My wife and I ask each other a routine question about technology — and it may not be what you expect. Yes, we ask if the other heard us, and we ask to put down the phone for a while during family time. We, like most families in the digital age, have a ways to go to instill better technology habits in our homes. But the most frequent question we ask each other is, Did you see this online?

While that may seem like an odd question to ask, it reveals a much deeper issue with technology, one we often fail to consider amid concerns about screen time, app limits, and Internet filters. The question reminds us that we live in a personally curated and expertly crafted world of information, driven by algorithms that often wield significant influence over our lives and our outlook on the social and ethical issues of our day. The world you see online is often very different than what I might see, which in turn makes it difficult to address many of the root problems of our day.

Is Technology Neutral?

In this past year, many Christians are beginning to wake up to the reality that technology is not a neutral tool that we simply choose to use for good or ill.

From the ways that misinformation and conspiracy theories alter our perception of truth and reality, to the massive exposés of major social media companies about how their products are changing our social fabric, it has become clear that technology is not simply a tool; technology is a force that can radically shape our lives, often by pushing us toward specific ends that clash with the goals of the Christian life.

Take, for example, the ways these tools push us to comment on every breaking news story or cultural event the moment they happen. We are encouraged (and often far more than encouraged) to immediately share our opinion, often without context or knowledge of a particular issue. Instead of cultivating wisdom and restraint (James 1:19), technology often pushes us toward gut-level reactions, partisan talking points, and appeals to our tribes, all while we craft and manicure our online identities.

These technological goals and ends can be seen in the writings of the French sociologist and Protestant theologian Jacques Ellul (1912–1994), in which he describes technology as a movement that captures humanity in its grip and transforms everything in the name of efficiency (The Technological Society, 80). We perceive this move toward the technical and this drive toward efficiency in the ways we are constantly encouraged to see technology as only making our lives easier, increasing our productivity, and facilitating our abilities to form connections with others online.

Almost everything in life is touched by technology. And because it has become so ubiquitous, we are losing the ability to think critically about its role in our lives. We often fail to see how these very tools, especially algorithms, are shaping our view of the world, including how we see ourselves and our neighbors.

Algorithmic Catechism

One of the most prevalent forms of technology that subtly alters how we see the world around us, including our neighbors, is artificial intelligence (AI), or what is popularly referred to as the algorithm. While basic algorithms are a set of coded instructions, AI is a broader term encompassing dynamic systems that allow for a machine to adapt along the way through the use of highly sophisticated algorithms and machine learning. Often in conversation, AI sounds more like an element in the plot of a science-fiction movie than the driver of the common devices of social media platforms that we use each day, sometimes for the better part of the day.

“Whether we realize it or not, algorithms are discipling each of us in very particular ways.”

Whether we realize it or not, algorithms are discipling each of us in very particular ways — by curating the news we see, the things we purchase, the entertainment we enjoy, at times functioning in ways that seem almost human — all feeding the sense that this world is ultimately all about you. While AI may seem innocuous at first, it can also have devastating effects on our relationship with God, our spouse, roommates, those in our local church, and our broader communities as we opt for efficiency over wisdom and the virtual over the embodied.

Assumed and Assimilated

Over the past year, we saw countless calls to rein in “Big Tech,” a term focused on the outsized influence of certain technology companies like Meta’s Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Google, and others. On both sides of the political aisle, a focused effort began to alter how these companies do business and how much influence they have over the digital public square.

Behind many of these calls for regulation is a sense that these companies, including their algorithms, negatively shape us as a society or censor certain views to increase profit margins. While these issues are obviously complex (and Christians will disagree on the nature and boundaries of various proposals), one reality is increasingly understood: technology is often assumed and assimilated, rather than questioned and examined, in our lives. We need to take a hard look at these tools and seek to navigate them with biblical wisdom and insight.

One of the most effective tools used to keep us constantly connected and online these days is the algorithm. It serves a perfectly curated and personalized world for us each time we log in or scroll through our social media feeds. Many of us have been hooked by these systems that create these intricate and curated online experiences to keep us engaged and constantly connected. While these personalized experiences are beneficial to an extent in terms of convenience, they also run the risk of isolating us from one another and further exacerbating the striking divides we face throughout society.

Impulsive Urge to Check

You know that nagging feeling or impulsive drive to check your phone one last time before you doze off to sleep? Or the seemingly mechanical urge to check what you missed overnight before your feet even hit the ground?

In our digital age, we also regularly feel an urge to check these devices even without any notification or sign of something we may have missed. From “phantom vibration syndrome,” where we feel like our device is vibrating even if it isn’t, to our proclivity to see everything around us as a potential status update, we are being profoundly shaped by technology every day.

“We have been conditioned to relentlessly check our devices, and many of us struggle to simply disconnect.”

This point is aptly illustrated in the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, where one expert interviewee stated that the question isn’t if you check Twitter in the morning after waking, but whether you check it before or while you use the bathroom each morning. We have been conditioned to relentlessly check our devices, and many of us struggle to simply disconnect. In the digital age, it’s far too easy to begin to see others as mere cogs in a giant machine rather than as individual and embodied souls with moral agency and accountability.

How Is Technology Shaping You?

While technology has obvious benefits and can be harnessed to love God and love our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39), it has become increasingly difficult to step back and evaluate these tools with ethical clarity and biblical insight.

Amid the good of technology, Christians need to recognize the ways that algorithms are constantly expanding our moral horizons by opening options we never thought possible and allowing our sinful hearts to use these technologies to exploit others, manipulate truth, and stoke division. While common vices like anger, greed, lust, and arrogance are not new, they are nevertheless exacerbated in a digital-first world where we have new opportunities to indulge them and in turn abuse these technologies in ways that treat our neighbors as nothing more than a means to an end.

One of the dangerous tendencies is to shift our moral responsibility with these tools to others by refusing to acknowledge our roles, not only in their development, but also in how we use them. Wisdom calls us to evaluate the design and the goal of the tools we interact with each day because of the profound ways that we are being shaped and formed with each use.

True change won’t come until we admit these technologies did not arise, and do not operate, in a morally neutral vacuum — but within a pervasive environment of sin and a society-wide desire for complete moral and personal autonomy. While there is some truth to the view that technology mediates much of our experience online, we simply can’t abdicate our moral responsibility and blame the rise of fake news, polarization, and other social maladies solely on these technologies, without acknowledging that these tools function like jet fuel poured on a society already aflame with self-seeking sin and pride.

Two Steps Forward

What are we to do in this age of algorithmic influence? First, knowledge may be half the battle. Often, we simply fail to understand how these tools are shaping us and how they are conditioning us toward their end goals of higher engagement and time spent glued to our devices. Having a biblical view of technology can help retrain our minds to question these advances before simply assuming that they will always align with our values and goals for life.

There is a growing library of resources to aid you in this battle ranging from classic authors like Jacques Ellul, George Grant, and Neil Postman to contemporary thinkers such as Andy Crouch, O. Alan Noble, Jeffrey Bilbro, John Dyer, and Tony Reinke. While each engages these issues with different perspectives, they can each help us expand how we think about the role of technology in our lives as well as how we use technology wisely and responsibly.

Second, by recognizing how we are being formed, we can seek to counter that transformation through cultivating realistic and healthy habits with technology. Technology isn’t going away, and so bold claims of ridding our lives of these tools may not be the most effective long-term solution. As Paul reminds us in Ephesians 4:17–24, the Christian life involves more than putting off old habits; it also involves putting on new habits directed at forming us to be more like Christ.

These habits will range from family to family and person to person, but the goal is to shape our mind and heart to become more like Christ, who is the very wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24). A one-size-fits-all checklist may seem efficient in the short term, but it does not take into account different personalities and maturity levels. Our goal is to become wiser and more mature, not just better rule followers.

Algorithms Do Not Rule

Being trained in wisdom may mean limiting screens, turning off recommendation algorithms and notifications, taking regular sabbaths from social media apps, or even removing some digital distractions from your life — for a season or entirely. Wisdom may mean different practices for different people, but in an age like ours, it will always mean focus and restraint.

While it’s true that algorithmic technologies have the power to not only respond to our behavior but to modify it, conditioning us to act in troubling ways to greater and greater degrees, we are not powerless pawns, and our behavior online is not a foregone conclusion, no matter how subtle and powerful the algorithms may become.

Under God, humans chose to develop these tools, and we can choose how to use them — or not. Indeed, the biggest question for Christians in this algorithmic age — given what we know of the nature of our sin and our vulnerability to temptation — is not if these tools are shaping us, but rather if these technologies are transforming us to be more like Christ, or if we are being discipled into conformity to this world (Romans 12:2).

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.

Audio Transcript

What distinguishes my life from the life of a non-Christian? What makes the Christian life distinct in this world? It’s one of the most important topics we can address, and we do today, on this Monday. Welcome back to the podcast. And we’re going to get there through another question. How do I serve in God’s strength? That question is sparked by 1 Peter 4:10–11. It was sent to us by a listener named Jacob in Minneapolis.

“Dear Pastor John, thank you for looking at my question. First Peter 4:10–11 says, ‘As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.’ In my fight for faith and love and holiness, I want to glorify God. I don’t want my work to be in vain. So my question is this: What does serving by the strength of God mean? How do I do it? And how am I to work in such a way that it is God’s strength in me?”

I think this is just about the most fundamental question you can ask about how to live the distinctively Christian life. How do you live so that it is not you who live, but Christ who lives in you? How do you exert yourself and make resolutions in such a way that you are not relying on your exertions and your resolutions, but on the supernatural work of the Spirit of God in you?

The text that Jacob is focusing on — one of my favorites for ministry — is 1 Peter 4:11, which says, “Whoever serves, as one who serves by [or in] the strength that God supplies.” So there’s the command, and Jacob is just saying, “Please help. How do you do that?” What a mystery, what a miracle that is. We serve, but we serve by the strength supplied by another. “How?” Jacob asks.

All Across Scripture

Of course, this is not the only text that presses this huge issue upon us. There’s also Romans 8:13: “By the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body.” So we are to do the sin-killing, but we are to do it by the Spirit. How?

And we have Philippians 2:12–13: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” So we are to work, but the willing and the working are God’s willing and working. How? How do we experience that?

And 1 Corinthians 15:10 says, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” So Paul did work hard, but his effort was in some way not his. How do you do that?

And then there’s Colossians 1:29, where Paul says, “I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” Wow. We toil, we struggle, we expend effort and energy — but there is a way to do it so that it’s God’s energy, God’s doing. How?

APTAT

So there it is. It’s a pervasive issue. It’s fundamental. It’s right at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. I wish everybody were asking this question. In 1984, J.I. Packer, who has gone to be with the Lord now, published his book Keep in Step With the Spirit. I really enjoyed it. I remember reading it the year it came out. In it, on page 125, he gives his answer to this question. I’m going to read you his quote, just one paragraph.

First, as one who wants to do all the good you can, you observe what tasks, opportunities, and responsibilities face you. Second, you pray for help in these, acknowledging that without Christ you can do nothing — nothing fruitful, that is (John 15:5). Third, you go to work with a good will and a high heart, expecting to be helped as you asked to be. Fourth, you thank God for help given, ask pardon for your own failures en route, and request more help for the next task.

Well, I was 38 years old when I read that. I had been a pastor for four years, and what thrilled me about his answer to the question — “How do you do this, Packer? Tell us, how do you live this life in the strength of another?” — is that he spelled out exactly what I had preached the year before on March 13, 1983. I called it APTAT, an acronym:

A: Admit you can do nothing.
P: Pray for supernatural help.
T: Trust a specific promise about your situation.
A: Act; use your will; move.
T: Thank God.

I was just blown away that, the year after I wrote APTAT, I found in my favorite theologian just about a duplicate of what I was thinking. I thought, “I’m not quirky here at all. This is just old-fashioned.” He calls it “Augustinian sanctification,” or something like that.

How Christians Neglect Trust

But the difference between my APTAT and Packer’s paragraph is this: he barely mentions my middle T, to trust a specific promise about your situation that you’re about to walk into. You can hear that he means and believes it — of course he does. You can hear it in his third point, but it’s almost lost. He says it this way: “Third, you go to work with a good will and a high heart,” and then he says, “expecting to be helped.” I say yes, exactly — that’s faith: expecting to be helped according to your request for help.

But I think there is still a difference because it’s a matter of emphasis. I think this middle T — admit, pray, trust, act, thank — is so crucial. I wrote a whole book about it called Future Grace. That’s a four-hundred-page book on T. We need a book for every one of those letters, but for me, it was so huge for it not to get muted in other points that it got blown up in Future Grace. So that book was really about the middle T, to trust a specific promise when you’re facing a situation that causes you uncertainty or anxiety or fear.

And I think that step of T — trust in a specific promise — is missing in most Christians’ attempts to live the Christian life. It’s certainly my most common mistake. Most of us face a difficult task that makes us anxious, and we remember to say, “Help me. Help, God. I need you.” So we more or less reflexively express the first two steps, A (admit helplessness) and P (pray for help). But then we move straight from admit and pray to act. We pray, and then we act.

But this robs us of a very powerful step in walking by the Spirit, walking in the strength that God supplies.

Walking by Focused Faith

After we pray for God’s help, we need T. We should remind ourselves of a specific promise that God has made, and fix our minds on it, and put our faith in it. I wish I did it absolutely consistently because it’s so precious when you consistently do it. How many times have I said, “I believe you — I’ve got myself a promise”? Like the promise of, “I will help you, John Piper.”

“We should remind ourselves of a specific promise that God has made, and fix our minds on it, and put our faith in it.”

For the promise of help, I go to Isaiah 41:10 specifically: “I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” And I say, “I believe you. I believe you. Right now, I’m walking into this pulpit. I believe you, walking onto the stage. I believe you, walking into this difficult conversation I’m going to have down here at Maria’s. I believe you right now. This promise is true. Help is on the way. Increase my faith. I’m trusting you, Lord. Here I go.” And then you act.

Now Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:7 that “we walk by faith,” and he says in Galatians 2:20 that we “live by faith.” But for most of us, this remains vague. I walk through the day like, “Yeah, I guess I’m a believer.” Of course, I’m a believer as I walk through the day, but am I believing anything specific about God, anything specific about what he’s going to do in the next half hour that I’m struggling with?

Hour by hour, we need to do this. We do it by reminding ourselves of specific, concrete promises that God has made and Jesus has bought with his blood. As 2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “All the promises of God find their Yes in [Jesus].” We consciously trust the promises that we have, and we act on them.

Promises in Hand

So here’s my suggestion to Jacob for how to put this into practice. Read the Bible every day, always on the lookout for specific promises God may want to give you for that very day, but don’t lean only on the Bible reading for the day. Memorize a few promises that are so universally applicable to every situation that they will serve you when you face a task to be done in the strength that God supplies. Then as those tasks come, go through APTAT:

Admit you cannot do this on your own — not fruitfully, not with any eternal significance.
Pray for the help you need.
Call to mind one of your memorized promises and trust it. Put your faith in it.
Act, believing that God is acting in you and through you according to his promise.
Thank him.

“Read the Bible every day, always on the lookout for specific promises God may want to give you for that very day.”

Here are a few of my go-to promises day by day. I suppose the most common one over the last fifty years is Isaiah 41:10. In this verse I hear God talking. I hear Jesus say, “I bought this promise for you, John: ‘Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you [in the next half hour], I will help you [in the next hour], I will uphold you with my righteous right hand [in the next day].’ I will. Do you believe me, John Piper? Do you believe me?”

Oh, what a difference it makes when you have a concrete word from God, from the Scriptures, and you believe it as you walk into a difficult, trying situation. Another promise I lean on is Philippians 4:19: “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Every need. No question. What you need, you’ll have. Go.

Or Hebrews 13:5–6: “‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’” Man can’t do anything to me except what God at my side omnipotently permits him to do because he loves me.

And foundational for every one of those promises I’ve written down is Romans 8:32, which says, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all [that’s the foundation of absolutely everything, that Christ died for me], how will he not also with him graciously give us [that includes you, John Piper] all things?” What a great promise to walk into every situation with.

So never cease to ponder Paul’s words in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” There’s that switch — no longer I, but Christ. And then he explains it: “And the life I now live” — oh yes, you do live a life — “in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” So not I, yet I by faith. And I’m simply saying, make it specific by putting your faith in a particular, precious promise.