Written by R. Scott Clark |
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Throughout the history of the church there has always been a theology of the covenants. The Reformation recovery of the gospel and the biblical distinction between grace and works made it possible for Reformed theology to construct a detailed and fruitful covenant theology.

Until recently, it was widely held that covenant theology was created in the middle of the seventeenth century by theologians such as Johannes Cocceius (1609–1669). In fact, covenant theology is nothing more or less than the theology of the Bible. It is also the theology of the Reformed confessions. In the history of theology, the elements of what we know as covenant theology; the covenant of redemption before time between the persons of the Trinity, the covenant of works with Adam, and the covenant of grace after the fall; have existed since the early church.
Indeed, Reformed readers who turn to the early church fathers (c. 100–500 AD) might be surprised to see how frequently they used language and thought patterns that we find very familiar. The covenant theology of the fathers stressed the unity of the covenant of grace, the superiority of the new covenant over the old (Mosaic) covenant, and that, because Jesus is the true seed of Abraham, all Christians, whether Jewish or gentile, are Abraham’s children. They also stressed the moral obligations of membership in the covenant of grace.
The covenant theology of the medieval church (c. AD 500–1500) was related to that of the early fathers but distinct in certain ways. In response to the criticism that Christianity gave rise to immorality, the early church tended to speak about the history of redemption as the story of two laws, the old (Moses) and the new (Christ). They tended to speak of grace as the power to keep the law in order to be justified.
This habit only increased in the medieval church. The major theologians argued that God can only call people righteous if they are actually, inherently, righteous. This, they thought, will happen when sinners are infused with grace, and cooperate with that grace, so that they become saints. In this scheme, sanctification is justification, faith is obedience, and doubt is of the essence of faith.
In medieval covenant theology the word “covenant” became synonymous with “law.” They did not speak of a covenant of works and a covenant of grace, as we do. Rather the grace of the covenant enables one to keep the law.
Late in the medieval period, some theologians began to stress the idea that God has given a kind of grace to all humans and made a covenant so that “to those who do what is in them, God does not deny grace.” In effect, God helps those who help themselves. The Reformation would not only reform the covenant theology of the early fathers, but wage full-scale war on the covenant theology of the medieval church.
When he rejected the medieval doctrine of salvation by cooperation with grace, Martin Luther (1483–1546) rejected the old law/new law understanding of redemptive history. He came to understand that all of Scripture has two ways of speaking, law and gospel. The law demands perfect obedience, and the gospel announces Christ’s perfect obedience to that law, his death and his resurrection for his people.
Not long after Luther came to his Protestant views, others were already reforming covenant theology along Protestant lines. In the early 1520s, the Swiss Reformed theologian Johannes Oecolampadius (1482–1531) was teaching what would later become known as “the covenant of redemption” between the Father and the Son from all eternity. He also distinguished between the covenant of works as a legal covenant and the covenant of grace as a gracious covenant. A few years later Heinrich Bullinger (1504–75) published the first Protestant book devoted to explaining the covenant of grace. Like the early fathers, this work stressed the graciousness and unity of the covenant of grace.

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In becoming flesh, the Word also dwelt among us. Dwelt is the verb form of the Greek word for tabernacle (skene). Thus, we could say: And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. The tabernacle was a glimpse of heaven on earth, but Jesus is heaven come down to earth and living among us.

We always keep Genesis 1-3 closely at hand because, through those chapters, we are able to make sense of intermingled wonders and sorrows both around us and within us. The whole process of creation in Genesis 1 builds toward the LORD’s creation of mankind, male and female, in His image and after His likeness. Even their task upon the earth would reflect God’s creative work. For just as God formed the formless and filled the void, He commanded mankind to fill the earth with more of God’s image and subdue the earth and have dominion over its creatures.
Chapter 2 then describes God’s creation of garden in Eden, which we rightly call paradise. Yahweh filled the garden with all kinds of fruit trees for food for the first man and woman. It also held the tree of life, which was in the midst of the garden, and rivers flowed out from the garden into the rest of the world that Adam was tasked with subduing. Yet most importantly, the garden was the place where Yahweh would walk, where His presence could be found.
Yet in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve defile the paradise that God provided for them by eating the only fruit in the garden that the LORD forbid them to eat. Not content with reflecting God’s nature, they desired to become gods themselves, and through their rebellion, they were cast out of the garden and brought sin’s curse upon the world that they were given to rule. Barred from the tree of life, Adam, Eve, and all of their children now die and return to the dust from which God made them.
Again, all of this resonates so deeply with us because, as Tolkien rightly said, “We all long for [Eden], and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still oaked with a sense of ‘exile.’” Marvelously, the rest of the Bible is focused upon how God is restoring and repairing what our own sin has broken and marred.
The Tent of Meeting
As we noted last week, Yahweh’s instructions for building the tabernacle began with the most important furnishing, the ark of the testimony, which represented the very presence of God and would be the place upon which the sacrifice of atonement would be made. It then moved outward to describe the table for the bread of the Presence and the golden lampstand. These three items represented the primary furnishing within the only two rooms of the tabernacle: the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. Continuing the outward movement of the description, the instructions in our present chapter now focus upon the tabernacle itself. Let us first begin by actual instructions given in this chapter, then we will consider the theological significance of the tabernacle as a whole.
Although our eyes may gloss over as we begin to read these instructions, we would do well to remember two things. First, these instructions are not quite as detailed as we might have imagined. In looking at artistic illustrations of the tabernacle, you will quickly find that no two are exactly the same. That is because only the overall details are instructed, while Oholiab and Bezalel (who were the craftsmen in whom God put His Spirit to construct everything) evidently had a measure of artistic freedom.
However, secondly, the instructions that were given do not reveal an overly elaborate and visually stunning tent. Certainly, it was richly furnished and beautifully made, yet it would have been remarkably simple compared to the pagan temples.
As we said of God’s instructions for building altars, this too should shape our understanding of worship as a whole. There is a measure of individual freedom, so long as God’s instructions are carefully followed, yet the overall tenor of worship ought to be simple, beautiful, and obedient.
Moreover, you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns; you shall make them with cherubim skillfully worked into them. The length of each curtain shall be twenty-eight cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits; all the curtains shall be the same size. Five curtains shall be coupled to one another, and the other five curtains shall be coupled to one another. And you shall make loops of blue on the edge of the outermost curtain in the first set. Likewise you shall make loops on the edge of the outermost curtain in the second set. Fifty loops you shall make on the one curtain, and fifty loops you shall make on the edge of the curtain that is in the second set; the loops shall be opposite one another. And you shall make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains one to the other with the clasps, so that the tabernacle may be a single whole.
Verses 1-6 describe the inner curtains of the tabernacle. They were to be made of linen with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, which were colors that invoked royalty. They were also to have cherubim skillfully worked into them. Thus, from the inside, the priest would be surrounded by cherubim as a reminder that he has entered the tent of God’s earthly presence.
About the size of these curtains, Douglas Stuart writes:
All joined up, the curtain mass that formed the tabernacle roof and sides measured forty-two by sixty feet. Some of this was draped to form side walls and the back wall, so the actual floor space of the tabernacle was forty-five feet by fifteen feet (six hundred and seventy-five square feet). As later described, this floor space was divided in a two-thirds and one-third split into two rooms, the holy place (two-thirds of the floor space, or thirty feet by fifteen feet) and the most holy place (one-third of the floor space, or fifteen feet by fifteen feet). (584-585)
Verses 7-14 then describe the outer curtains.
You shall also make curtains of goats’ hair for a tent over the tabernacle; eleven curtains shall you make. The length of each curtain shall be thirty cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits. The eleven curtains shall be the same size. You shall couple five curtains by themselves, and six curtains by themselves, and the sixth curtain you shall double over at the front of the tent. You shall make fifty loops on the edge of the curtain that is outermost in one set, and fifty loops on the edge of the curtain that is outermost in the second set.
You shall make fifty clasps of bronze, and put the clasps into the loops, and couple the tent together that it may be a single whole. And the part that remains of the curtains of the tent, the half curtain that remains, shall hang over the back of the tabernacle. And the extra that remains in the length of the curtains, the cubit on the one side, and the cubit on the other side, shall hang over the sides of the tabernacle, on this side and that side, to cover it. And you shall make for the tent a covering of tanned rams’ skins and a covering of goatskins on top.
The first set was made from goats’ hair, and the second set were made from animal skins. The curtains of goats’ hair were slightly larger than the linen curtains in order cover them completely as a protective layer. As verse 14 says, there were actually two outer curtains, one of rams’ skin and the other of goatskin (or more likely dugong or dolphin skin). These two layers of leather would protect the tabernacle from the elements.
You shall make upright frames for the tabernacle of acacia wood. [16] Ten cubits shall be the length of a frame, and a cubit and a half the breadth of each frame. [17] There shall be two tenons in each frame, for fitting together. So shall you do for all the frames of the tabernacle. [18] You shall make the frames for the tabernacle: twenty frames for the south side; [19] and forty bases of silver you shall make under the twenty frames, two bases under one frame for its two tenons, and two bases under the next frame for its two tenons; [20] and for the second side of the tabernacle, on the north side twenty frames, [21] and their forty bases of silver, two bases under one frame, and two bases under the next frame. [22] And for the rear of the tabernacle westward you shall make six frames. [23] And you shall make two frames for corners of the tabernacle in the rear; [24] they shall be separate beneath, but joined at the top, at the first ring. Thus shall it be with both of them; they shall form the two corners. [25] And there shall be eight frames, with their bases of silver, sixteen bases; two bases under one frame, and two bases under another frame.
[26] “You shall make bars of acacia wood, five for the frames of the one side of the tabernacle, [27] and five bars for the frames of the other side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the frames of the side of the tabernacle at the rear westward. [28] The middle bar, halfway up the frames, shall run from end to end. [29] You shall overlay the frames with gold and shall make their rings of gold for holders for the bars, and you shall overlay the bars with gold.
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Though revelation progresses, it does not ‘correct or contradict’ what was disclosed earlier, for God is the divine agent in all revelation. There is no error in the being of God. He does not error in his first disclosures nor in his later disclosures. What appear to be corrections or contradictions only appear as such because of the being who is afflicted by error: man, that mutable creature of dust laden with the noetic effects of sin. God himself is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and immutable. His revelation is a perfect unity of truth reflective of his very own being.

Article V of the Chicago Statement, with its one affirmation and two denials, reads as follows:
We affirm that God’s revelation in the Holy Scriptures was progressive. We deny that later revelation, which may fulfill earlier revelation, ever corrects or contradicts it. We further deny that any normative revelation has been given since the completion of the New Testament writings.
The chief concern of Article V is how divine revelation in the 66 books of scripture progresses and how it does not. The concern is not simply about making allowance for a New Testament while maintaining an Old. Progressive revelation is present in both Testaments; but notably, this progress is not unending. It has ceased upon the completion of the New Testament writings. Because of this the New Testament carries extra heft as progressive revelation, but even so, it is not alone the place of truth. As Alec Motyer once said, “Progressive revelation is a movement from truth to more truth and so to full truth.”
Let’s start with the affirmation. Note how the signatories were careful not to limit God’s progressive revelation to only the New Testament. The expression used is “in the Holy Scriptures.” All scripture is divine progressive revelation. As redemptive history unfolded, moving from the age of the patriarchs to the age of Moses to the age of the Kings to the age of Christ, God continued to unfold his revelation, expanding the picture of a promised Son who was coming and the glorious work that Son would accomplish.
This clearer and clearer picture is even taking place in one book. Take Genesis, for example.
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