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Well, as Reformed Baptists, that 
means we hold to or confess covenant theology as a means by which 
we understand the teaching of Scripture. And Jim Renahan makes 
this observation concerning covenant theology. He says, we believe 
that the structure of Scripture is properly defined by what has 
been designated as covenant theology. To grasp this fact is to grasp 
the central architecture of the entire Bible. So it's a means 
by which we come to the Bible. And there are various hermeneutical 
approaches. And again, this is a hermeneutical 
approach. It's the way that we approach 
a method by which we employ to understand texts of scripture. So you have covenant theology, 
something that this particular chapter articulates. And it has 
been well articulated in the Reformed faith. If you look at 
not only the Second London Confession, but the Westminster Confession, 
and the Three Forms of Unity, along with the Savoy Declaration, 
you will notice that all of the Reformed confess covenant theology. Now, there's some intramural 
debates, to be sure, among the Baptists, say, for instance, 
in the Paedo-Baptists. But the way of approach to the 
Bible is covenantal. As well, there's something called 
dispensationalism, and essentially dispensationalism is a system 
of biblical interpretation and of theology which divides God's 
working into different periods or dispensations which he administers 
in different ways. Now typically this is associated 
with premillennial eschatology, but that's not necessarily helpful. Premillennial eschatology has 
been around since the early church. Some of the church fathers, I 
think it's over-exaggerated at times, the amount of fathers 
that were committed to a premillennial scheme, but nevertheless there 
were fathers that were premillennial. Such that some have suggested 
that the predominating eschatology in the early church was premillennialism. Again, I think that's debatable. 
But nevertheless, there's always been what's called historic premillennialism. But in the 1800s, there was something 
called dispensational premillennialism. And while the premillennialism 
is the same between historic and dispensational, they approach 
it from widely different angles such that historic premill can 
be seen as fully confessional. Our chapters on eschatology do 
not exclude premillennialists. does not exclude the likes of 
John Gill, does not exclude, some suggest, C.H. Spurgeon was 
premillennial. Again, I think that's debatable. 
Those men aren't excluded by a Reformed confession of faith 
because historic premillennialism is pretty legit through and through. 
Dispensationalism, however, has so tampered with the Bible, so 
affected the Bible in such a way that they could not find comfort 
or find the ability to confess what we have in the Reformed 
confessions. The biggest issue for the dispensationalists is 
the big distinction between Jews and Gentiles. That is something 
to me that is insurmountable in terms of a defense for it, 
they cannot, but as well to propagate it continually and maintain that 
this is what the Bible teaches really is. is a pretty ludicrous 
opinion in my estimation. But dispensationalism, as I said, 
is a way of approaching the Bible and looking at it in different 
dispensations. It leads to the unrighteous sort 
of implication that people in the Old Testament were actually 
saved by law. That is untenable. It was not 
the case that Abraham obeyed God and God accounted it to him 
for righteousness. Genesis 15-6 emphasizes justification 
by grace through faith in the coming Messiah. And so a dispensational 
reading of much of the Bible is faulty in terms of these sorts 
of things. And then over the last few years, 
there's been something called New Covenant theology. And so 
New Covenant theology comes in between covenant and dispensationalism 
and tries to have a mediating position. And essentially, what 
you have are basically covenantal guys that reject the Sabbath, 
reject regular principle of worship, and a few other particulars. 
But that's the three sort of popular views among evangelicals 
and Reform on how to interpret the Bible. Now, in terms of the 
relation of these schemes to exegesis, some of the major things 
affected by the way we approach the Bible are things like, in 
the first place, continuity and discontinuity between the Testaments. How do we know we're not supposed 
to eat shellfish as New Covenant believers? Well, our hermeneutic 
ought to be able to yield answers. How do we know that bestiality 
is still condemned in the New Covenant even though there's 
no text that prohibits bestiality? Well, our methodology and our 
hermeneutic will be able to deal with, or it should be able to 
deal with those particular issues. So things that continue and things 
that are discontinuous between the two covenants. Very important. 
If we have a dispensational mindset or a covenant theology mindset, 
we're going to come to widely different positions on some of 
these issues. Secondly, the role of ethnic 
Israel. What's ethnic Israel's role in 
the world today? Are they still God's special 
people? Is there a geopolitical future 
for the nation-state of Israel? Those are things that are affected 
by our understanding of biblical prophecy, the application of 
prophecy, and so on and so forth. As well, the place of the church 
in relation to Israel. If, for the dispensationalists, 
there is a great distinction between Jews and Gentiles, well, 
that will certainly affect our view of the church and her relationship 
to the nation-state of Israel. as well the sacraments of the 
church. When it comes to particular Baptists, 
and when it comes to Paedo-Baptists, or Crato-Baptists and Paedo-Baptists, 
the thing affecting the subjects of baptism is covenant. How do 
we understand the people of God? And covenant speaks to that issue 
of the people of God. So our view of covenant theology 
will yield whether or not we baptize and include infants, 
or whether we exclude infants, not from the covenant of grace, 
as if we could do that, but from those sacraments that are attached 
to the covenant of grace, predicated upon faith and repentance. So 
the idea of the sacraments of the Church is affected by our 
view of God's covenant. And then the law of God in the 
new covenant. The law of God. Chapter 19, for 
instance, is in a covenantal sort of a scheme or format. Chapter 
19 of the Law of God is most excellent in our confession of 
faith, because Chapter 7 is most excellent in our confession of 
faith. Now whether you've made all these 
connections or not, I just put them out there to underscore 
how important covenant theology is. It's not simply for academics, 
it's not simply for seminarians, it's not simply for, you know, 
the doctors of the church, but it's for all of us. And it's 
not just how do we deal with texts of Scripture, and how do 
we have a methodology or a hermeneutical sort of set of principles to 
interpret isolated texts, but does the Bible yield comfort 
and encouragement to the people of God? I would suggest that 
it most certainly does, and one of those foundational places 
of comfort and encouragement for the people of God is in covenant 
theology, the understanding that God is in Christ, reconciling 
the world to himself to encourage the blood-bought children of 
God in terms of their Christian life, and of their status before 
a thrice holy God. So it is a most important subject. 
Again, there's a lot of disagreements at the intramural level. We will 
differ with the Paedo-Baptists. We will differ with the Savoy 
Declaration. There's some differences between 
this chapter 7 here and what you have in chapter 7 in the 
Westminster Confession. Most noticeably is the exclusion 
of Westminster's paragraph 2 from our chapter 7. They don't indicate 
or they don't give what chapter 7, paragraph 2 in the Westminster 
Confession contains. And I'll just read that. It says, 
the first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, 
wherein life was promised to Adam and in him to his posterity 
upon condition of perfect and personal obedience. So that reference 
to the covenant of works, having been excluded by the particular 
Baptist in the 17th century, has led itself or led to the 
interpretation or conclusion that Reformed Baptists reject 
the covenant of works. That is not what's going on in 
this particular chapter. And we'll see that as we move 
through the chapter, that the Reformed Baptists, or particular 
Baptists, did confess and affirm the covenant of works. The Bible 
teaches it, so they certainly would have held to it. And there 
are places, many places, in the confession that underscores that 
covenant. But then as well, with reference to the Westminster, 
the Westminster sees the Old Covenant as a covenant of grace. They see it as an administration 
of the covenant of grace. Our Confession does not do that. It was the position of many of 
the particular Baptists, along with some Pato Baptists, most 
noteworthy, John Owen and Samuel Pato, who saw that the Old Covenant 
was not a covenant of grace, but it was a republication of 
the covenant of works. It's the position that I hold 
to. I think that's what the Bible teaches, and I think there are 
various reasons why one should understand it that way. But just 
pointing out two obvious differences between the Second London and 
the Westminster, the exclusion of the Covenant of Works statement 
in Chapter 7 of the Baptist Confession, and then this idea that the Old 
Covenant was a covenant of grace under a different administration, 
not duplicated by our Baptist brethren. So that's just sort 
of a flyover introduction.