Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 26:1 (Spring 2022)
Article: Editorial: The Importance Of Covenants In Scripture And Theology
Author: Stephen J. Wellum

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Editorial: The Importance Of Covenants In Scripture And Theology

Stephen J. Wellum

Stephen J. Wellum is Professor of Christian Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and editor of Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. He received his PhD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and he is the author of numerous essays and articles and the co-author with Peter Gentry of Kingdom through Covenant, 2nd edition (Crossway, 2012, 2018) and God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants: A Concise Biblical Theology (Crossway, 2015); the co-editor of Progressive Covenantalism (B&H, 2016); the author of God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of the Person of Christ (Crossway, 2016) and Christ Alone—The Uniqueness of Jesus as Savior (Zondervan, 2017); and the co-author of Christ from Beginning to End: How the Full Story of Scripture Reveals the Full Glory of Christ (Zondervan, 2018); and the author of The Person of Christ: An Introduction (Crossway, 2021).

All Christians agree that “covenants” are central, indeed fundamental to the Bible’s story. At its heart, “covenant” speaks of God entering into relationship with his creation and specifically his people—“I will be your God and you will be my people” (Exod 6:6–8; Lev 26:12, etc.). Also, all Christians agree that God’s redemptive plan is progressive, that is, it has not occurred at once but over time, and that the fulfillment of God’s salvific plan is in our Lord Jesus Christ. As such, all Christians acknowledge some form of redemptive epochs or dispensations across history demarcated by the biblical covenants, and that the fulfillment of God’s redemptive purposes in Christ has brought some kind of change or discontinuity from past eras. However, Christians disagree on the exact relationships between the covenants. This is not a new debate. In the early church, the apostles wrestled with the implications of

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Christ’s new covenant work (see Acts 10–11; Gal 3–4; Eph 2:11–22).

In current evangelical theology, Christians continue to disagree on the precise relationships between the covenants, which have implications for other theological disputes. For example, disputes regarding the nature of the covenants and their relationships leads to disagreement over such things as: the newness of the new covenant; what moral demands from the OT apply to Christians today, as reflected in differences regarding...