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thanks uh pastor butler for inviting me to join the meeting this morning and introduce the book uh it's it's an honor to me that you've chosen to to use my book and i hope that you won't regret it a commitment to a few weeks or months of reading a book i hope that it will be uh useful for you um i wanted to give you an understanding as best as i can of why did i put this book together why did i publish this book where does it come from um and so i'll do that for a little bit and then i'll talk later on about the structure of the book and some of the the purposes of the book including engaging a little bit with our pedo baptist brethren not so much engaging with them directly as discussing how the book engages them in a loving and charitable way so where does this book come from uh it for me when i was in seminary at irbs which was then at westminster seminary in california um when i went to seminary i i had a self-conscious mindset that i i wanted to believe what i believed because i was convinced of it not just because they said it or because i had grown up with something i i wanted to have a certainty and a conviction about the things that i believed and i practiced and so going into seminary baptism credo baptism versus paedo baptism was certainly one of those things that i wanted to give serious thought and serious attention to um because so many respected theologians throughout history have practiced paid a baptism in the reformed tradition and so many people that i respected growing up in a reform baptist house practiced cradle baptism and so there were men that i respected who who would be on both sides to use those terms and i wanted to give it a fair shake so in in seminary it it seemed the appearance to me was that pedobaptist brothers had the most developed covenant theology it seemed like a very pedo baptist reformed thing they have covenant theology and that that seemed to not only did they have it now it seemed to be a historical pedigree reformed pedo baptists have had covenant theology it's something that they have been teaching and that they have been studying for a long time so not only is it well developed in their day it's something that they've been teaching and appreciating for for many uh centuries however as i studied um as i listened to and as i studied the pedobaptist literature the pedobaptist lectures the pedobaptist arguments um it it seemed to me and again again this is my personal perception this was my own i guess journey it seemed to me that we had so much overlap with them so much agreement with them which was an encouragement to me that we had so much in common but then there also seemed to me to be a good number of internal inconsistencies or internal at least tensions in the way that covenant theology was expressed and taught in pedo baptist literature especially internal inconsistencies not just within the reformed presbyterian or reformed pedobaptist system but between reformed authors and other reformed authors where the arguments that one makes and says these are the strong arguments another pedobaptist makes different arguments that undercut and undermine um those the first person's really strong argument so i began to see that the reformed pedobaptist position was not as united as i would have expected and that its diversity i don't want to say disunity necessarily but it's diversity uh it pointed out to me areas where i thought that their arguments were were poor or were not very strong but that doesn't mean just because i think that they're poor not very strong maybe that means i just need to study more thoroughly and maybe i don't understand them so i wanted to keep studying their positions but i of course also wanted to study um the baptist position baptist covenant theology and so in seminary because the way that seminary worked for us as irbs students was we had just a select few irbs classes and everything else was from our pato baptist professors uh one godly man good man there wasn't much time there wasn't much space to to deal with developed baptist covenant theology and the arguments that we received in my opinion we're not as developed as they could be um and so i had a certain dissatisfaction i would say with the baptist covenant theology that we were that we were taught and i wanted to know is is there more is that the extent of our arguments um and so that led me into historical studies what have the baptist said historically speaking if we look back at the history of our baptist particular baptist forefathers reformed baptist forefathers what did they say about covenant theology and what were the arguments that they advanced and so that's really what led to my dissertation is launching into diving into the 17th century particular baptist literature about covenant theology and i was i was surprised actually when i began to do all that reading in the 17th century sources i was surprised by the prominence of arguments about covenant theology and the prevalence they used them in a central way and they used them often the prominence and the prevalence of covenant theology in particular baptist literature was a surprise to me because it didn't seem to have that same prominence and prevalence today you know in in the 2000 teens when i was studying this and the the few decades of my life before that it hadn't seemed very prominent or prevalent in baptist literature and sermons and things like that covenant theology whereas in the 17th century it was very common and very prevalent very central to particular baptist sermons particular baptist literature particular baptist polemics etc so i began to also see in these historical investigations also a diversity in the reformed pedo baptist authors back then as well it wasn't just a sort of diversity today where this person kind of contradicts the other or there's tensions in the system all of those things that i was seeing today really had been present from the 17th and 16th centuries of the past and that also was a surprise to me that reformed covenant theology was not as monolithic as i had expected i i wanna i don't know if i could say as i had been led to believe because i can't say that anyone ever stated that but it was at least an impression that i that i had and so i was surprised to find the diversity of reform covenant theology um was greater than i had expected and as i began to study that that diversity if you have kind of branches on it on a tree um that diversity made the particular baptist covenant theology a much more natural branch of of an already existing diversity in reform covenant theology as opposed to what i had been told is that particular baptist kind of theology or baptist covenant theology was this other thing it's anabaptist theology it's anabaptist theology we're told that all the time which simply wasn't true if you understand the diversity of reformed covenant theology then you can see all of the arguments that if you just sort of flip all the right switches in this diversity you end up with particular baptist covenant theology that was encouraging to me too and it explained why we had so much in common with our pedo baptist brothers with regard to covenant theology as as with regard to so many other doctrines or or areas of of of doctrine so all of that historical investigation was very very satisfying to me um it's it showed a diversity that i thought was a healthy diversity in the 17th and 16th centuries and pedo baptist reformed covenant theology as well as well as a prominence and prevalence of covenant theology among the particular baptists themselves now jumping back to the to the present day um as i in the past um 15 years or so maybe a little more than that baptist literature about covenant theology began to be published in our our our time and as i looked at that literature or some of the literature from the from further back you know the past 20 30 40 years it seemed to me uh and a lot of this is it seemed to me this is my opinion but that's what i'm telling you so take it for what it's worth uh it seemed to me that there was a lot of poor historical theology in those books so i felt very frustrated with the state of baptist covenantal literature in the 20 teens i thought there's a lack of historical theology there's an ignorance of past sources but at the same time i want to be careful that's not so much a criticism as it is a recognition because 10 it's only within the past 10 20 years really that most of the sources that i had been reading were even available for someone to read so it'd be extremely unfair to look at literature modern literature before i was doing my work and say why why didn't they know about these historical books and things well because they'd probably have to fly across an ocean and go to a library and pull that book and then read it and pastors don't have time for that and so whereas now in our day with a few clicks of a button you can read all those books instantly and so i um i had a certain frustration with a lack of historical theology with previous literature without criticizing the authors who really couldn't have had access to that literature wasn't available to them but it was still i believe a weakness in the literature um so one of the things that that meant was as i looked at modern reform baptist literature i i felt at times that reform baptists were not understanding the paedo baptist positions and so that leads to poor literature i also felt that at times the reform baptists weren't understanding the baptist position and that leads to poor literature as well in certain ways and i think that that stemmed in part from a lack of of knowledge of of the historical theology if you don't know the debates of the past and how we got here then you're not going to be a very effective guide today one of the problems that this has created or obstacles that it's created is that if you look at a book like mine and you compare it to reform baptist literature from 30 years ago or or the men of that of that generation godly godly men whom we respect and love it makes it look like what i would be teaching is a departure um what what for me is a recovery of the particular baptist position appears like a departure for some people from the reformed baptist position because they were unaware of the particular baptist arguments and the particular baptist literature and so that that leads at times to some tensions and we need to be careful and we need to be patient because our confession in chapter seven of god's covenant is actually very broad in its commitments and it does not specifically commit us to what has been sometimes called 1689 federalism or what could be understood simply as historical particular baptist covenant theology what i'm saying is that the fact that what i would teach is somewhat different than what some of my reform baptist forefathers taught a few decades ago or over the past few decades does not have to mean a departure in it for any reason because our confession is broad on this point and can accommodate both of those sort of flavors of covenant theology and that's something that we've had to learn as we go but i the point that i'm trying to make is i had a sort of frustration with baptist literature in our modern day it's insufficiently aware of historical theology i thought also that it its argumentation was poor i thought that baptist books often times stated their conclusions without premises it's kind of baptists aren't the only ones who do this it's the kind of book that it's just a party book it's just repeating the party line it's just saying this is the baptist position but it doesn't really justify or argue for the baptist position it asserts but doesn't really argue and i thought that many baptist books about covenant theology today felt were guilty of that of that mistake of that of that error of stating conclusions without premises and along with that many of those books were also highly polemical um baptist covenantal literature as i was seeing it in our day was extremely polemical it at every turn it was arguing with our pedo baptist brothers which there's a place for that but these books were insufficiently positive they weren't sufficiently laying out their own position which would then be a platform to engage others who can understand your position um and so i felt that baptist literature was insufficiently grounded in his in historical theology it was too heavily polemical and asserting more than it was arguing uh and having seen the debates of the past the 17th century you you you get a sense for what the actual main issues are or ought to be and when you have a sense of that and you look at modern baptist literature about covenant theology you can see they're they're going in many cases they're going down fruitless roads this this road has been traversed before and it doesn't go anywhere it's just a a circle that that no one escapes it's a maelstrom it's a black hole so i wanted to publish a book that would try to present the arguments positively that would teach covenant theology positively say this is not just what we believe but also this is why we believe it uh here are not just assertions but arguments um and i wanted to teach it in as simple and plain a way as possible for the sake of those who who would be reading it i i wanted to get down to those main issues i wanted to avoid those linguistic traps uh of poor argumentation um and i had also by the time i published i had taught this material a few times to seminary students i had preached through some of it in our church and i had i had studied the word and all of those things so i had the historical studies and i had the exegetical studies which i felt were sufficient to move forward in publishing a book and another thing that i wanted to do in this book and you can see it from the title is i felt that in in covenanted literature baptist or pedo baptist the concept of mystery needed to be brought forward the concept of mystery needed to be incorporated more into covenant theology and the book will explain to you uh how that why i believe that and and how it works but the basic argument is that paul in multiple places in his writings paul talks about the mystery of christ which is that god's plan for all time was to unite all peoples and his son jesus christ but his son jesus christ would be born of the line of abraham and yet his his life and death and everlife would benefit the gentiles and not just the jews not just the children of abraham and so this mystery is that the whole world is going to be united by a jewish man jesus christ and that that is revealed in the old testament but it's mysteriously revealed it's partially revealed it's obscurely revealed there's a mystery and so covenant theology needs to account for mystery that the the end is revealed all throughout the beginning but in a veiled way in a mysterious way and then it's unveiled and then the mystery of christ is made known as paul says in in today's age in a way that it was not in former ages and so for me some covenant theologies especially our pato baptist brothers um they kind of unveiled the mystery too early they made the old testament the same as the new just with a different outward arrangement which did not in my opinion sufficiently take into account the mystery that that's developed in much more fullness in the book but it's something that i felt was lacking in both pedo baptist and baptist covenantal literature i don't know if you want me to open up for questions throughout or at the end um or maybe no questions i'm gonna take a drink by the way disneyland is 15 minutes from my house so if you come visit come to church and then go see mickey mouse and biola if you biola university christian university is half a mile from my house so if your students ever want to go to biola they can attend our church no problem and it's sunny down here since no one can respond to me i can just proselytize the canadians and say what i want until pastor butler stops me you know we're not all canadians you know so okay well we we love you all unless i'm i'm a boston bruins fan so i love you all unless it it turns out that i have to play that we have to play a canadian's team all right uh can i is that the canucks yeah let's just not talk about 2011. i was watching okay so having done the historical studies as well as a good amount of exegetical studies and having taught the material a few times to seminary students that's when i decided to publish the mystery of christ and so now i want to talk a little bit more specifically about the book itself uh its importance for reform baptists at least the importance i hope it will have for reformed baptists as well as um some ways in which we can charitably engage pedo baptists with this book so a general outline for the book you need to understand that the book is organized essentially by biblical theology not systematic theology some some covenant theologies are organized by systematic theology which i think is um a deficiency or at least a a liability for their books because covenant theology as i argue in the book needs to be sensitive to and really conformed to the development of history whereas a covenant theology that's organized by systematic theology runs the risk of flattening out the progressive development of history based on the system that it's presenting and covenant theology most certainly intersects with systematic theology but i believe that covenant theology should be organized in its presentation and understanding more by a historical progressive approach which would be biblical theology rather than a systematic approach so the book follows a chronological progression from adam to noah to abraham to moses to david to christ excuse me and that allows for the natural unfolding nature or the unfolding nature of god's purposes in history because as i said mystery is a part of god's revelation something that was revealed previously and paul says now it has been revealed in a new way it's been revealed more fully more openly through jesus pouring out his spirit on the apostles and the apostles teaching the church more and more and more as even the apostles themselves learned more and more and more about the the mystery of christ and the union of all peoples in him and so if you take a biblical theological approach a historical progressive approach then in a sense you get to learn it the way that it was learned in history you get to see okay the what our confession calls the farther steps of god's revelation of the covenant of grace or the new covenant which i regard as the same thing as opposed to just jumping straight to chapter one covenant of works covenant of grace sort of soteriology systematic theology and that's that's why you'll see a historical progression and i i want to emphasize the the importance of that um in a sense you learn covenant theology the way that god's people have progressively and i think there's a real advantage in that um the book is split into four parts and in a way it's two parts it starts out with methodology i i said earlier that i thought that baptist literature often asserted things without arguing them and i wanted to as much as i could give up give a foundation for reformed baptists of methodology this is how we come to our conclusions these are the tools the methods of the hermeneutics involved in this not that everyone will agree with it but but trying to at least get a discussion going um and and teach as much as possible the tools that other people could use to apply in their own interpretation and so the first part is dealing with methodology and hermeneutics and then the rest of the book unfolds as it follows that historical progression through three kingdoms and their covenants three kingdoms and so first there's the kingdom of creation which is ruled by the covenant of works and the noahic covenant so you're going to see a strong connection and relation between kingdom and covenant in my book where i argue that kingdoms are established and governed by covenants so the covenant of works what does it reach to what is the scope or the extent of the covenant of works it's all creation it's governing all creation it's ruling all creation same for the noahic covenant is there is there a part of this creation where the the rainbow and the promises of god in the covenant are not active no it reaches to all creation so the kingdom of creation which is common to all men is established and ruled by the covenant of works and the noah covenant that'll be the first kingdom with its two covenants and then it moves on to the kingdom of israel where through the abrahamic covenant god establishes a land abraham to your offspring i will give this land and god promises to that offspring the offspring of abraham in the land of canaan a blessed life as well as above all and from from the very beginning of god's dealings with abraham uh the blessing for the nations in you and in your offspring the nations of the earth will be blessed and so the abrahamic covenant establishes a region or a realm canaan the kingdom of israel and a people to live in that abraham's children and a purpose and blessings safety prosperity etc and ultimately the birth of jesus christ the mosaic covenant rules the same people in the same place the mosaic covenant is not ruling the assyrians the mosaic covenant is not ruling the egyptians the mosaic covenant is ruling the children of abraham in the land of canaan and so the mosaic covenant is another covenant within the kingdom of israel or governing the kingdom of israel and then the third covenant that rules the kingdom of israel is the davidic covenant the davidic covenant establishes david and his sons as the perpetual kings of israel and one of them will have an everlasting throne now the davidic king the davidic covenant does not again rule over assyria or egypt or babylon or persia or any of the nations the davidic covenant rules over the boundaries of canaan as established by god in the abrahamic covenant and the davidic king has to keep the mosaic law he's supposed to make a copy of it he's supposed to live by it the mosaic law orders him not to have too many wives too many horses and such things so the davidic covenant the mosaic covenant and the abrahamic covenant are all governing the kingdom of israel all of which is designed to bring about in history and in time and in space uh our lord and savior jesus christ who will then bless the nations but just to keep things in view we have the kingdom of creation with the covenant of works and the noah covenant then we have the kingdom of israel with the abrahamic mosaic and davidic covenants and then the third kingdom will be the kingdom of christ and under that heading we talk about the new covenant or the new covenant of grace i regard regardless as the same exact thing as well as the covenant of redemption because um the kingdom of christ in its consummation extends to all things but it primarily concerns the the elect and salvation of the elect in the blood of jesus christ the death and the resurrection of christ so the new covenant saves christ's people and gives them a new creation inheritance all of which began in the covenant of redemption as the son to be incarnate must he must offer himself up he must be the servant of jehovah and offer himself up and when he has done that he will be rewarded he will have ever life he will justify his children he will be rewarded with glory and riches and honor and titles and all things and then so jesus wins all of those blessings his sufferings he passes through suffering and into glory and then the in the new covenant that's the covenant of redemption in the new covenant that is how his people enter into his glory the new covenant is how his people receive the benefits that he has won for them in the covenant of redemption and that those two covenants covenant of redemption and the new covenant are distinct but so closely related as jesus says in luke 22 and i covenant unto you as my father covenanted unto me a kingdom that's during the establishment of the lord's supper so the covenant of redemption and new covenant are are closely related and they only reach to um to christ's people the my neighbor is not receiving the benefits of the blood of christ um it's only unless he's a believer rather it is the elect it is christ's people which he talks about in john that the father has given me sheep i know them i lay down my life for them they will not be taken out of my hand the father has given them to me so the kingdom of christ is limited to his elect and the new creation inheritance that he gives to them christ's this is a side note christ's work of mediation reaches to beyond the elect men also to elect angels and indeed consummates all of creation but we have a special focus on elect men in this book and in the covenant because the blood of christ forgives our sins and that's a blessing for us so that's the general outline for the book methodology and hermeneutics and then those three kingdoms that that will be the entirety of the book right there um why is it important or is it important for reform baptists well i would hope so you can tell me when you finished reading the book my book the mystery of christ is an attempt to learn from the past and advance it in the present and so my book is intentionally grounded in the arguments that have been advanced by particular baptists and others in the past so i've been very influenced by john cameron and john owen and thomas goodwin not just the particular baptists so this is this is a very historically minded presentation okay these are the arguments that have been used these are the ones i think that are worthy of reusing or representing but the book is not just a repristination it's not just a take this book off the shelf dust it off and hand it to someone um i think that at times our particular baptist forefathers spoken correctly or unhelpfully and i don't follow everything that they said in their literature either so it's not just a repristination of 17th century particular baptist covenant theology though it is very much drinking from those streams and it is very much repeating many of their arguments so it's certainly not a rejection either the book i i hope um and i pray is an attempt to unite various flavors of reformed baptists without a party spirit um as i said earlier different generations of reformed baptists have approached covenant theology differently based on the influences that they were exposed to and the literature that was available to them those aren't criticisms that's just a statement of fact and so i'm hoping that my book could be something that older younger here and there generations or flavors of reformed baptist could appreciate and perhaps find as something that they could read and consider because it doesn't i've tried to avoid a party spirit even with regard to to baptists and so i hope it could be helpful for for any reform baptist reading it even if they don't agree uh and similarly um i want it to be a book that this is this is what i really wanted i wanted it to be a book that would help others to think it through for themselves um i if if a pastor reads this book i would want him to say these are useful tools that i can apply to this other passage that never came up in the book um i can read this prophet or this minor prophet or this narrative or this part of the scriptures in light of what i've learned in this book or in light of what this book has taught me about hermeneutics and methodology and the hermeneutics and methodology methodology that i teach is pretty much just following others it's it's not a sam renahan special of of hermeneutics it's i've learned these things from beal and from ritter boss and from dr barcelos and from others and i think that they're useful tools and hopefully can help other people read the scriptures in in the same way because i believe it's a correct and accurate way of reading the scriptures so i hope that this book will help other people to think for themselves and say okay i understand not just the conclusions but the premises i can think it through for myself and maybe you don't agree but you i wanted to actually teach um not just help people memorize the the information about covenant theology and the next step from that would be that i hope that it would spur more literature another person to write on this subject and say um this may sound weird i'm i'm following sam reynahan in this or something not not that i want people to follow me but i would want people to say his thinking spurred me to uh to think more and i've investigated further i've developed more um these things so i'm hoping not to create sam renan clones but to to just get people thinking and and see what would come from that i want them to improve perhaps develop and improve you know this could be stated better this could be argued more carefully etc so i'm hoping that it will spur on reformed baptists to not only understand covenant theology better but also to begin to express and write about covenant theology in a in a more complete way so that over time lord willing we would have the same a similar body of literature to look at that has the the perspectives and the insights and wisdom of many different authors uh on the subject that all together form a really strong i would say tradition um of of literature for for reformed baptists if it's if it's just sort of one voice that's not a very healthy um healthy situation is it and we do have more than certainly more than just my book but i think you understand what i'm saying i'm hoping that it will it will help grow help us grow in our literature here and lastly in terms of importance for reformed baptists it's my hope that i'm trying to in my book give the next generation of reform back to something that they could carry forward it's intentionally grounded in history so it's it's taking from history and receiving that and trying to present it in a cogent modern way and handing that on because some books are written for the moment they're written for their day they're written for a moment and they're useful then but they kind of just they're flash in the pan they're not needed anymore and i'm trying not to write that kind of book that's what polemical books often end up being i'm trying i tried to write a book that could be worthy of handing off to people for a time until someone does it better or someone refutes it hoping that it it could be something that could be worth lasting for for a time that's that's my desire is did i did i accomplish that again i can't say i don't know but those were some of my that's where this book comes from in my own personal history this was much of the thinking behind why i published it how i organized it what i'm trying to accomplish with it and what i hope it will accomplish for the future so lastly i wanted to just briefly discuss how my book engages reformed pedobaptist brothers and i went to as i already said westminster seminary california so i've i had wonderful godly pedo baptist professors and friends and i still do and i love them dearly and so my book as maybe obvious already from what i've said does not engage them directly this book is not a polemical book it's not about attacking infant baptism it's not it's not designed to do that we need to be more settled in our own principles and on our own foundation before we more um effectively engage those who disagree with us and so this book does not directly engage pedo baptist brothers it does it does engage them or address them indirectly so for example by explaining our methodology and argumentation there's been several people that have said to me you know as soon as i read the first part of your book methodology and hermeneutics i already knew the rest of the book because those foundational arguments about method and interpretation they have a great bearing a large a considerable bearing on how you read the scriptures and how you do covenant theology and so a pedobaptist who would read that first section especially i think that would be the most challenging to them in terms of engaging different models or different views of of covenant theology it's not directed at them it's not addressing them directly but it cert the ideas certainly would address the logic behind pato baptism and reformed readings of of scripture and covenant theology so by explaining our methodology and argumentation it addresses them by now they understand if all they've seen are baptist conclusions now they can see baptist premises and understand where we're coming from i i hope which gives them something to interact with if all they have to interact with are assertions and conclusions it's just a shouting match well no you're wrong because that's not our position no but you see you're wrong because that's not our position you know and if if you're just saying yes it is no it isn't back and forth forever what is that well that's twitter um so the book is trying to give premises trying to give arguments and hopefully that's something that peter baptist brothers could appreciate and even if they don't agree which i wouldn't expect them to they could at least understand and say okay i see where they're getting this i understand where they're coming from and that would be helpful um it's also a book that would show pedo baptist brothers just how much we have in common with them you know they would read the covenant of works and say yep they would read the noit covenant and say yep they would read the covenant of redemption and say yep they would read much of the other chapters and say yes you know we that's what we believe we hold that in common so i think that that would be important um because baptists sometimes get that accusation of being anabaptists or who knows what this book would show the the great amount that we do share in common with our pato baptist brothers um also for just as baptists can be guilty of holding conclusions without knowing or understanding the premises the same can certainly be true for our pedo baptist brothers if they've grown up in a pedo baptist church or a reformed world they may be very convinced in their pay to baptism but with a poor foundation of why when i was in seminary our pro one of our professors did a two-hour lecture on infant baptism and he said we're not going to take any questions during this because he doesn't want to be interrupted that's not a bad thing he just said we're going to go through it uh for for these two hours i think we had a little break in between and i'm going to give my argument and if there's time at the end we'll have some questions so he he gave his um his presentation of pato baptism the justification for it over those two hours and some of my friends in seminary came to me after the lecture and they said you know sam we were listening to uh dr so-and-so's presentation of infant baptism and as we were listening we were thinking to ourselves this is such a grand slam this is such an open and shut case uh that honestly we're trying to understand how could you see it any other way they were they're being honest they're being completely sincere and honest with me as a friend asking me sam we can when we hear that we can't imagine any other arguments and so they wanted to know how would you respond or how would you see these things the reason i bring that up is that for some pedobaptist brothers who read my book if they read my book it may challenge them to actually re to actually examine uh or rethink the foundation for their practice if if they can't envision anything else because they've never really engaged or encountered anything else then my book could give them a serious dialogue partner to think it through and talk it through even though it's not directly addressing them uh with now let me be specific about some points in which it would do this just just two things to conclude the first one and both of these are in the the first section about methodology and hermeneutics i would be i would encourage pedo baptist brothers to rethink the way they do covenant theology in regard to arguing by analogy from one covenant to another covenant in in my book i argue the importance of the distinction between creation and covenant which is not a baptist thing that's just a reformed move but urging the importance of that and relating that to positive law which which basically means covenants are what god makes them to be they don't they're not natural they don't occur in nature god establishes and institutes covenants and so god makes them what they are that means that you can't take the details of one covenant and argue by analogy to another covenant well this covenant must be like the first one each covenant is what god makes it to be and so reformed peter baptist covenant theology is often guilty in my opinion of analogizing covenants uh which is what that's what makes systematic theology override biblical theology in covenant theology is when they connect logical things that aren't logical the connection between the details of two covenants there's no necessary logical connection between them god just positively institutes the parties and the promises and the penalties or the precepts and the penalties and then in another covenant god establishes the parties and the precepts and the promises and the penalties and there may be uh similarities between those two because god made them similar but you can't just argue by analogy from one covenant to another without proving it there's no necessary logical connection between two covenants so that's one of the things that i encoura would encourage them to consider and to to rethink where this is operating in their system because they'll say things like well as it was in the abrahamic covenant so it is in the covenant of grace or in the new covenant and such things and we would say okay you can't just assert that you have to prove it you can't just make an analogy between covenants and consider that the proof you have to show that god instituted it this way and so that's of course one of the in the 17th century the baptist said to the pedo baptist they said you don't have a command in the new testament to baptize infants and the reformed said you're right we don't have a command to baptize infants in the new testament we have a consequence they said and by consequence as the children of abraham a believer were circumcised in the old covenant or in the abrahamic covenant so by consequence the children of believers in the new covenant baptize their children the replacement for circumcision so they make an analogy argument and they acknowledge you're right we don't have a positive command to baptize our children but we have a consequence and my book is is not engaging that argument directly but it definitely engages that argument indirectly by presenting the baptist understanding of that which is rooted in protestant reformed theology basically what we often know is the rpw the um regulative principle of worship you do what god commanded as god commanded it and no otherwise so that's the the first thing that engages them specifically not because it addresses them directly but the logic of it engages them directly if if applied to them and then the other thing and this all conclude with this is encouraging our pato baptist brothers to rethink equating covenants based on the revelation of christ in a covenant and this deals with the importance of typology so what i mean specifically is that if you look at the 17th century or reformed literature really till today you will see arguments that go something like the grace of christ was present to the faith of believers in the old testament that the time of the old testament therefore the covenants that they lived under must be the same covenant that we live under now and in which we receive the same grace of christ we receive the grace of christ in the new covenant they received the grace of christ before the advent of the new covenant therefore their covenant must be the same covenant under a can you still hear me sorry okay i thought my headphone just disconnected um excuse me so they would say if the grace of christ was was received in the in the old and in the new um sorry my phone is doing weird things it keeps telling me it's connecting and disconnecting they'll say the old new covenants are the same covenant because the grace of christ is present in both we would agree that the grace of christ is present in the old and new covenants but that doesn't mean that the old covenant is the new covenant under a lesser form and typology is the key to understanding that and this was really the point that i found to be an inconsistency or attention within the reformed camp itself so depending on how familiar you are with reformed covenant theology you'll hear about things like republication or meredith klein's views about covenant theology um and others like him and they reformed often argue that the mosaic covenant is not the covenant of grace and substance it's a covenant of works that's republishing the the original covenant of works through typology etc i'm not going to go into their arguments but they basically say the mosaic covenant is not the covenant of grace but it's subservient to the covenant of grace i want to say the same thing but with regard to the abrahamic covenant and the davidic covenant and typology is necessary for making those kinds of arguments that that may have gotten jumbled as i was distracted by my phone i apologize but the book will hopefully clarify what i was talking about of not just equating covenants because the grace of christ is present there um christ can be revealed by a covenant or in a covenant without that covenant itself being the new covenant or the covenant of grace in a lesser form that that's the basic argument and typology is necessary for making that argument and again it's not really baptist typology it's uh reform a branch of reformed typology so that's an introduction to the mystery of christ where it comes from uh it's some of its purposes its structure uh how it can be helpful for reform baptists how it may be helpful for our pato baptist brothers and i hope that that motivates you to read the book and doesn't demotivate you from it can you hear us can you hear us okay i've got a question when in history did the the connection or was the abrahamic covenant utilized to legitimize infant baptism does that go all the way back to the futuristics or is that something that arrived later on scene as i understand it you would find that very early in the reformation i don't i don't i don't know about the patriotics i have not focused my efforts into into them if you read andrew woolsey's unity and continuity and covenantal thought he surveys the patristics but the fact is they they don't really do covenant theology like we do as i understand it if you look at augustine he will talk about the unity of the old and the new as well as some of the discontinuity between the old and the new but covenant theology in its development and expression that we have it now is a fairly modern thing at least in terms of of speaking about and organizing things as we know covenant theology today so and also i'm i'm generalizing here so don't quote me on this it's my best understanding that one of the reasons why infant baptism is argued for covenantally and by reformed protestants has to do with the rejection in part of ex opera operato uh regeneration operating in baptism if if baptism forgives sins in the very act of doing it then of course you would baptize your children for f because you're afraid of of their of their death um and because it purifies them when that is rejected by reformed protestants the one of the most long-standing rationales for infant baptism has just disappeared so why do we do this and why should we do this well that's when you get the circumcision analogy based on the abrahamic covenant so i believe that the development of the of the pato baptist argument relative to the abrahamic covenant is in part the result of the rejection of the long the older basis for infant baptism which was regeneration of the ch of the child who receives that sacrament but i would need better study in order to not just assert but argue that with with sources [Applause] if there is another book you could recommend to read alongside this one to help prompt thoughts and maybe argument would you have a recommendation for that uh a book a book with an opposing view or a complimentary view your choice um well the mystery of christ certainly is built on the foundation of from shadow to substance which pastor butler are already mentioned so those two go together um i think that if you if you wanted to read sort of the standard pedo baptist argument richard belcher's recent book i have it but i'm not sure where i put it i did a review of it richard belcher's book on covenant and the fulfillment of god's promises i think it's called something like that that would probably be a good one to read i think that it's guilty of the assertion without argument criticism but it would certainly give i really like the way that he writes um richard belcher gives a a good section to trying to engage with and charitably express reform baptist covenant theology so i really appreciate the way in which he is writing um and his charitableness so i think that would be a good book that's actually dialoguing to some degree with with people like us he seems like the first type of person you would just sit down and happily talk to he's not mad about cover theology now earlier you had mentioned the view of meredith klein in terms of the covenant of the old covenant being covered in the works he's not alone in that so there were you know previous pale baptists that recognize that as well so in your experience when this is pointed out to a westminster pago baptist do they see the the the tension in other words the the westminster does not create the old covenant as a covenant of works but as an administration of the covenant of race how do they deal with that sort of discrepancy right so we do have to narrow the focus of what we're talking about so if we if we expand our scope beyond the westminster confession to the reformed tradition the idea that the mosaic covenant is not the covenant of grace but rather is some form of subservient subservient covenant of works that would be standard fare and no one would really bat an eye no one would be bothered by that it would be just a part of the reformed tradition the the problem is that the westminster confession limits and specifically specifies to be redundantly redundant that the mosaic covenant is the covenant of grace and substance and so the meredith klein's views only become a problem within a westminster confessional context where the diversity of the reformed tradition on covenant theology is not acceptable it's a particular slice and version of reformed covenant theology that's laid down in the westminster confession and they do see that tension that's why the opc has had reports on publication and you can read their long report and i believe an appended minority report on republication and there's been so much criticism on westminster seminary from other parts of the pca and opc world who look at it and say this is contrary to our confessional standards and then people from westminster or those who agree with them will try to make a counter-argument and they'll say we we believe that the mosaic covenant is a covenant of works but it is still an administration of the covenant of grace because it's subservient to it but but that's one of those linguistic traps because what's an administration administration becomes this cloak that covers a great deal of internal tension and inconsistency that cannot stand when when allowed to remain in a westminster confessional context so the you'll find this debate you'll find this diversity in the reformed tradition that's fine you'll find these tension tensions within the opc community especially where some will say this is not acceptable and others will say not too bad but they don't see it as really a problem now what if how do we apply that same type of um how republicationism like fits with westminster um how does it work with like three forms of unity per se going to another confessional standard or lineage yes the three forms of unity do not uh commit one as specifically on covenant theology so it's it's not a problem for three forms of unity dutch reformed christians republicanism would be really a part of their tradition as opposed to a departure from their tradition so it's particularly specifically a westminster confessional tension and then how would you encounter or answer somebody who said you know when it comes to baptism well why are you talking about covenant so i think that often times you know if you don't get uh chapter 7 in our confession then the the credo baptism doesn't make as much sense but i imagine a lot of people say well there's no text that says you know baptize an infant so why do we need to talk about covenant i realized that as you mentioned in the reformation covenant was connected with reference to pale baptism but i don't know that everybody today in the reformed world would see that connection between say covenant and sacraments i think you i i think the answer was given earlier but if you could just kind of explain that a bit i think you know when you mentioned that the covenant works noah covenant is the creation kingdom creational kingdom and then you have the the abrahamic or the mosaic the abrahamic and davidic is the kingdom of israel and then when we get to the kingdom of christ that it seems to be to me a no-brainer so whatever king or whatever covenant administration you're in you go based on that in terms of the sacraments but i don't know that everybody thinks that way how do we change that other than just tell them well to some degree i think you make a good point that it would be part of a sort of paradigm shift it wouldn't be just one little piece it would be kind of a holistic transition in their way of thinking and hopefully connecting the issues of kingdom and covenant would help that person because you know unless unless you're born again we're told in in john 3 that you cannot see or enter the kingdom and so what we find in in covenants throughout scripture is that god often makes the promises or the precepts or the penalties visible through sacraments or through some some kind of ordinance or some kind of sign god often makes elements of the covenant visible in some established right or or sign and so in the new testament when we see the lord's supper being instituted it's explicitly covenantal i covenant unto you as my father covenanted unto me a kingdom this cup is the new covenant in my blood and so the promises of the covenant are being made visible to us through the wine and through the bread and so we at least see already kingdom covenant sacrament in the lord's supper and if we understand that regeneration is a blessing of the covenant that jeremiah 31 as well as ezekiel i will give them a new heart i will give them a new spirit i will cleanse them i will wash them i would say okay the washing of regeneration uh the cleansing of it is a covenantal benefit and there what is baptism therefore it is the making visible of a promise and a blessing and a benefit of the covenant as well as an introduction john three an introduction into the kingdom and so again this would be taking place in the larger paradigm of okay when god establishes and institutes kingdoms through covenant he according to his will often makes elements of that visible through sacraments or visible words and he's given us two in the new testament he's given us the lord's supper and he's given us baptism if baptism portrayed something other than the blessings of the covenant or introduction into the kingdom then we might sort of push it away from looking at it through lens of covenant but when it introduces you into the covenant kingdom and it gives and it symbolizes to you signifies to you uh one of the blessings of the covenant we would say what what else is this uh and it certainly has a parallel with other sacraments in the other covenants even though we don't use those other sacraments to determine what this one is we just say okay god made the promise of life and the threat of death visible in the trees in eden god made the promise of preservation of life visible in the the rainbow god made the promise of the christ to come visible through the marks of circumcision okay god made the promises of a variety of things visible in the during the old testament and in those covenants through outward signs it's the same thing for us but with the specific details that god has instituted for baptism and for the lord's supper so i would hope that they could see the overall context when we approach it from those angles but it it's not just one little gotcha argument it's a whole paradigm so the question regarding uh baptism performed by john the baptist compared to baptisms in the new covenant i don't know much about baptism in the old covenant was that common for jews to be baptized or was that just something that john the baptist started and was it just pointing forward to the new covenant there were a variety of ritual washings in the old covenant especially for the sons of aaron aaron and the sons of aaron the high priests there were also washings for the common people as well and those would would be i believe legitimate precursors for uh what we understand as baptism today they're not the same thing but legitimate precursors and john i think it's necessary to understand as still as an old covenant prophet in old covenant israel and so i would not this is something i'd like to study further and have a better ready answer to but i would not one to one equate john's baptism with christian baptism especially since in the new testament those who only received john's baptism needed to be baptized in the name of of jesus christ so honestly i don't have a fully formed answer to that question it's one that i often get asked and i have not yet invested the time to sufficiently answer it well maybe pastor butler is prepared to answer that if he's thought it through yeah i've actually preached it as consistent with new covenant baptism i think john gill does well in acts 19. so that's been somewhat formative in my understanding but i'm not dr sam so if you don't want to throw down you can do that no i wouldn't i wouldn't oppose you i'm really talking off the top of my head so please don't don't take my thoughts too seriously on this on this question it's an undeveloped uninvestigated part of of my studies thank you i i was simply going to make the comment that what you were saying was helpful given certain controversies this past year that that's encouraging if your goal or motive was to unify the reform baptist world in reading the 1689 federalism site years ago when i first started reforming i was impressed by the whole idea of a 20th century before baptist theology over against the 69 federal dispute and i think that those tensions within our movement are becoming especially evident these days and so i'm looking forward to this book especially if it can shed some light at the methodological work or medical level again with all this talk of who's confessional who's not and as you said the twitter awards that have emerged especially this past year i think uh another question that i would have um kind of going off of pastor butler's uh first question um on uh that specific pale baptist argument and whether it's in the futuristics or not um but where do like we have this type of covenant theology or way that we discuss it in the modern day or at least i think like you alluded to kind of um develop kind of the reformation era but this idea of covenant theology we have um what really is the history of its development did the papists and obviously there's many many different types of positions held in romanism but did the papers have an idea of covenant theology that was developed and when did our modern understanding of the concept really start to develop or come to be what it what we see it is today right the first chapter of my dissertation uh would survey the answer to that question it basically goes like this to understand the modern expression of covenant theology um negatively you need to see it responding to roman catholicism as well as anabaptism but positively you need to see it as a development of the distinction between the law and the gospel which really gets its foundation not just in scripture but its articulation in martin luther and especially his commentary on galatians so when luther contrasts the law in the gospel as opposite paths of righteousness you either have your own righteousness or an alien righteousness long gospel um that really develops into the covenant of works in the covenant of grace um a covenant that has one person's obedience or just um did i cut out we lost you can you hear me now you're back yeah okay yeah my phone disconnects and reconnects and i don't know it does weird things when that happens um the law and the gospel become the covenant of works in the covenant of grace but the and that really is anti-papist uh for the roman catholic the gospel is a new law that's easier to keep and so the law and the gospel are not opposite paths of righteousness it's the same path but the new path is easier and luther is based on scripture strongly responding to that and the covenant of works and covenant of great grace completely opposed the papist doctrine by saying we fell in adam we're justified in christ by faith apart from works now against anabaptists um they the anabaptists would argue just like saucinians do that the grace of christ was not available in the old testament um there really was no salvation the jews just had life in canaan that's all they had um until jesus came you know and grace and truth were introduced by him then and and only then and excuse me the law and the gospel are sometimes referred to as times the time of the law and the time of the gospel which is a separate use of those terms from the law in the gospel as opposite paths of righteousness and so the reformed protestants reformed they said in the time of the law prior to christ the grace of christ was was that was there and was present and in the time of the gospel it's also there and present but more clearly and gloriously revealed and so that's responding to that's where you get oftentimes the covenant of grace under two administrations the same grace of the same covenant is in the old administration and the new administration against the anabaptists and so the typical reformed covenant theology of covenant of works covenant of grace covenant to grace under two administrations is really built on the protestant law gospel distinction as opposite paths of righteousness and the law gospel distinction as successive periods of history um all of which we would agree with that's that's not reform baptist or particular baptist theology holds that all in common um the the where we begin where reform theology and ourselves begin to diversify is how do we relate the new covenant to the old covenant specifically and related questions to that so the modern expression of covenant theology is largely based on the law and the gospel as opposite paths of righteousness and as successive periods of history thank you just a question just a question regarding uh covenant theology and the different views of eschatology uh do they all mesh with cognitive theology all the different views of eschatology or um do they all mesh i'm not sure that's another that's an area that my book doesn't really get into i would regard my book as naturally leading to an a millennial position but i don't i don't advance that argument in my book and our confession is not really specific about a lot of those questions so that's another area that i don't have a great i don't have a great answer to that question i don't know those positions well enough to compare them in my own mind to reformed covenant theology or perform baptist covenant theology okay thank you the only one that would be obviously disavowed would be a dispensational pre-millennialism that would run roughshod against cognitive theology anything that keeps the jews and gentiles separate into eternity would be completely inconsistent um with what i'm advancing in my book and how i would understand reform covenant theology the mystery of christ is all about uniting uniting them the eternal purpose of god being to unite all things in christ jesus thank you so any other questions on uh zoom uh yes uh don has a question uh john do you want to come online and read that question [Music] please read the question out you mind if you don't mind can you hear me yeah yes incredibly interesting i bought a ticket for the whole seat but i'm only on the edge um incredibly interesting is like drinking out of a fire hose um uh condensed into a quick hour but my question was could the passenger man matthew 5 17 and 20 sermon on the mount and that was the fulfillment of the law could that be a lens by which we can approach the contended divergence of all the new governments certainly um there's a very good essay um about how to understand the word fulfill because someone like a theonist would read that passage and say look theonamy or as we would look at that passage and say look not theodomy it is certainly an important passage for understanding the old and the new that jesus is not here to abolish but to fulfill that's really um what i've been emphasizing about mystery is completely in line what i've been what i teach about typology is very much in line with that so when jesus comes you know he says something greater than solomon is here something greater than jonah is here um he says the the bronze serpent was lifted up uh the the manna came down from heaven he points to all these things that were revealing him in the old testament and he's not here to abolish that he's not here to do something other than what god had promised and foretold and prophesied rather he's here to bring to reality to fulfill all that god had revealed as a mystery but is now being brought to fullness just like at the beginning of hebrews 1 in the past god spoke to our fathers in many different ways and many different times etc but now in these last days he's spoken to us finally fully definitively in his son jesus christ so i believe that jesus is signaling in matthew chapter 5 uh he's signaling that he is the fulfillment just like he reads the scroll of isaiah about the servant of jehovah and he says it's me this is fulfilled in your hearing he's telling the people during his earthly ministry i am the christ i am the one who fulfills the old testament i bring it into reality it's not a detour but a destination as paul says in romans that christ is the telos of the law he's the destination he's where it comes to its conclusion which is important as a side note to make when we're accused of it's a point we must make when we're accused of what's known as replacement theology that well you just teach that the church replaces israel and the truth is that israel as a nation according to the flesh does come to an end but they're never they don't have the short straw they're always invited and called and commanded to join with the christ and all peoples in the christ's covenant and in fact they get the first offer of the gospel to do so and a perpetual offer of the gospel that birthright is never taken away from them so it's not that israel well you've been replaced go away but rather your king has come he's taking his kingdom uh in an eternal way which was promised and predicted it's all here this is the fulfillment join join him join him and some of them won't and they're condemned for their own disbelief but he's he's not the detour he's the destination he's fulfilling the old testament so it is an important passage thank you sam yeah it speaks to your notion of biblical and chronological theology rather than systematic theology thank you systematic has its place there's a dozen quotes and that systematic is key for example for theology so by no means is this some sort of artificial biblicism or something like that where we're going to do biblical at the expense of systemic it's just fit for purpose like different tools like sometimes you need a hammer something to use screwdriver and that's all this says i uh i would have another question being that i'm like a question hog this morning um hey i'm justin it can't be a real one because we don't want to tie up dr renahan and we've got work at the church so make it uh oh okay um maybe i'll now we got six months um or more less um when you mentioned theonomy um i know as i've dealt with um some theonomists in the past it seems like the argument that i have come to because i haven't really done much study on exactly or how to refute a theonist of it seems at least the way it's coming to me it is a covenantal argument and that theonomy seems to be a misunderstanding of covenant is that proper or briefly i guess um what is the way that we should approach the army um i'll i'll give a limited answer to that theonomy makes more sense in a pedo baptist scheme if you believe that the covenant we are in now is the same as the old covenant just a new outward form a new administration of it then you're much you have much more in place contextually to say so the laws of the old covenant remain unless god repeals them if we're in the same covenant don't take away god's laws unless he takes them away that makes a lot more sense as as reformed baptists at least as i would understand covenant theology i'd say we're not in the mosaic covenant it's not the same as the new covenant and so it's ceremonial laws uh and other things they expire with it they they were done away with it what is old is passing away the new has come and so for us it it's kind of whose premises are pre-granted for the pedo baptist some of the theonist's premises are already granted and so the way they would argue is one way for us many of their premises are already rejected and so you'd have to argue more fully in order to appropriate a theonomous argument within a reformed baptist covenantal schema so that that is where the covenant theology is one of the ways in which it overlaps with the anime but we can't launch into a full-blown refutation of the anime here well on behalf of our church dr man we're very thankful that you've uh uh spent the time with us we look forward to reading your book and if i get into some trouble i'll be texting you or calling you to see if you can zoom in again and rescue us so i'm going to go ahead and close in prayer at this point father we thank you for this stimulating discussion we thank you for your graciousness again and the gospel of our salvation we thank you for our dear brother we pray that you would bless him bless his wife and his son i pray that he bless the ministry there and la merada that you would continue to use our brother for your glory and the extension of the kingdom of jesus christ in this world through preaching through teaching through writing good books for the edification of the saints we ask that you bless our day here as we have a church workday i pray to you grant us safety and god may we all gather together tomorrow on the lord's day to bring glory to the father through the son and power of the holy spirit and we praise in jesus christ our lord amen