Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 26:1 (Spring 2022)
Article: The Past And Future Of Baptist Covenantal Theology: Comparing 1689 Federalism And Progressive Covenantalism
Author: Richard Lints

SBJT 26:1 (Spring 2022) p. 116

The Past And Future Of Baptist Covenantal Theology: Comparing 1689 Federalism And Progressive Covenantalism

Richard Lucas

Richard Lucas is Pastor of Teaching and Reaching at First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Florida. He earned his PhD in New Testament from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Lucas has co-edited Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views on the Continuity of Scripture (IVP, 2022) and contributed to Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course Between Dispensational and Covenantal Theologies (B&H, 2016).

Introduction

The discourse around Baptist covenantal theology fundamentally changed a decade ago with the publications of two landmark works, which have each set the terms of the conversation since their release. In 2012 Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum published Kingdom through Covenant1 and articulated a version of Baptist covenantal theology they described as “progressive covenantalism” for the first time in print.2 Only a few months later the publication of Pascal Denault’s The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology3 was released and then given a wider promotion when it was featured on the new website: www.1689federalism.com. Brandon Adams, the purveyor of the website, coined the term “1689 Federalism” to describe this “new” version of Baptist covenantal theology. A new term was needed to describe

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this fresh articulation because it stood in contrast to the version of covenant theology held by most other contemporary Reformed Baptists. 1689 Federalism was the term chosen by those who advocate for this view because they believe they are rearticulating the covenantal (federal) theology that the majority of British Particular Baptists formulated in the 17th century and that stood behind their seminal doctrinal statement, the 1689 Second London Confession of Faith.

There were precursors to these two seminal works a few years prior. In his 2006 essay, “Baptism and the Relationship Between the Covenants,”4 Wellum argued the basic contours of the distinctive credobaptist covenantal position that would receive much more developed exposition later in Kingdom Through Covenant.5 A year earlier in 2005 Covenant Theology From Adam to Christ6 was published which contained the complete text of Nehemiah C...