Therefore the only difference between Abraham’s faith and ours is this: Abraham believed in the Christ who was to be manifested, but we believe in the Christ who has already been manifested; and by that faith we are all saved.
Martin Luther Luther’s Works 3.23.
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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This “Covenant Theology” was a huge breakthrough when i only recently discovered it maybe 1-2 years ago. I cannot even begin to tell you how or what a wonderful thing it was to discover that (entirely new to me) position on the Bible.
Of course, as I think I have since learned, it’s antecedent or opposition is the horrible Dispensationalism (which is the crap and heretical system I came out of!!) which has caused (and i would say, PERVERTED the entire prophetic system and structure of Bible to be controverted into some weird quasi-Catholic-Jesuit Counter-Reformation and also VERY PRO-ZIONIST kind of (what us computer programmers would otherwise call) “Spaghetti Code” and “doctrine”, whereby every cross-linked line of doctrinal interconnection between bible verses to prove or justify “hot it works” is a horrible, EVIL, and tangled mess.
PS: I understand the uppercase “yelling” issue. I still do not agree with it. But I want to try to be accomodating and pleasing to the owner and readership of this blog. Because I am grateful that I can just be a reader and a commenter here. But i admit, that i still HATE using “bbcode”, Markdown, or HTML formatting tags in my comments 🙁 Bleh.
But I am glad just to be able to comment here. Please tolerate me while i slowly adjust 🙁
It would be very nice if some wording were added (either above or under) near the comment box about how or what kinds of formatting tags are allowed or even a pop-up box to help people like me better not offend other readers by giving us a selection of formatting codes which this WP blog website accepts or tolerates. Thank you.
PS: hmm ok i just made a ton of spelling and grammar mistakes in that comment. I wish there was also an “Edit” option for our replies as well.
i do not want to be offensive but this blog could use some serious work. NOT in it’s writing content — at all — but in the blog itself’s actual programmed function and ability to accommodate people who are very prone to typos and who make very simple errors in their commenting or writing. My browser has built-in spellcheck but i do not always notice the red underline errors, and I do not yet have Grammarly installed to help with other things (see: http://grammarly.com/ for more on that nice and free app).
Not all of us are super-literate seminary students (but i perceive that i am (sadly) not cut of the same cloth as most people here who are highly more educated on any of this stuff — far moreso than i am). I feel GROSSLY out of my element here, like i am under-dressed or not classy enough like the rest of you are. But i learn so much!!!!!!
Ryan,
You very clearly know how to do basic HTML. Please do.
Please stop shouting.
Sigh!!! I was not shouting. I know and understand that you perceive that, but “shouting” is an auditory perception. I still do not agree that capital letters = “shouting” even if the rest of the world “does”. And I do not believe anyone has ever (before the 1980s, or before any modern time period of Bulletin Board Systems or even the 1990s internet) ever said that one could “shout” using text, before).
I am trying to start using HTML formatting. I asked you to please understand that it is new to me and i do not like it but i am trying to do it more to make you feel better 🙁
If you would simply “repent” that capital letters is shouting, and understand that i am not at all trying to be “difficult” then all would just be fine?
Why are capital letters so offensive? I am not here to be rude. I am here to read, learn, and help with any 0.02 i can. Use of “capital letters” as if it is “shouting”, I feel, is an obsolete network more’ (mor-ay) or norm, that I have never ever embraced. I am sorry that we do not see eye to eye on such a petty and totally unimportant issue such as use of capital letters 🙁
It may be the only thing we do not agree on 🙁
And your website may be the only place i am being compelled to do so, on, since nobody else has ever cared about such a tiny issue as that.
However, I don’t wish to lose posting privileges so i am working on changing it. Even now.
The new covenant is the republication of Abrahamic covenant without the types and shadows, because Christ, the substance of the covenant of grace which was inaugurated in the garden, and ratified when God alone walked through the pieces, was fulfilled by the perfect righteousness and satisfaction of God’s wrath on our behalf. It becomes ours, when like father Abraham we believe.
It’s the Abrahamic religion of Promise, both in the OT times and still today, for we now also await the promised Son of God coming on the clouds in great glory. To those who are looking for His appearance He shall come to honor His promises. Like Isaac, only those born of the promise shall inherit that promise. For there are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to bondage, and one which is of the Jerusalem above, which is free, and the mother of us all.
Christ perfectly fulfilled the covenant of works and suffered the wrath of God for our disobedience, as God promised when He alone passed through the pieces. It was works for the Son that makes grace possible for us when we trust only in His righteousness imputed to us. To add anything of our own is to return to attempting to establish our own righteousness through the covenant of works. There is one covenant of grace under which all of God’s people are saved. It was inaugurated in the garden, ratified with Abraham, and fulfilled by Christ. Acceptance with God is always on the basis of the righteousness of the promised One alone. It becomes ours by believing, just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.