorough and vague make-believe as on the Kingdom; nor does Covenant ever mean in scripture what he affirms it to be, "the disposition of God towards His people." In divine things it means an order established by God and made known to the men concerned, according to which He forms relations with them, and they walk before Him. The first covenant wholly broke down because it depended on the obedience of a rebellious and wicked people. The second depends on the faithful mercy of Jehovah by the intervention of Messiah and His work to divine glory and their blessing; and this is everlasting. But that either one or other means "God's disposition", in F.E.R.'s sense of His gracious affection, is a dream. God's disposition, like His nature, His ways and His purpose, was ever good and worthy of Him Who is light and love. But the sinner must learn his sinfulness, ruin and powerlessness. Sin too must be judged to glorify Him morally and in a work efficacious to deal with it, fruit and branch and root, for all that believe. In such there is an inward work of return to divine order and peaceful enjoyment of God, based on the work wrought in the body of Christ's flesh through death. This is reconciliation; as the new covenant with both houses of Israel will be Jehovah's undertaking to secure their full and changeless blessing, the principle of which the Lord and the apostle apply to the Christian.