By its identification with the gospel of Jesus Christ the Abrahamic Covenant is seen to be a promissory anticipation of the new covenant. It is a subadministration of the overarching Covenant of Grace, which as a whole is mediated by the Son as the one who faithfully fulfills the eternal intratrinitarian covenant, the foundation of all redemptive covenant. God’s saving grace in and through Christ Jesus is thus the underlying explanation of the redemptive blessings provided through the covenant of promise to Abraham in both its old and new covenant stages of fulfillment.
Meredith Kline | Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006), 295.
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Tony Phelps
Tony grew up in Rhode Island. He was educated at BA (University of Rhode Island) and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He worked in the insurance industry for ten years. He planted a PCA church in Wakefield, RI where he served for eleven years. In 2015–18 he pastored Covenant Reformed Church (URCNA) in Colorado Springs. He is currently pastor of Living Hope (OPC). Tony is married to Donna and together they have three children.
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I recently heard some Particular Baptists use the same language, “over arching Covenant of Grace”. However what they meant was that the Abrahamic Covenenat in Genesis 15 was “an administration of the overarching Covenant of Grace. The Covenant made in Genesis 17 was not. Some of these same guys love Kline. They lump Sinai and the ANE Suzerain/Vassel together as conditional works treaties.
Wonderful quotation from Meredith Kline pointing to the overarching covenant of grace that unites all of Scripture, and the role of the Son in “faithfully fulfilling the eternal intratinitarian covenant,” which He promised, when God walked through the covenant pieces alone.
Angela are you referring to the ‘overarching covenant’ that established and defines our citizenship in the inaugurated Kingdom of God Christ fulfilled when He was resurrected, ascended, sat at the right hand of God and poured out His Spirit on the Apostles?
Yes, of course, the intertrinitarial covenant is the establishment of God’s purpose, before the establishment of the world, to give certain people to the Son, through the regeneration of the Spirit, which is the purpose of all redemptive history. So eloquently expressed in Ephesians 1 and 2.
Thank you. Do you also refer to the inter-trinitarian covenant as the Pactum Salutus?
How do you refer to the application of the inter-trinitarian covenant as it is expressed and displayed especially by Jesus Christ as He communicates He is the fulfillment of the covenant in the epistle of Luke?
Catherine,
Intra-Trinitarian = between persons of the Trinity.
Inter-Trinitarian = between Trinities.
Thank you – Inter/Intra – these are different!
Yes, the intratrinitarian covenant is the basis of the covenant of grace, which Jesus fulfilled by meeting all the stipulations of obedience, and death, for our disobedience, as our covenant head/representative. The covenant that God cut with Abraham confirmed Christ’s future role in meeting all the requirements of the covenant of works when God walked through the pieces alone. Christ as belonging to the trinity, which is one God, came to fulfill God’s pledge to fulfill all the requirements of the covenant for his people, through grace, by crediting his obedience, and the penalty of death, for their disobedience, to them. Since only God can keep this pledge, that God made to Abraham, it requires that Christ is a person of the trinity and therefore God. That is why Christ’s
claims as the great I AM are paramount.
I had Dr. Kline at Gordon-Conwell in 1973-74. Found him hard to follow. I will read Kingdom Prologue eventually. Great dialogue!