Reformed Theology in Windsor, Essex County, and Chatham-Kent County..
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"And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty
years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect."
-- Paul in Galatians 3:17
"The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam...Man, by his fall, having made
himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second...the covenant of grace...This...is frequently
set forth in scripture by the name of a testament, in reference to the death of Jesus Christ the Testator, and to the everlasting
inheritance...therein bequeathed...This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the
time of the Gospel: under the law it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and
other types and ordinances...all foresignifying Christ to come; which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through
the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission
of sins, and eternal salvation; and is called the Old Testament...Under the Gospel, when Christ, the substance, was exhibited, the
ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed...though fewer in number, and administered with more simplicity...yet, in them, it
is held forth in more fullness, evidence, and spiritual efficacy, to all nations...and is called the New Testament. There are not
therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations."
-- Westminister Confession of Faith 7:2-6
"Moreover, man having brought himself under the curse of the law by his fall, it pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace,
wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be
saved...This covenant is revealed in the gospel; first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman, and
afterwards by farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament; and it is founded in that eternal
covenant transaction that was between the Father and the Son about the redemption of the elect; and it is alone by the grace of
this covenant that all the posterity of fallen Adam that ever were saved did obtain life and blessed immortality, man being
now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those terms on which Adam stood in his state of innocency."
-- London Baptist Confession of 1689 7:2-3
"NCT advocates want us to believe that the OC was an exclusively 'killing covenant,' a covenant 'based on' works, but the prophet
Daniel wants nothing to do with this kind of interpretation. When he reflects upon the OC, his thoughts are drawn to divine
lovingkindness, compassion, forgiveness, seeking God's favour through repentance and faith, and God turning away his wrath.
And in doing so he is drawing upon promises made within the very OC itself...There is no fundamental difference between OC and
NC, on the matter of what is the 'basis' of the covenant relationship. It is a relationship that is created (Dt 7:7-9) and
sustained (Dt 9:4-6; Da 9:4-18) by God's grace"
-- Greg Welty in A Response to Mike Adams's "In Defense of the New Covenant"
"the Bible 'forces' covenant theology on all who receive it as what, in effect, it claims to be -- God's witness to God's work of
saving sinners for God's glory."
--
J.I. Packer in the introduction to The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man: Comprehending A Complete Body of Divinity
"The third way in which Scripture directs us to covenantal thinking is by the specific parallel between Christ and Adam that Paul
draws in Rom. 5:12-18; 1 Cor. 15: 21 f., 45-49). The solidarity of one person standing for a group, involving the whole group in
the consequences of his action and receiving promises that apply to the whole group as well as to himself, is a familiar facet of
biblical covenant thought, usually instanced in the case of family and national groups (Noah, Gen. 6:18, 9:9; Abraham, Gen. 17:7;
the Israelites, Ex. 20:4-6, 8-12, 31:12-17 (16); Aaron, Lev. 24:8 f.;Phinehas, Num. 25:13; David, 2 Chr. 13:5, 21:7; Jer. 33:19-22).
In Rom. 5:12-1 8 Paul proclaims a solidarity between Christ and his people (believers, Rom 3:22-5:2; the elect, God's chosen ones,
8:33) whereby the law-keeping, sin-bearing obedience of "the one man" brings righteousness with God, justification, and life to
"the many," "all;" and he sets this within the frame of a prior solidarity, namely that between Adam and his descendants, whereby
our entire race was involved in the penal consequences of Adam's transgression. The 1 Corinthians passages confirm that these are
indeed covenantal solidarities; God deals with mankind through two representative men, Adam and Christ; all that are in Adam die;
all that are in Christ are made alive. This far-reaching parallel is clearly foundational to Paul's understanding of God's ways
with our race, and it is a covenantal way of thinking, showing from a third angle that covenant theology is indeed biblically
basic."
--J.I. Packer in the introduction to The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man: Comprehending A Complete Body of Divinity
"Dispensationalism and 'New Covenant Theology' are based on a completely false understanding of the Pauline statement that we are
not under the law but under grace"
-- by Brian Schwertley in Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience
"Jesus is certainly greater than Moses. He is the Second Person of the Trinity, and so He is certainly greater than the angels,
greater than Moses, and greater than the Levitical priesthood...But Jesus is not a 'new lawgiver'. And this fact certainly does
not mean that Christ was merely 'rubber-stamping Moses', as Reisinger suggested. On the contrary, Jesus couldn't change the moral
law He revealed in the Old Testament, because Jesus Himself is the one who revealed the law to Moses and other Old Testament
saints in the first place. When Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and others walked the earth, God revealed His law to them. Why should
we expect Him to change it when He preaches it Himself during the Sermon on the Mount? Moses didn't arbitrarily make up law in the
Old Testament. He just repeated what He learned from God. So in truth, Reisinger is not pitting Jesus against Moses. Rather, He
is pitting Jesus against Himself. He is pitting the God of the New Testament against the God of the Old Testament. In truth,
Moses was not so much a law 'giver' as a law 'repeater'. In the Old Testament and the New, it is God and God alone who gives
the law."
-- Richard Barcellos, in response to John Reisinger in But I say unto you, Jesus was not a New Covenant Theologian!
"In conclusion, it is my belief that Dispensational Theology is not only untenable, but disjointed and fundamentally flawed. And
New Covenant Theology is in parts inconsistent and places an artificial abrogation of Old Covenant law. But Covenant Theology is
the Biblically consistent view of how God has always dealt with His people. Indeed, Biblical Theology is 'Covenant Theology,' one
continuity between the Old Covenant and the New. The Covenant of works and the Covenant of Grace, both in agreement and continuity.
One in which we uphold our obligations to the conditional promises of God in the Grace of Christ Jesus only, because He has
finished the works 'required' as our substitute."
-- Tony Warren in What is the Difference Between Covenant Theology, and New Covenant Theology?