by Douglas Goodin
For the last century or so, Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology have been duking it out for the heavyweight title of biblical interpretation. Believers were forced to root for one or the other because they were the only game in town. Recently, however, a third contender entered the ring which we believe deserves the championship belt. Its name? New Covenant Theology.
Now, if you are the kind of person who remains loyal even when your guy is lying on the mat, unconscious, with the ref at number eight, you may as well stop reading. But for the rest, ask yourself these questions—Where does the Bible actually teach a pre-tribulational rapture of the Church? Or, Where would you go to locate the Covenant of Grace in Scripture? (Remember, I said ‘Scripture’, not ‘The Westminster Confession’.) Go ahead, look them up. Go to biblegateway.com and search ‘rapture’ or ‘covenant of grace’. When you reach exhaustion, bring your frustrated self back here and we’ll show you what the Bible does say.
Now, if you go ask your pastor (and he knows his stuff), he'll probably tell you to ask us to show where Trinity is found in the Bible. Then, you'll come back with a smug “take that!” look on your face. But consider this. I can take you to several passages where the content of the Trinity is clearly present (ex. Jesus' baptism in Matt. 3:16-17), but where are you going to go to show me that after the church is snatched up into the clouds, Israel remains left behind? Or where does it teach that “the various covenants of Scripture are not various covenants at all, but various administrations of the one Covenant of Grace”? Go on. Take the challenge. We'll be waiting.
Assumptions drive interpretation. For example, if one assumes that Jesus is not God, but is a helpful guide for loving one’s neighbor, he will be forced to do something with all those texts which affirm Christ’s deity. His assumption will not allow him to take Jesus “at His word.” Likewise, the assumptions of both Covenant Theology and Dispensational Theology require them to “handle” passages which clearly contradict their starting premises. For example, Hebrews 8 states unequivocally that Jesus established a new covenant. But the prior doctrinal commitments of the Covenant theologian forbid him to allow the New Covenant to be new. For him, it must be a newer version of the Covenant of Grace (a covenant which is nowhere mentioned in the Bible). The same thing happens to the Dispensationalist. When he reads Paul asserting that the promises given to Abraham are for his fellow believers, not his physical descendants, his presuppositions regarding the future of political Israel require him to conclude that the promises are for Abraham’s physical descendants despite what the Bible actually says. Neither group can take the apostle at his word because they approach the biblical texts with non-biblical assumptions which force their interpretive hands.
In contrast, the assumptions of New Covenant Theology don’t have to simply be assumed, they can be demonstrated from clear biblical texts. If we can’t take you to a text which proves our point without relying on non-biblical presuppositions, then we forfeit the match because we are violating our own rules of engagement. When someone forces us into an interpretive corner, we desire to land the decisive blow from Scripture.
We believe we can, and that is why we are adding to the endless supply of words in the world.