Introduction
Can a church embrace New Covenant Theology or Progressive Covenantalism and still stand on the 1689 London Baptist Confession? It is a more practical question than it sounds, because the labels overlap in places and diverge sharply in others. In this conversation, Dr. Richard Barcellos, Pastor Jim Butler, and Pastor David Charles trace where these systems are moving, what they get right about reading Genesis through the whole of Scripture, and the chapters of the Confession where the differences finally show. Along the way they turn to the covenant of redemption and the care we owe to anthropomorphic language when we speak of God.
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Transcript
Keywords: New Covenant Theology, Progressive Covenantalism, 1689 Baptist Confession, Gary Long, covenant of works, Garden of Eden covenant, biblicism, hermeneutics, Reformed Baptist, covenant of redemption
Speakers: Dr. Richard Barcellos, Pastor Jim Butler, Pastor David Charles
The Question
Pastor Jim Butler: This is also a practically good question, because you have already mentioned somebody who is somewhat representative of this school of thought, and it comes up: are New Covenant Theology and Progressive Covenantalism compatible with the 1689?
Gary Long and a Covenant in the Garden
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Yeah, it is interesting, because New Covenant Theology does not have a monolithic statement, the same statement among all of them. And before Gary Long died, I almost said Gary North, he articulated a covenant of, well, I do not think he liked the word works.
Pastor Jim Butler: You are getting the Garden of Eden concept.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Yeah, I noted that in there, which is a move in the right direction, I think. And the reason Dr. Long did it, who I think was the best writer New Covenant Theology had, his book on definite atonement was really good.
Pastor Jim Butler: Yeah, that was good.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: He has another book on the law that is not very good. But this last book was his most mature thinking, and he concludes there was a covenant enacted by God with Adam in the garden. And how does he do it? Romans 5 and Hosea 6:7. So he has a hermeneutic going. He is saying, I am not just going to read the garden isolated from the rest of Scripture.
Reading Genesis Through the Whole Bible
Pastor Jim Butler: It is not a biblicist reading of Genesis.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: I really appreciated that. He allowed subsequent revelation to make explicit what is implicit in antecedent revelation. A covenant in the garden, using that language, requires the rest of the Bible to help us interpret what is going on. Somebody I read said the garden should be read through the lens of the Apostle Paul. I want to extend that and say the garden should be read through the lens of Genesis 3 through Revelation 22.
Pastor Jim Butler: I thought it was intriguing, because we are in your book, Getting the Garden Right, and I have not read Long. I am reading what you have provided.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: I did not either. I got it off AI. I am kidding, I read the entire book.
A Covenant, But Not the Covenant of Works
Pastor Jim Butler: He affirms Romans 5, affirms Hosea 6. He affirms some sort of covenant with Adam in the garden, pre-fall, but not the covenant of works as it has been historically taught.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Yes, not as a profferment. There is not an eschatological profferment in it.
Pastor David Charles: Long is who you are talking about?
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Gary Long.
Pastor Jim Butler: When did he die?
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Within five years or so. But I really appreciated and applauded that, and I tried to do it in the book and say, this is what New Covenant Theology and Progressive Covenantalists need to do, not just on this covenant, but on the divine rest as well. You are not to that point yet.
The Same Hermeneutic and the Divine Rest
Pastor Jim Butler: No, we are still working on that.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: I am going to take the hermeneutical principles that were operating in Gary Long’s mind, and I am going to challenge the Progressive Covenantalists, because they have a creation covenant now. I disagree with how it is articulated and the basis for it, and I am writing a chapter for a book on that. But I am going to say, take the same hermeneutical grid, allow Scripture itself to shed light on Scripture, especially in light of its fulfillment, so that what was in black and white becomes clearer in the inaugurated New Covenant. We use the language of fulfillment to help us with the language of promise. And I am going to say, take that to Genesis 2:1-3, the divine rest. What is that? Is God tired? No. Isaiah tells us he never sleeps or slumbers. He cannot be tired. So whatever rest is signifying has to be something worthy of God, but instructive for man. It is the divine exemplar. Do as I have done. Work unto an exalted end.
Pastor Jim Butler: Eschatological.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Work to an end. And when you put it all together, they will not call themselves New Covenant or Progressive Covenantalists anymore. They will come over to a fuller confessional expression of covenant theology. They are not going to hell because they have not arrived yet, but some of them are coming, slowly but surely, and I think their hermeneutics is going to help them.
The Problem of Biblicism
Pastor David Charles: Pastor Butler just used the word biblicism, and you have dealt with New Covenant Theology for a long time. Do you think that is part of their problem, that they are not aware they are approaching the Bible as though their own reading trumps all this other work historically?
Pastor Jim Butler: Some of them seem to revel in that, in the few quotations provided in the book.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Mostly the older ones, but even Dr. Long, who says he does not like covenant of works. He is dealing with the threefold division of the law and does not like it, because moral, ceremonial, and civil are not used in either the Hebrew or Greek text. So he has a twofold division. But neither of those words are in the Hebrew or Greek either. And you have others saying New Covenant Theology attempts to use Bible words to explain Bible doctrines.
Pastor David Charles: It is commendable.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: It is not a bad thing. But you cannot do that with a Jehovah’s Witness at your front door. They will quote John 1:1, and all you can do is use Bible words.
Where the Confession Draws the Line
Pastor Jim Butler: So the quick answer would come down to certain key chapters in the Confession.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Chapters 19 and 22.
Pastor Jim Butler: And you see the connection back to the Calvinism and Reformed question. Everybody wants to be Reformed. I have seen this: Calvinistic Baptists call themselves Reformed Baptists. You push a little, and no, they are not Reformed, they are Calvinistic. There are a lot of men who love the 1689 but hold exceptions, not little ones here and there, but whole chapters.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Big ones. Remember Philip Ross? He was taking on, who was it, the man in New York City, the PCA man.
Pastor Jim Butler: Tim Keller.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Well, Keller. He calls it a precision strike, extracting the perpetuity of the Fourth Commandment out of the Confession. He says it is of a cloth. You pull that string and a lot of other doctrines fall flat, and you have to rebuild the whole system. I think that is the way to look at some of these law and Sabbath issues.
The Covenant of Redemption and Anthropomorphic Language
Pastor David Charles: Can we apply the same thing to the covenant of redemption, the inner-Trinitarian covenant? If you deny that, can you say you are confessional?
Pastor Jim Butler: The Confession sets it forth.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: I think it depends on how you parse it out. If you go to texts like Luke 22, there is a covenant, that the Father covenanted a kingdom to the Son, then there is something pretemporal about the divine will. You can put it in the decree and ask what is the Bible’s way of speaking about the decree in redemptive-historical language. But it is not the Father literally striking hands with the Son. When you read John Flavel, he uses that language.
Pastor Jim Butler: And it is glorious when you read it.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: But it is anthropomorphic.
Pastor Jim Butler: My Son, here are a lot of miserable sinners.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Would you take them to be yours? Would they be your bride?
Pastor David Charles: This is one of those things we were discussing earlier, allowing our theology to inform how we read our Bible. There is analogy. We are not speaking univocally about the eternal relations, but we are saying there are covenantal relationships.
Pastor Jim Butler: And it sure seems that way in John’s Gospel. Jesus is consciously sent from the Father to do a specific task.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Thou hast. When the Son comes to earth, he says, thou hast prepared a body for me. The incarnation was a prepared thing.
Pastor Jim Butler: And with that Flavel quote, is there theological parsing? No. Devotional warming? Doxological praising? Yeah, that is just beautiful.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: It is using our experience as creatures to teach us something about the Creator, but not on a one-to-one basis.
Pastor Jim Butler: It is Deuteronomy 1, God reflecting through Moses on the wilderness: I carried you through the wilderness just like a father carries his son.
Pastor David Charles: Carried. Beautiful.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: If you look up the word carried in Hebrew lexicons put together by liberal scholars, carry means carry, therefore God has arms and the Mormons are right.
Pastor Jim Butler: No, we are not going to do that. We are running short on time, so I am going to be more selective here.
Pastor David Charles: Lightning round.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Put a timer on it. You have thirty seconds.
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