Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Found this on PJ Miller's blog - reads well and seems very clear - take a look and give your "read":
first of 4 parts here
Found this on PJ Miller's blog - reads well and seems very clear - take a look and give your "read":
first of 4 parts here
Yeah - I actually started this today and thought he was going to substantiate CT instead of making up a whole new thing, then he went back to the whole "2 track" analogy and lost me...thanks, I like to get other folk's perspective as I read these things.
Baptist history, especially the Reformed variety, is rooted in the basic tenets of New Covenant Theology. Much of its primary teaching is reflected in the influential First London Baptist Confession of Faith, especially in its 1646 edition (which is held by many New Covenant Theology churches today). The 1646 First London baptists did not support Protestant/Presbyterian churches because they believed in Gospel preaching apart from the law, and denied the eternal generation of the Son. However, in the historical whirlwind of later periods, Particular Baptists felt a need to show support for their Reformed brethren in the Congregationalist and Presbyterian churches -- and so adopted the Second London Confession in 1689, a virtual restatement of the famous Westminster Confession with slight modifications, especially, of course, in the area of baptism. This move left an indelible mark of covenant theology in the Particular Baptists from that point forward.
Since 1980 there has been a great resurgence of Reformed theology in Baptist circles. As a result, many within this camp have sought to develop a more clarified system of the covenants that relate back to older thought. Leaders of this movement include such theologians as John Reisinger, Jon Zens, Fred Zaspel, Tom Wells, Gary Long, and Geoff Volker.
Proponents maintain that the primary thrust of New Covenant Theology is the recognition of a promise-fulfillment understanding of Scripture. They suggest that whereas “Dispensationalism cannot get Israel and the church together in any sense whatsoever, and Covenant Theology cannot get them apart” (Reisinger, 19), New Covenant Theology finds the realization of all that the Old Covenant typified in the New Testament church (Covenant Theology, in contrast, merely levels the playing field and identifies them for all intents and purposes). The Mosaic economy is viewed as a temporal, conditional covenant that has been forever replaced by the glory of the New Covenant (2 Corinthians 3).
John Piper's position
John Piper has some things in common with each of these views, but does not classify himself within any of these three camps. He is probably the furthest away from dispensationalism, although he does agree with dispensationalism that there will be a millennium.
Many of his theological heroes have been covenant theologians (for example, many of the Puritans), and he does see some merit in the concept of a pre-fall covenant of works, but he has not taken a position on their specific conception of the covenant of grace.
In regards to his views on the Mosaic Law, he seems closer to new covenant theology than covenant theology, although once again it would not work to say that he precisely falls within that category.
hmmm - now that I am digging in a little, I guess my ignorance is being revealed - I did not know that there was a historical New Covenant Theology position. Mostly Baptist in origin . . .
Even today, there are some who call themselves NCT, but not NCT as defined by Zaspel and Wells (authors of the main proponent book for NCT). For example, the elders at my church would say that believe in New Covenant Theology, and while they're not Sabbatarian, they still have a high view of the Decalogue. They would disagree emphatically with the idea that Jesus somehow brought a *new* or *higher* or *better* law when He came to earth.