The road to the pastorate is filled with men who had hoped to arrive a long time ago. Many years have passed since they first felt the seed of a desire to shepherd Christ’s church. But for any number of reasons — life circumstances, personal immaturity, the need for training — no church has called them as shepherd. Not yet.

I think of one friend whose aspiration has quietly burned for over a decade. I think of another man, barely out of his teens, who recently started pursuing the pastorate and likely has years ahead of him. I think of my former self, traveling that road through my entire twenties. Such men may feel ambitions as big as Paul’s — but then remember, with a sigh, that they are not even a Timothy yet.

What can a man do on that road, especially when he can’t see the end of it? Well, quite a lot. Bobby Jamieson offers a couple of dozen ideas in his helpful book The Path to Being a Pastor. My colleague Marshall Segal boils those down to seven worthy ambitions. But lately my mind has been focused on a passage from Paul to Timothy. Timothy was already a pastor at the time of Paul’s writing, but he was a young pastor, not far removed from the road of aspiring men. And Paul’s counsel applies wonderfully to those preparing to join him.

“Do we enjoy Jesus before we preach him, and preach him because we enjoy him?”

We might capture the heart of Paul’s burden in 1 Timothy 4:6–16 with the words of verse 15: “Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.” Let them see your progress, Timothy. Don’t grow discouraged. Don’t remain stuck. Instead, by God’s grace, gain ground. Hone your character. Develop your competency. Become more godly, more fruitful, more zealous, more skilled. Make progress — the kind of progress that others can see.

To that end, consider a two-part plan: Train privately. Practice publicly.

Train Privately

Most of Paul’s commands in 1 Timothy 4:6–16 focus on Timothy’s public ministry. “Command and teach” (verse 11); “set the believers an example” (verse 12); “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (verse 13); and so on. At the same time, Paul knew just how easily public ministry could outpace private piety. He knew how tempting it could be to “keep a close watch on . . . the teaching” without keeping a close watch “on yourself” (verse 16).

It is frightfully possible to preach in public what you disobey in private. It is sadly common for men, even pastors-in-training, to lose delight in God’s word, and neglect the prayer closet. So, behind, before, and alongside Timothy’s public ministry, Paul says, “Train yourself for godliness” (verse 7). Explain publicly what you have experienced privately. Let all your teaching be plucked from the orchard of your soul. Remember that all God-pleasing progress in public flows from God-centered progress in private.

Enjoy His Words

“Train yourself for godliness”: the command takes us into an athletic spirituality, a pursuit of Christ that doesn’t mind the uphill climb, that relishes some sweat, that is willing to beat disobedient feelings into submission. Give yourself, Timothy, to the long, gradual, difficult, joyful process of becoming more like Jesus — or what some Puritans called “the great business of godliness” (The Genius of Puritanism, 12).

Such training may take many forms, but Paul leaves no doubt about the central content of Timothy’s regimen: he would progress in godliness by “being trained in the words of the faith” (1 Timothy 4:6). Reject “deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” (verse 1); sidestep “irreverent, silly myths” (verse 7). Instead, give yourself to God’s word.

If there is a secret to public progress, surely it lies in private soul-dealings with the God who speaks. I for one have felt chastened lately by Andrew Bonar’s description of the young Robert Murray M’Cheyne, who would often ride outside town “to enjoy an hour’s perfect solitude; for he felt meditation and prayer to be the very sinews of his work” (Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne, 56). Meditation and prayer are the sinews of ministry. Without them, we may have the muscle of charisma and the bones of orthodoxy, but the body hangs loose and weak; we stagger rather than run.

In one way or another, the depth of our private dealings with God will become evident in public. Our faces will shine like Moses’s — or they won’t. Our spontaneous speech and conduct will “set . . . an example” (verse 12) — or it won’t. We will hand others the ripe fruit of our own meditations — or we will deal in plastic apples and pears.

As aspiring leaders, we know God’s word forms the soul and substance of our public ministry. But over time, has our private life come to betray that conviction? Do we still read God’s word with anything like athletic obsession? Do we enjoy Jesus before we preach him, and preach him because we enjoy him? Do we treat meditation and prayer as the indispensable sinews of ministry?

Examine Your Soul

As Timothy devotes himself to “the words of the faith,” Paul calls him to turn his attention inward as well. “Keep a close watch on yourself,” he writes (1 Timothy 4:16). Timothy was an overseer of souls, but the first soul he needed to oversee was his own.

“The gifts of God are not only given, but cultivated; not only bestowed, but honed.”

Paul had spoken such words to pastors before. “Pay careful attention to yourselves,” he told the elders in Ephesus (Acts 20:28). And he had good reason to warn: “From among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things” (Acts 20:30). Pastor or not, if a man does not keep a close watch on himself, he will lose himself. He will not only fail to progress; he will regress, sometimes beyond hope. And Timothy was no exception.

So, Paul says, keep a close watch. Regularly tour the city of your heart to see if any enemies have breached the gate and now threaten the throne. Stand sentinel in your soul; know the weak spots on the walls, and study the enemies you are likely to face. Pray and then patiently review in God’s presence your speech, conduct, love, faith, purity (1 Timothy 4:12). As you read God’s word, ask him to search you and save you, to reveal you and rescue you (Psalm 139:23–24). “Lord, discipline me, correct me, expose me, confront me — and whatever it takes, keep me from destroying myself.”

True, we do not make much progress in godliness by looking inward. But we may notice the enemies that keep us from progress — enemies that, unmortified, would ruin all our progress up till now.

Practice Publicly

If private progress relates mostly to our character, public progress relates mostly to our competence. And in our passage, Paul cares about Timothy’s competence a lot. When he writes, “Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress” (1 Timothy 4:15), “these things” refers mainly to “the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (verse 13). Timothy was already “able to teach” (1 Timothy 3:2), but Paul wanted him to become more able, to increasingly look like “a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

Paul recognized in Timothy a pastoral gift (1 Timothy 4:14). But Timothy’s gift was not a static endowment: he could “neglect the gift” he had, or he could “practice” and improve it (verses 14–15). For the gifts of God are not only given, but cultivated; not only bestowed, but honed. And here men like us find hope. However gifted we may feel (or not), we are not at the mercy of our present attainments. We can handle God’s word with more care. We can apply it with more power. We can develop a greater readiness “in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2). That is, as long as we practice.

Embrace Unspectacular Opportunities

Few men receive a ready-made gift of teaching, a gift with no assembly required. God’s kingdom has its occasional Spurgeons, of course, who preached better as a teenager than I ever will as an adult. But most of us become proficient only through repeated practice over years, and then most of us progress further only through more practice still. And if we’re going to practice as much as we ought — as much as Paul’s “immerse yourself” suggests (1 Timothy 4:15) — then we likely will need to embrace opportunities that seem pretty unspectacular.

We might, for example, lead a group of guys in middle-school ministry. We might pour more thought into family devotions. We might find a lonely, suffering saint, listen to his heart woes, and practice the complex art of pastoral counseling. We might gather a few men committed to exhorting and encouraging each other. We might spend time with the sermon passage before we hear it preached, developing our own ideas and applications, drafting our own outline. We might snatch up every realistic opportunity to open the Bible and say something about it.

Perhaps we feel tempted to despise these small, unspectacular opportunities. But small, unspectacular opportunities form, for most of us, the indispensable path toward progress. There is no progress without practice — and practice sometimes feels utterly ordinary.

Fail Well

Those who practice enough, of course, eventually discover an uncomfortable truth: with practice comes not only progress, but failure. Open your mouth often enough, and you’ll say something foolish. Exhort others enough, and you’ll damage a bruised reed. Counsel enough, and you’ll speak too soon or too late. Preach enough, and you’ll leave the pulpit disheartened.

In the aftermath of such moments, we may feel like practicing a little less; rather than immersing ourselves in ministry or devoting ourselves to teaching (1 Timothy 4:13, 15), we may feel like retreating to a safer place. We may want to dig a hole and bury our talents in the dirt of our failures.

Yet precisely in such moments, we need to hear Paul’s word to Timothy in verse 14: “Do not neglect the gift you have.” Yes, your effort ended in embarrassment, but do not neglect the gift you have. Yes, taking another public risk feels daunting, but do not neglect the gift you have. Yes, to fail again like that would feel shameful, but do not neglect the gift you have. In some cases, of course, repeated failure may suggest that we don’t actually have the gift we thought we did. In so many cases, however, the failure was just part of the practice.

So, hold your failures in open hands, and learn all you can from them. Remember “the words of the faith” that have been your private strength, your secret delight. Take courage that if “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15), he can certainly restore and use failures. And then get back in the pulpit, back before the small group, back on the streets, back wherever your ministry lies, and use the gift that God has given you.

And in time, all will see your progress.

A dear and discouraged friend lamented to me recently, “How do we minister in this climate?” He wasn’t talking about the humid subtropical weather pattern of the Carolinas (which is generally quite pleasant). He was referring to the ministry environment of the younger generation in the early 2020s.

A few conflicting responses arose within me.

Feeling the Pain

My first response was, essentially, I feel your pain.

The ministry I work with, Campus Outreach, focuses on life-on-life evangelism and discipleship. In my two-plus decades in campus ministry, I have not encountered a moment quite as challenging as this one. I believe that a conflation of cultural factors (COVID, technology, and modern philosophies, to name a few) has brought us to this place. While every individual and subculture is distinct, I have an educated hunch that most ministers in the Western world are experiencing many (if not all) of the following challenges on some level.

1. Fear of the Social Unknown

For the past two years, I haven’t witnessed much direct fear of COVID from young people. I have witnessed, however, their sheer terror in the face of new social situations. The trend was alarming in the years immediately preceding COVID (though I think it may have been more akin to FOMO in the 2010s), but it’s off the charts now.

The fear of being seen and known, of connecting with and building close relationships with others, while not remotely a new fear, has been given fresh license in the sanctioned isolation of the last two years. So, an invitation to any organic, communal platform for relationship — a retreat, a conference, even an ultimate frisbee game — is met with more reluctance than I have ever previously encountered.

2. Isolation in Public

To quote Tony Reinke, “The smartphone is causing a social reversal: the desire to be alone in public and never alone in private” (12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You, 124). There have been venues where this reversal was already coming to fruition, even as far back as twenty years ago: the gym and the airplane, for example. But the social acceptability of a screen in hand (and eyes on it) means that gaining access to a person’s eyes implies interruption. The screen (and headphones!) is a social stiff-arm, a means of saying, “Don’t talk to me!” without having to be rude.

The wide world, therefore, becomes an extension of the living room, where risks have been minimized and the channels of communication are tightly controlled. Few truly experience what Bilbo spoke to Frodo about in The Fellowship of the Ring: “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” It’s a wonderful quote, but it may have been rendered moot. If we can find a way to bring our recliners with us, the transformation will be complete. And the living room has always felt too personal to invade.

3. Loss of the Moral High Ground

Historically, my evangelistic interactions, whether with strangers or friends, have elicited a “should” factor from the recipients of the gospel. Their resistance to Jesus was often met with a counterbalancing sense that Christianity was nevertheless the right way. The moral way. But the current zeitgeist associates Christianity with ignorance, bigotry, and oppression. So now, we aren’t simply trying to convince people that life surrendered to Jesus is better than whatever the world of sex and money and power offers; we are trying to convince them that Christians aren’t inherently racist, sexist, and abusive.

4. Loss of the ‘Villain’ Category

In recent years, you may have noticed the preponderance of films, especially in the Disney canon, that tell the backstory of a classical villain (Maleficent, Cruella, Joker, to name a few). In each of the stories, the villain is portrayed as misunderstood and deeply wounded. To be fair, generational sin in a broken world is complex. But the contrast between the portrayal of Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty and in the more recent film where she is the titular character is striking.

Therapeutic language, with all of its benefits and drawbacks, has won over our society in a comprehensive way (I heartily recommend Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self for a thorough treatment of this trend). Twenty years ago, some pastors and theologians were vigorously countering the gospel of self-esteem. Today, many are rightly acknowledging and resisting previously overlooked abuses, but I am afraid that, in the process, the old self-esteem has entered through the back door.

A pastor I admire once presented the alliteration “Villain, Victim, Victor” to capture the categories in which all followers of Christ simultaneously find themselves. We are perpetrators of sin against God and others (villains), recipients of the sins of others (victims), and overcomers of sin through the finished work of Christ on the cross and the daily work of the Holy Spirit within (victors).

“The only doorway to the kingdom of Christ is through acknowledgment of personal villainy.”

In my experience, the personal category of villain has been largely erased. The category of victim is assumed, and affirmation of victory, even in the context of failure, is a given (“We’re all winners!”). But the only doorway to the kingdom of Christ is through acknowledgment of personal villainy. When there are widely accepted philosophical defenses to keep us from darkening that doorway, ministry is significantly more challenging.

5. Endless Buffet of Distractions

Life-on-life discipleship takes hours, days, months, and even years of commitment. It requires sustained scriptural focus. It takes single-mindedness and intentional relationships — qualities more easily attained without a constant barrage of stimuli, whether for entertainment (Netflix, YouTube, TikTok), human connection (Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook), or information (podcasts, TED talks, articles — yes, I see the irony). Those distractions have drastically diminished the felt need for true community, for the discipline of silence and solitude, and for a true Paul to one’s Timothy.

Spoiled to Inflated Expectations

So, my first response was, I feel your pain. But then my second response was this: we have been spoiled.

American gospel ministry in the last half-century, especially on the college campus, has been nearly unparalleled in its fruitfulness. I sat in a room of more than seven hundred Campus Outreach staff in 2013, and the meeting host asked all who had come to faith in college through the ministry to stand. Some three-fourths of the room left their seats.

These staff had mostly attended college in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when ministry numbers were booming. As a student, I was part of a ministry that comprised nearly 10 percent of the entire enrollment of a “secular” college. The harvest of millennials was ripe on America’s campuses. Meanwhile, across the world, faithful missionaries were battling to translate the Scriptures, learn cultures, and hopefully see a convert or a few over years of ministry. They still are.

“We need to recapture the wonder of a single heart made new.”

With a background in such manifest fruitfulness, I have found, at least for myself, that I need to recapture a healthy theology of the cross, whereby we are poured out, sometimes agonizingly, for the formation of disciples (Galatians 4:19). We need to recapture the wonder of a single heart made new (Ezekiel 36:26). We need to recall the counterintuitive contentment that comes from seemingly fruitless ministry (1 Corinthians 15:58), and even the strange joy of suffering shame for the name of Christ (Acts 5:41). Which leads to my third and final response.

Hasn’t It Always Been Tough?

From feeling the pain, to needing to recalibrate assumptions, I also asked, Hasn’t it always been this way in some form or another?

In other words, is it possible that hitting the panic button during any given cultural moment is a bit reactionary? Our commitment to biblical Christianity requires us to believe that the Scriptures are sufficient to equip us to address the challenges of modern life and ministry (2 Timothy 3:16–17). It can only follow that they are timeless, implying that both the human condition in the twenty-first century and the cultural challenges of our day have not strayed too far from those in biblical times. I find it incredibly helpful to recall timeless spiritual realities when ministry moments seem bleak.

All still have the hardwired inclination to exchange the truth of God for a lie in order to worship and serve the creature (or the self) rather than the Creator (Romans 1:24–25). Christ crucified is still the stench of death to those who don’t have the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 2:15–16). And the ministers themselves still flag at times, struggling to continue to speak the aromatic gospel of Christ, always needing renewed faith, hope, and love.

People back then had a God-shaped void in their hearts. They were made for intimacy with God and with their fellow man, even as they suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. They longed to know and be known and were simultaneously terrified of that intimacy.

So, to quote Ellis in No Country for Old Men, “What you got ain’t nothing new.” In a foundational sense, in the ways that matter most, the resistance was exactly the same in AD 50 as it is in 2022. Daunting indeed.

But if the resistance is fundamentally the same, so too is the Spirit who indwells us with divine power. The word of the cross has never ceased being folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it has never stopped being the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18). He has never stopped using foolish things to shame the wise, jars of clay to carry treasure (1 Corinthians 1:27; 2 Corinthians 4:7). And if that is true, then there will be a multitude that no one can count from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation who surround the throne of the Lamb (Revelation 7:9).

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). So, no matter the spiritual climate, we offer him to the world with hope.

ABSTRACT: Dispensationalism or covenant theology? From the beginning of the church, Christians have wrestled over how best to relate the covenants. In recent generations, two broad traditions have governed the church’s covenantal thinking. In seeking to “put the covenants together” in Christian theology, we need to do justice to the plurality of God’s covenants, each of which reaches its fulfillment in Christ; posit an implicit creation covenant as foundational to future covenants; and seriously account for the newness of God’s new-covenant people. From creation to the cross, God accomplishes his redemptive plan covenant by covenant, progressively revealing the greater new covenant now ratified in Christ.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Stephen J. Wellum (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School), professor of Christian theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, to explore how Christians might best relate Scripture’s covenants.

All Christians agree that covenants are essential to the Bible’s redemptive story centered in our Lord Jesus Christ, but we continue to disagree on the relationships between the covenants. This is not a new debate. In the early church, the apostles wrestled with the implications of Christ’s new-covenant work. In fact, it’s difficult to appreciate many of the early church’s struggles apart from viewing them as covenantal debates. For example, the reason for the Jerusalem Council was due to covenantal disputes (Acts 15), especially regarding Jew-Gentile relations (Acts 10–11; Ephesians 2:11–22; 3:1–13) and theological differences with the Judaizers (Galatians 3–4).

Although Christians today share a basic agreement that the Bible’s story moves from Adam to Abraham to Sinai to Christ, we still disagree on how to put together the covenants.1 These differences affect other key theological issues, such as the newness of what Christ has achieved, how the Decalogue and the Sabbath laws apply to the church, and how Old Testament promises are now fulfilled in Christ and the church (a question related to the larger Israel-church relationship). When these differences surface, we discover that there are still significant disagreements regarding how the covenants are put together.

This article addresses the topic of how to put the covenants together, and it does so by answering three questions: (1) Why do we disagree? (2) How do we resolve our differences? (3) How might we put the covenants together in a way that least distorts the data and emphases of Scripture?

Why Do We Disagree?

Why do those of us who affirm Scripture’s full authority disagree on significant truths? The answer is complicated and multifaceted. For starters, theological views are not simply tied to one or two texts. Instead, views involve discussions of how texts are interpreted in their context, interrelated with other texts, and read in terms of the entirety of Scripture.

Furthermore, views are tied to historical theology and tradition. We don’t approach Scripture with a blank slate; we are informed by tradition and a theological heritage, which affects how we draw theological conclusions. Within evangelical theology, two broad traditions often govern our thinking about the covenants: dispensationalism and covenant theology.

Dispensationalism began in nineteenth-century England and has undergone various revisions. However, what is unique to all its forms is the Israel-church distinction, dependent on a particular understanding of the covenants. For dispensationalists, Israel refers to an ethnic, national people, and the church is never the transformed eschatological Israel in God’s plan. Gentile salvation is not part of the fulfillment of promises made to national Israel and now realized in the church. Instead, God has promised national Israel, first in the Abrahamic covenant and then reaffirmed by the prophets, the possession of the promised land under Christ’s rule, which still awaits its fulfillment in the premillennial return of Christ and the eternal state.

The church, then, is distinctively new in God’s plan and ontologically different from Israel. Although the church is presently comprised of believing Jews and Gentiles, she is receiving only the spiritual blessings that were promised to Israel. In the future, Christ will rule over redeemed nations, not the church in her present form. The church will not receive all of God’s promises equally, fully, and forever in Christ. Instead, believing Jews and Gentiles, who now constitute the church, will join the redeemed of the nation of Israel, along with Gentile nations, to live under Christ’s rule according to their respective national identities and the specific promises given to each. Dispensationalism also teaches that the church is constituted as a regenerate community, which entails that the sign of baptism is to be applied only to those who profess faith in Christ.

Covenant theology formally began in the Reformation and post-Reformation era, and it is best represented by the Westminster Confession of Faith and other Reformed confessions. It organizes God’s plan in history by God’s covenantal dealings with humans. Although covenant theology is not monolithic, those who hold to it typically argue for three covenants: the intra-trinitarian covenant of redemption; the temporal covenant of works made with Adam on humanity’s behalf, which, tragically, he broke, resulting in sin and death; and the covenant of grace made in Christ for the salvation of God’s people, which has unfolded over time through different covenant administrations.

Although covenant theology recognizes the plurality of the covenants, it subsumes all post-fall covenants under the overarching category of the covenant of grace. As a result, the Israel-church relationship is viewed in terms of continuity — that is, the two by nature are essentially the same, yet administered differently. For this reason, Israel and the church are constituted as a mixed people (elect and non-elect), and their respective covenant signs (circumcision and baptism) signify the same spiritual reality — hence why baptism may be applied to infants in the church.

Given that we tend to read Scripture in light of our theological traditions, it’s not surprising that people disagree on the covenants. How, then, do we resolve our differences?

How Do We Resolve Our Differences?

Without sounding naive, we resolve our differences by returning to Scripture. Yes, resolution of our differences is not an easy task; it will require us to examine our views anew. But given sola Scriptura, Scripture must always be able to confirm or correct our traditions. Thus, the resolution to covenantal disagreements is this: Is our putting together of the covenants true to Scripture’s own presentation of the covenants from creation to Christ? This raises some hermeneutical questions, especially what it means to speak of Scripture’s own presentation, or its own terms. My brief answer is to note three truths about what Scripture is on its own terms, all of which are important in properly putting together the covenants.

First, Scripture is God’s word, written by human authors and unfolding God’s eternal plan centered in Christ (2 Timothy 3:15–17; 2 Peter 1:20–21; Luke 24:25–27; Hebrews 1:1–3). Despite Scripture’s diverse content, it displays an overall unity and coherence precisely because it is God’s word written. Furthermore, since Scripture is God’s word given through human authors, we cannot know what God is saying to us apart from the writing(s) and intention of the human authors. And given that God has spoken through multiple authors over time, this requires a careful intertextual and canonical reading to understand God’s purposes and plan. Scripture does not come to us all at once. As God’s plan unfolds, more revelation is given — and later revelation, building on the earlier, results in more understanding as we discover how the parts fit with the whole. The best view of the covenants will explain how all the covenants are organically related to each other, and how each covenant prophetically points forward to Christ and the new covenant.

Second, building on the first point, Scripture is not only God’s word written over time, but the unfolding of revelation is largely demarcated by the progressive unfolding of the covenants. To understand the canon, then, we must carefully trace out God’s unfolding plan as unveiled through the covenants. Our exegesis of entire books must put together the canon in terms of its redemptive-historical unfolding, and the best view of the covenants will account for the unfolding nature of God’s plan through the covenants, starting in creation and culminating in Christ and the new covenant.

Third, given progressive revelation, Scripture and the covenants must be put together according to three unfolding contexts. The first context is the immediate context of any book. The second context locates the book in God’s unfolding plan, because texts are embedded in the larger context of what precedes them. The third context is the canonical context. By locating texts (and covenants) in God’s unfolding plan, we discover intertextual links between earlier and later revelation. As later authors refer to earlier texts (and covenants), they build on them, both in terms of greater understanding and by identifying typological relationships — God-given patterns between earlier and later persons, events, and institutions. These patterns are a crucial way God unfolds his plan through the covenants to reach its fulfillment in Christ and the new covenant. Theological conclusions, then, including covenantal formulation, are made in light of the canon. The best view of the covenants will account for how each covenant contributes to God’s plan, starting in creation and reaching its fulfillment in Christ.

Is There a ‘Better’ Way?

To seek a “better” way is not to question the orthodoxy of alternative views. Despite our differences, we agree much more than we disagree, especially regarding the central truths of Christian theology. Instead, to speak of a “better” way is to assert that the two dominant traditions are not quite right in putting together the covenants, which results in various theological differences among us. In this article, I cannot defend my claim in detail.2 Instead, I offer just three reasons why we need a better account for Scripture’s own presentation of the covenants.

Plural Covenants Fulfilled in Christ

First, as covenant theology claims, the covenants are the central way God has unfolded his redemptive plan. But instead of dividing history into two historical covenants — the covenant of works (a conditional “law” covenant) and the covenant of grace (an unconditional “gospel” covenant) — and then subsuming all the post-fall covenants (Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and new) under the larger category of the covenant of grace, Scripture depicts God’s plan and promises as progressively revealed and accomplished through a plurality of covenants (Ephesians 2:12), each of which reaches its fulfillment in Christ and the new covenant. This formulation better accounts for how each biblical covenant contributes to God’s unified plan without subsuming all the covenants under one covenant. It also explains better how all of God’s promises are fulfilled in Christ (Hebrews 1:1–3; Ephesians 1:9–10) and applied to the church, along with emphasizing the greater newness of the new covenant.

“God’s plan and promises are progressively revealed and accomplished through a plurality of covenants.”

This formulation is better because it explains the covenants first in biblical rather than theological categories, consistent with Scripture’s presentation of the covenants. After all, there is no specific textual warrant for the covenant of grace; it is more of a theological category. Theological categories are fine, but they must be true to Scripture. By contrast, there is much biblical warrant for God’s plan unveiled through plural covenants (see, for example, Ephesians 2:12; Romans 9:4). No doubt, covenant theology’s bicovenantal structure grounds the theological categories of “law” and “gospel,” and it highlights well the two covenant heads of humanity: Adam and Christ. However, this is not the only way to ground these theological truths, and covenant theology’s primary weakness is that it grounds these truths by a covenantal construction foreign to Scripture.

Furthermore, there is little warrant for the ratification of two distinct covenants in Genesis 1–3, first in Genesis 2:15–17 and then in Genesis 3:15 (as covenant theology contends). Instead, it’s better to view Genesis 3:15 as God’s gracious post-fall promise that, despite Adam’s sin and rebellion, God’s purpose for humans will stand, and that, from humanity, God will graciously provide a Redeemer to undo what Adam did. Thus, from Genesis 3:15 on — and through the covenants — we see the unfolding revelation of the new covenant.

Furthermore, careful readers of Scripture will want to avoid categorizing the covenants as either conditional/bilateral (law) or unconditional/unilateral (gospel), as covenant theology tends to do. Instead, Scripture teaches that each covenant contains both elements, but with a clear distinction between the covenant in creation before and after the fall. Thus, what was demanded of Adam before the fall is not confused with God’s promise of redemption after the fall, and the Christological promise of Genesis 3:15 gets unpacked across the covenants, revealing that redemption is always and only in Christ alone. In fact, it’s because of this blend of both elements that we can account for the deliberate tension that is created in the Bible’s covenantal story — a tension that heightens as God’s plan unfolds and is resolved only in Christ’s perfect obedient life and death for us.

On the one hand, the covenants reveal our triune God, who makes and keeps his promises. As God initiates covenant relationships with his creatures, he is always the faithful partner (Hebrews 6:17–18). Regardless of our unfaithfulness, God’s promises, starting in Genesis 3:15, are certain. Yet God demands perfect obedience from us, thus explaining the bilateral aspect of the covenants. But as the covenants progress, a tension grows between God’s faithfulness to his promises and our disobedience. God is holy and just, but we have sinned against him. And due to Genesis 3:15, God’s promises are tied to the provision of an obedient son who will undo Adam’s disastrous choice. But where is such a son/seed, who fully obeys God, to be found? How can God remain in relationship with us unless our sin is removed? It is through the covenants that this tension increases, and it is through the covenants that the answer is given: God himself will unilaterally act to keep his own promise by the provision of an obedient covenant partner — namely, Christ.

“Christ alone can secure our salvation, and in him alone are the covenants fulfilled.”

If we maintain this dual emphasis in the covenants, we can account for how and why in Christ the new covenant is unbreakable, which also underscores Scripture’s glorious Christological focus. The Bible’s covenantal story leads us to him. Christ alone can secure our salvation, and in him alone are the covenants fulfilled.

How, then, does Scripture present the covenants? Not in terms of a bicovenantal structure, but as God’s one redemptive plan unfolded through multiple covenants that all progressively reveal the greater new covenant. For this reason, we cannot simply appeal to the “covenant of grace” and draw direct lines of continuity, especially regarding circumcision-baptism and the mixed nature of Israel-church, without thinking through how each covenant functions in God’s overall plan, and how Christ brings all the covenants to fulfillment in him, which results in crucial changes across the covenants, reaching their greater fulfillment in the new covenant.

Creation Covenant as Foundation

Second, as in covenant theology (different from dispensationalism), we need to account for why the covenants are more than just a unifying theme of Scripture but the backbone of Scripture’s redemptive plotline, starting in creation and culminating in Christ. Although dispensationalism acknowledges the significance of Genesis 1–11 for the Bible’s story, “The idea of a creation covenant . . . has no role.”3 But this is the problem. There is abundant evidence for such a covenant, and its significance for putting together the covenants is twofold.4

First, the creation covenant is foundational for all future covenants since all subsequent covenants unpack Adam’s role in the world as our representative head (Romans 5:12–21; Hebrews 2:5–18). Adam, and all humanity, is created as God’s image-son to rule over creation (Genesis 1:26–28; Psalm 8). Adam is created to know God as he mediates God’s rule to the world. God demands perfect obedience from his covenant partner, which, sadly, he fails to fulfill (Genesis 2:16–17; cf. Genesis 3:1–6). But God graciously promises that a woman’s seed will come (Genesis 3:15), a greater Adam who will reverse the effects of sin and death. All subsequent covenant heads (Noah, Abraham, Israel, David) function as subsets of Adam, but they are not the greater Adam; instead, they only point forward to him. Without a creation covenant as the foundation, the remaining covenants hang in midair.

Second, the creation covenant is foundational for establishing crucial typological patterns that reach their fulfillment in Christ and the new covenant — for example, the rest of the seventh day (Genesis 2:1–3) and salvation rest in Christ (Hebrews 3:7–4:13); Eden as a temple sanctuary fulfilled by Christ as the new temple (John 2:19–22); and Adam as a prophet, priest, and king fulfilled in Christ (Acts 2:36; 3:22–26; Hebrews 7). As these typological patterns are unveiled through the covenants, they eventually terminate in Christ and his church.

Thus, to put the covenants together according to Scripture, we must start in creation. Genesis 1–11 is framed by God’s creation covenant first made with Adam and upheld in Noah. Then as God’s salvific promise (Genesis 3:15) is given greater clarity through the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants, it’s brought to a climax in the promise of an individual, the Davidic son-king who will rule the world forever (2 Samuel 7:14, 19). In this promise of a son, we hear not only echoes of Israel as God’s son (Exodus 4:22), but also echoes of Adam and the initial seed promise (Genesis 3:15). Central to God’s covenantal plan is the restoration of humanity’s role in creation, and by the time we get to David, we know this will occur through David’s greater son.

However, David and his sons disobey, thus leaving God’s promises in question. But the message of the Prophets is that although Israel has violated her covenant, God will keep his promise to redeem by his provision of a faithful Davidic king (Psalms 2; 72; 110; Isaiah 7:14; 9:6–7; 11:1–10; 49:1–7; 52:13–53:12; 55:3; 61:1–3; Jeremiah 23:5–6; Ezekiel 34:23–24). In this king, identified as the “servant of Lord,” a new/everlasting covenant will come with the outpouring of the Spirit (Ezekiel 36–37; Joel 2:28–32), God’s saving reign among the nations, the forgiveness of sin (Jeremiah 31:34), and a new creation (Isaiah 65:17). The hope of the Prophets is found in the new covenant.

For this reason, the new covenant is not merely a renewal of previous ones, as covenant theology teaches. Instead, it is the fulfillment of the previous covenants and is, as such, greater. Since all of the covenants are part of God’s one plan, no covenant is unrelated to what preceded it, and no covenant makes sense apart from its fulfillment in Christ. No doubt, new-covenant fulfillment involves an already–not yet aspect to it. Yet what the previous covenants revealed, anticipated, and predicted is now here. This is why Jesus is the last Adam and the head of the new creation (Romans 5:12–21; 1 Corinthians 15:21–22); the true seed and offspring of Abraham, who brings blessings to the nations (Galatians 3:16); the true Israel, fulfilling all that she failed to be (Matthew 2:15; John 15:1–6); and David’s greater son, who rules the nations and the entire creation as Lord.

The Bible’s covenantal story begins in creation, and to put the covenants together properly requires that we start with a creation covenant that moves to Christ and the fulfillment of all of God’s plan and promises in the ratification of a new covenant.

New and Greater Covenant

Third, our putting together of the covenants must also account for the Israel-church relation. Minimally, Scripture teaches two truths about this relation that theologians must account for.

First, against dispensationalism, Scripture teaches that God has one people and that the Israel-church relation should be viewed Christologically. The church is not directly the new Israel or her replacement. Rather, in Christ, the church is God’s new-covenant people because Jesus is the antitypical fulfillment of Adam and Israel, the true seed of Abraham who inherits the promises by his work (Galatians 3:16). As God’s new creation/humanity, the church remains forever, comprised of believing Jews and Gentiles, who equally and fully receive all of God’s promises in Christ, realized fully in the new creation (Romans 4:13; Hebrews 11:10, 16). As Ephesians 2:11–22 teaches, the church is not the extension of Israel, or an amalgam of Jews and Gentiles, or merely one phase in God’s plan that ends when Christ returns to restore national Israel and the nations. Instead, the church is God’s new-creation people, Christ’s bride who lasts forever (Revelation 21:1–4). Dispensationalism and its covenantal construction does not sufficiently account for these truths.

But second, against covenant theology, the church is also new and constituted differently from Israel. Covenant theology correctly notes that Israel, under the old covenant, was constituted as a mixed people (Romans 9:6). Yet it doesn’t sufficiently account for the newness of the church. It fails to acknowledge that what the Old Testament prophets anticipated is now here in Christ in his church — namely, that in the new covenant, all of God’s people will know God, and every believer will be born-empowered-indwelt by the Spirit and receive the full forgiveness of sin (Jeremiah 31:31–34).

“One is in Christ not by outward circumcision/baptism but by the Spirit’s work in rebirth and granting saving faith.”

Given its bicovenantal view, covenant theology fails to see that the relationship between God and his people has changed from the first covenant to the new; it’s not by natural but by spiritual birth that we enter the new covenant. For this reason, the church is constituted not by “you and your biological children,” but by all who savingly know God. One is in Christ not by outward circumcision/baptism but by the Spirit’s work in rebirth and granting saving faith. In contrast to Israel, the church is constituted as a believing, regenerate people. This is why baptism in the New Testament — the sign of the new covenant — is applied only to those who profess faith and give credible evidence that they are no longer in Adam but in Christ. Also, it explains why circumcision and baptism do not signify the same realities, due to their respective covenantal differences. To think that circumcision and baptism signify the same reality is a covenantal-category mistake.

This view of the church is confirmed by other truths. Although we await our glorification, the church now is the eschatological, gathered people identified with the “age to come.” For those who have placed their faith in Christ, we are now citizens of the new/heavenly Jerusalem, no longer in Adam but in Christ, with all the benefits of that union (Hebrews 12:18–29). Also, the church is a new creation/temple in whom the Spirit dwells (1 Corinthians 6:19; Ephesians 2:21), which can be true only of a regenerate people, unlike Israel of old. On these points, covenant theology, due to its imprecision in putting together the covenants, doesn’t sufficiently account for how all of the covenants have reached their fulfillment in Christ, resulting in the newness of the church.

In Christ Alone

As we continue to discuss these important matters, we would do well to not only seek to conform our views to Scripture’s own presentation, but even more significantly, to glory in Christ Jesus, who is central to all of God’s plans and purposes. In Christ alone, all of God’s promises are Yes and Amen (2 Corinthians 1:20), and in our covenantal debates we must never forget this truth.

In Christ, the divine Son has become the promised human son, Abraham’s seed, the true Israel, and David’s greater son. By Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and by the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, he pays for our sin and remakes us as his new creation. Ultimately, the central point of the covenants is that, in Christ alone, all of God’s promises are fulfilled, the original purpose of our creation is now accomplished, and by grace, we as the church are the beneficiaries of his glorious, triumphant work, now and forevermore. May this glorious truth unite Christ’s church as we continue to wrestle with how to put the covenants together according to Scripture.