Rev. Tim Bushong wrote,
ALL – covenant members ‘know the Lord,’ they are regenerate, have all their sins forgiven, and have God’s Law written on their hearts and minds, and all these blessings are a present reality for all of them, since “He always lives to make intercession for them.”
BLMc responds,
If all covenant members ‘know the Lord’ and are regenerate then why the warning
26 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
Clearly, the warning implies that there are those who are in the outward administration of the covenant of grace but who may indeed not have the substance of the covenant (Christ.). All covenant members who have the essence of the covenant do indeed know the Lord but not all who are in the circumference of the covenant necessarily have the substance of the covenant and so need this warning in order that they may take seriously their covenant membership and so not abandon the faith. Those who have the substance of the covenant will take heed of this warning and not trample the Son of God underfoot. It still remains the case even in the Church that not all of Israel is of Israel; that is not all of the Church is of the Church.
TB wrote,
I believe that the particular structure of this version of covenant theology does something unnecessary (at best) to the nature of the New Covenant, and returns to prioritizing OC typology.
BLMc replies,
I believe that the insistence that church membership is universally regenerate is a particular structure of the version of the new and better covenant that finds us insisting that there were two different ways of covenantal belonging, and so two different ways of salvation. The implication here is that in the Old Covenant covenantal belonging was not by grace alone while in the NC covenantal belonging is by grace alone. This is to severely misunderstand the continuity between the OC and the new and better covenant.
TB wrote,
The discontinuity, or maybe just one of the differences, between the Covenants is evinced in the exchange between local and physical (Israel) with the universal and spiritual (the whole world).
BLMc responds,
Of course this is the common Baptist assertion of radical discontinuity between OC and NW. The OC was not merely local as seen in, for example, Jonah’s work with the Assyrians (Nineveh). Also there are other examples such as Naaman’s cleansing and Nebuchadnezzar’s confession in Daniel. As such we see a hint of the Universal and the spiritual in the OC. With the new and better covenant this is expanded but it remains present in the OC. In the same way there is continuity in the OC to the NC with the administration of the covenant sign to the children of the covenant and the expansion of this covenant sign is seen in the fact that not only males are given the sign of the covenant. Still, just as children in the OC were members of the covenant so children in the NC are members of the covenant and so should be given the ratification sign of the covenant. This is a serious error wherein Baptists fail.
TB wrote,
IOW, the price of ‘all the nations’ being included in the New Covenant meant that mere human progeny was no longer the ticket of admission—axiomatically ‘automatically in’ the Covenant by genealogy—as was the case in the Old Covenant.
BLMc responds
This is just not accurate. The price of all nations being included in the NC is clearly articulated in the OC in speaking of Christ;
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
The price of all nations being included in the NC was not the exclusion of the children of God’s children. The price of all nations being included in the NC was the precious blood of Jesus Christ which spoke of a better covenant than one that was only typified by the blood of bulls and goats.
Baptist thinking on this subject does not treat the Scriptures organically and because of that posits an unfortunate individualistic take on covenant theology.
