Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 65:1 (Mar 2022)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

JETS 65:1 (March 2022) p. 127

Book Reviews

Covenant: The Framework of God’s Grand Plan of Redemption. By Daniel Block. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021, 704 pp., $54.99.

This volume represents the culmination of Daniel Block’s extensive thinking about how Scripture fits together as a comprehensive whole—thoughts garnered over nearly a lifetime of teaching, studying, and wrestling with Scripture. For Block, Scripture is the unified story of God at work in history to restore creation, damaged as it was by Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden, to the “ideal state” that God intended for creation from the beginning (p. 5). This single story of redemption can be divided into four distinct acts: “the background to the drama of redemption,” “the cosmic need for redemption,” “the story of the chosen agents of redemption,” and “the appearance and mission of the Redeemer” (p. 6). To these four can be added a fifth act, the fulfillment of which lies in the future: the restoration of all things in the new heaven and the new earth (p. 14). The key to understanding this story and to linking these acts together, according to Block, is the idea of covenance, which refers to the concept of forming, formalizing, or governing non-natural relationships or restoring natural relationships by means of a formal agreement—a covenant (pp. 1, 4).

Using Late Bronze Age Hittite treaties as a framework for analysis, Block identifies two types of suzerain-vassal covenants that God graciously established to move forward his plan of redemption: missional/communal covenants and administrative covenants (p. 4). Missional/communal covenants focus on the well-being of the vassal as well as the mission assigned to the vassal (p. 4). Block includes two covenants in this category: the cosmic covenant (chap. 1) and the Israelite covenant (chaps. 3–9). The cosmic covenant refers to the covenant God established between himself, the earth, and every living creature, including humanity, to never again destroy the earth with a flood (pp. 38–39). It was designed to restore the natural relationship that existed between God, the earth, and every living creature before humanity’s fall into sin (pp. 40–41). The Israelite covenant, on the other hand, refers to the single covenant God established between himself, the patriarchs, and Israel with a view to the redemption of both the earth and all humanity (p. 68). This covenant was designed to be a miniature version of the cosmic covenant, with the land of Canaan standing in place of the earth and Israel standing in place of all humanity (p. 68). Block includes four covenants under this category and refers to them as stages of the Israelite covenant: the Abrahamic covenant (chaps. 3–4), the covenant at Sinai (chaps. 5–6), the covenant on the Plains of Mo...