How does the Bible speak of 'covenant'?
For a long time, many Christians have approached the concept of "covenant" in one of two major ways:
- As "covenant theology" in which confessional statements of the covenants of works and grace underlie an emphasis on the continuity between Israel and the Church.
- Meanwhile, dispensational frameworks insist on different dispensations, or administrations, throughout history, to stress a discontinuity between Israel and the Church.
However, the language of "covenant" in the Bible does not neatly fit either of these two frameworks.
Instead, as Bill Smith shows in A Covenant Primer, God advances history according to covenants-his formal and structured relationship-with his people. Through each age or era in biblical history, God transforms his covenant and its associated world, revealing himself in new ways to his covenant people, blessing them with more glory and honor than before while also warning them of steeper sanctions for any treachery.
Building on the work of biblical theologian James B. Jordan, Smith shows that the transition from covenants in the Bible-from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses to David to the Restoration to the New Covenant in Christ Jesus-is a single story of maturation.
A "covenant" is not strictly a contract or a static system but a personal, structural bond between God and his people through which he brings them from glory to glory. Smith's book is ideal for introducing readers to the biblical meaning of "covenant" while also giving an overview of each covenantal era in the Bible.
