Claes Cornelisz Moeyaert, The Promise of the Promised Land, 1628. Public domain.
Genesis 15 to Romans 11 · Debate · Featured Study
Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism
Two systems of reading Scripture divide over Israel, the church and the covenants from Genesis 15 to Romans 11.
Both readings hold the same Bible and the same covenants, and they divide over one question: whether a later promise may change what an earlier one meant.
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—
- The question
- May a later fulfilment in the New Testament change what an earlier promise to Israel meant?
Both readings hold the same Bible and the same covenants, and they divide over one question: whether a later promise may change what an earlier one meant.
Summary
The question decides how the promises of Genesis 15, Jeremiah 31 and Romans 11 are kept and to whom.
- The covenantal reading holds that the later word shows what a promise always meant, so the people of God are one and Gentiles are joined to Israel's own root.
- The dispensational reading holds that fulfilment adds to a promise and leaves its stated terms in force, so Israel keeps what was sworn to Israel and the church is a new body.
- Six questions divide them: Israel and the church, the covenants, the land, the law, the thousand years and the timing of the gathering.
- Careful readers of Scripture hold each reading, and each carries a cost the other names.
- The site's tradition holds the second reading and condemns replacement theology, which most covenant theologians also reject.
The Texts Both Readings Start From
Both readings hold these twelve verses and four covenant words, and they divide over what the verses mean together.
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—God names the rivers and draws the borders of the land He grants to Abram's offspring.
Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.The same promise is described here as a heavenly country that the patriarchs desired.
So the law became our guardian to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.Paul calls the law a guardian until Christ, and both readings ask how much of Sinai ends with the guardian's charge.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.The new covenant is announced to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, and the readings divide over who finally receives it.
Regarding the gospel, they are enemies on your account; but regarding election, they are loved on account of the patriarchs.Paul writes after the resurrection that Israel is still loved on account of the patriarchs.
For God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable.Paul says God's gifts and His call are irrevocable, and the dispensational reading rests on this verse.
For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostilityThe covenantal reading sees one people in the two made one, and the dispensational reading holds that Israel's national promises outlast the fallen wall.
Peace and mercy to all who walk by this rule, even to the Israel of God.Paul lays the name Israel of God over a church that includes Gentiles, and the covenantal reading rests on this verse.
‘After this I will return and rebuild the fallen tent of David. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it,James quotes Amos 9:11 on the rebuilt tent of David, and each reading has to say what the rebuilt tent is.
Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with Him for a thousand years.The thousand years stand six times in this chapter, and both readings account for the number.
So when they came together, they asked Him, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”The question shows the disciples still expecting a kingdom restored to Israel after the resurrection.
After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.Paul describes the meeting in the air and does not date it, which is why the timing is argued.
Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.The same promise is described here as a heavenly country that the patriarchs desired.
So the law became our guardian to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.Paul calls the law a guardian until Christ, and both readings ask how much of Sinai ends with the guardian's charge.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.The new covenant is announced to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, and the readings divide over who finally receives it.
Regarding the gospel, they are enemies on your account; but regarding election, they are loved on account of the patriarchs.Paul writes after the resurrection that Israel is still loved on account of the patriarchs.
For God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable.Paul says God's gifts and His call are irrevocable, and the dispensational reading rests on this verse.
For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostilityThe covenantal reading sees one people in the two made one, and the dispensational reading holds that Israel's national promises outlast the fallen wall.
Peace and mercy to all who walk by this rule, even to the Israel of God.Paul lays the name Israel of God over a church that includes Gentiles, and the covenantal reading rests on this verse.
‘After this I will return and rebuild the fallen tent of David. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it,James quotes Amos 9:11 on the rebuilt tent of David, and each reading has to say what the rebuilt tent is.
Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with Him for a thousand years.The thousand years stand six times in this chapter, and both readings account for the number.
So when they came together, they asked Him, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”The question shows the disciples still expecting a kingdom restored to Israel after the resurrection.
After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.Paul describes the meeting in the air and does not date it, which is why the timing is argued.
Four words carry the covenant from Genesis 15 to the new covenant.
| The word | Strong's | Its gloss | Times used | Where it bears on the question |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| berith | H1285 | covenant, a compact | 284 | The word both readings share, used of every covenant in the Old Testament. |
| karath | H3772 | to cut | 288 | The idiom is to cut a covenant, done with the divided animals at Genesis 15. |
| zera | H2233 | seed, offspring | 229 | A singular noun for a whole line, which Paul presses to one person, Christ, at Galatians 3:16. |
| diatheke | G1242 | covenant | 33 | The Greek word that carries berith into the New Testament, the word behind new covenant. |
“The Lord made a covenant - כרת ברית carath berith signifies to cut a covenant, or rather the covenant sacrifice; for as no covenant was made without one, and the creature was cut in two that the contracting parties might pass between the pieces, hence cutting the covenant signified making the covenant.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible · on Genesis 15:18Evangelical
Jeremiah 31:31, Romans 11:28, Romans 11:29, Ephesians 2:14, Galatians 6:16, Acts 15:16, Revelation 20:6, Acts 1:6 and 3 more
Six Questions, Answered Twice
Each row puts one question to both readings.
The covenantal and the dispensational readings answer the same six questions in two ways.
| The question | The covenantal reading: Westminster, Robertson, Horton | The dispensational reading: Darby, Ryrie, Vlach |
|---|---|---|
| Israel and the church | One people of God in both Testaments: the church is the covenant community grown up, and believing Gentiles are grafted into Israel's own root. | Two distinct programmes: the church is a new body revealed in the New Testament, and Israel as a nation still has a future in which its own covenants are kept to it. |
| The covenants | One covenant of grace worked out in stages, each covenant in the story a stage of that one saving arrangement. | Distinct instruments, each kept on its own stated terms, by which God governs in different eras. |
| The land | A real grant that grows: Paul makes Abraham heir of the world, and Hebrews says he looked for a heavenly country. | A real territory held by oath: God alone passed between the pieces, and the grant still waits to be kept in full. |
| The law | The ceremonial and civil parts are fulfilled and end in Christ, and the moral substance stands as the shape of love. | The Mosaic economy worked as one whole and ended as one whole at the cross, and the believer stands under the law of Christ. |
| The thousand years | Commonly read as a figure for the age between the two comings, with Christ reigning now among His saints; historic premillennial readers also stand in this stream. | Premillennial in every case: Christ returns and then reigns a thousand years on earth, and Israel's promises are kept in history. |
| The timing of the gathering | The church meets the Lord at His one appearing at the close of the age. | The church is caught up before the tribulation, and the years that follow belong to Israel. |
THE COST OF THE COVENANTAL READING
The covenantal reading has to say why so many promises were made in territorial terms, with rivers and borders named, if territory was not their point.
THE COST OF THE DISPENSATIONAL READING
The dispensational reading has to say why James settles the Gentile question by applying the promise of David's fallen tent to Gentiles.
Neither cost ends the argument, and both are real.
Each Reading in Its Holders' Words
Each reading is defined from its standard statement and its holder, then read in the commentators of both streams and in the teachers who hold each.
In covenant theology, chapter 7 of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) sets a covenant of works made with Adam before a covenant of grace made in Christ. It calls the covenant of grace, offered from the first promise after the fall, one covenant under various dispensations.
Dispensationalism takes its standard statement from Charles Ryrie's Dispensationalism (Moody, 1966). Ryrie gives three tests: Israel and the church held distinct, a plain reading of prophecy, and the glory of God as the purpose of the whole story. On those tests a promise of a land, a throne and a city made to Israel is expected to be kept to Israel in those terms.
Both names describe ways of reading, and neither names a denomination: a Presbyterian, Baptist or Pentecostal congregation can hold either.
“Behold - And not only with the Jews, but all those who should be ingrafted into that Olive. It is not called the new covenant, because it was as to the substance new, for it was made with Abraham, Gen. xvii, 7, and with the Jews, Deut. xxvi, 17, 18, but because it was revealed after a new manner, more fully and particularly, plainly and clearly.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament · on Jeremiah 31:31Evangelical
“As concerning the Gospel - The unbelieving Jews, with regard to the Gospel which they have rejected, are at present enemies to God, and aliens from his kingdom, under his Son Jesus Christ, on account of that extensive grace which has overturned their peculiarity, by admitting the Gentiles into his Church and family: but with regard to the original purpose of election, whereby they were chosen and separated from all the people of the earth to be the peculiar people of God, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake; he has still favor in store for them on account of their forefathers the patriarchs.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible · on Romans 11:28Evangelical
John Wesley, with both readingsExplanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755
Wesley stands with the covenantal reading on the covenants and on the Israel of God, and with the dispensational reading on a future for Israel and a thousand years still to come.
“Such had been the calling of the gentiles: such was now the conversion of the Jews. Lest ye should be wise in your own conceits - Puffed up with your present advantages; dreaming that ye are the only church; or that the church of Rome cannot fail. Hardness in part is happened to Israel, till - Israel therefore is neither totally nor finally rejected.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament · on Romans 11:25Evangelical
“Glorying only in the cross of Christ. Being crucified to the world. Peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel, that is, the Church, of God - Which consists of all those, and those only, of every nation and kindred, who walk by this rule.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament · on Galatians 6:16Evangelical
“These thousand years bring a new, full, and lasting immunity from all outward and inward evils, the authors of which are now removed, and an affluence of all blessings. But such time the church has never yet seen. Therefore it is still to come.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament · on Revelation 20:3Evangelical
Matthew Henry, with the covenantal readingCommentary on the Whole Bible, 1710
Henry's note shows the covenantal reading carrying Jeremiah's house of Israel over to the church of the gospel.
“8, 9 , &c.), where this whole passage is quoted as a summary of the covenant of grace made with believers in Jesus Christ. Who the persons are with whom this covenant is made-- with the house of Israel and Judah, with the gospel church, the Israel of God on which peace shall be ( Gal. vi.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Jeremiah 31:31Puritan
John Calvin, with the covenantal readingCommentaries on the Epistle to the Romans, written 1539
Calvin stands near the head of the covenantal reading, and his note shows that reading at its source refusing the claim that God's covenant with Abraham had lapsed.
“This objection is what he anticipates in this passage, and he so modifies what he had previously said respecting the repudiation of the Jews, that no one might think that the covenant formerly made with Abraham is now abrogated, or that God had so forgotten it that the Jews were now so entirely alienated from his kingdom, as the Gentiles were before the coming of Christ.”
John Calvin · Commentaries · on Romans 11:1Reformed
Charles Spurgeon, with both readingsThe Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, sermon 3561, 1917
Spurgeon preached inside the Reformed stream, and his sermon shows a Reformed preacher who still looked for the restoration of Israel by descent.
“From the context it is clear that this passage primarily refers to God's ancient people, the natural descendants of Abraham. He chose them from of old and separated them from the nations of the world. Their election fills a large chapter in history and it shines with resplendent luster in prophecy. There is an interval during which they have experienced strange vicissitudes, been visited with heavy chastisements and acquired an evil reputation for the perverseness of their mind and the obstinacy of their heart.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3561: “The Drawings of Love” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) · on Jeremiah 31:3
J. C. Ryle, R. C. Sproul and J. I. Packer1867, 1997 and 1993
J. C. Ryle, in Coming Events and Present Duties (1867), expected Christ to return before a reign on earth and taught a future restoration of Israel to its land and its Messiah, without the pre-tribulation scheme.
R. C. Sproul, in Grace Unknown (Baker, 1997), read the covenants as one unfolding covenant of grace with one people of God. J. I. Packer, in Concise Theology (1993), held one people of God and one return of Christ.
Derek Prince, Chuck Missler and Harold Eberle2008, 2002 and 2006
Derek Prince, in Prophetic Guide to the End Times (compiled 2008), taught that Christ returns before a reign on earth and that what God swore to Israel is still owed to Israel. Chuck Missler, in Learn the Bible in 24 Hours (2002), taught the classic dispensational reading, with the seventieth week of Daniel 9 still future.
Harold R. Eberle, in Victorious Eschatology with Martin Trench (2006), reads the Olivet Discourse as fulfilled in AD 70. He expects the kingdom to advance until Christ returns, which sets him outside both readings on the timetable.
Beneath the Argument
Covenant theology's three constructs, three common caricatures, Ezekiel's temple and the treaty evidence each bear on the question.
Three covenants inferred from the structure of Scriptureredemption, works, grace
The covenant of redemption is an eternal agreement between the Father and the Son in which the Son undertakes to redeem a people given to Him.
The covenant of works reads Genesis 2 as a probation with Adam as federal head, which makes the two Adams of Romans 5 a covenantal argument. The Hebrew word berith does not appear in Genesis 2 or 3, and the usual proof text, Hosea 6:7, can be rendered like Adam, like men, or at Adam as a place name.
But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant; there they were unfaithful to Me.The Berean text reads like Adam, the rendering a covenant with the first man rests on.
The third construct, the covenant of grace, carries the whole system. The dispensational objection is that it then does the work Scripture gives to the covenants themselves, beginning with the land promise. The site's tradition affirms federal headship and original sin passed on through Adam's representation, and it declines the covenant of works built on them.
Three caricatures and their correctionstwo ways of salvation, replacement, rightly dividing
Dispensationalism is said to teach two ways of salvation, and its standard statements teach one. Ryrie (1966) and Michael Vlach (2008) both hold that every believer is saved by grace through faith on the ground of Christ's blood.
Covenant theology is said to be replacement theology. Covenant theologians call the church the continuation of the covenant people, and Romans 11 pictures grafting into a standing root. The claim that God is finished with Israel is a separate claim, and most of them reject it.
Second Timothy 2:15 is said to command the reader to divide the dispensations, a slogan taken from the King James rendering, rightly dividing the word of truth. The Berean Standard Bible renders the clause accurately handles the word of truth.
Make every effort to present yourself approved to God, an unashamed workman who accurately handles the word of truth.The charge is a call to careful work with Scripture, and the slogan's division of ages rests on the King James verb.
Ezekiel's measured temple, read twiceEzekiel 40 to 48
Ezekiel measures a temple in detail, with a Zadokite priesthood and a young bull for a sin offering at Ezekiel 43:19. Read covenantally, the vision's substance is Christ and His people.
Read dispensationally, it is a sanctuary for the coming age whose offerings are memorial, looking back to a finished cross as the Passover looked forward to it.
But I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.John sees no temple in the city, and the covenantal reading of Ezekiel's temple rests on this verse.
Does the treaty evidence date the covenant texts early?Weinfeld, Kline and Kitchen
Moshe Weinfeld distinguished the conditional treaty from the unconditional royal grant in The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East (Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1970). The distinction explains why Sinai reads as obligation while Genesis 15 and 2 Samuel 7 read as gift. Meredith Kline argued in Treaty of the Great King (1963) that Deuteronomy follows the treaty sequence of the second millennium.
K. A. Kitchen, in On the Reliability of the Old Testament (2003), dates Deuteronomy's form to the Mosaic era on the Hittite parallels. Many critical scholars date it to the seventh century on the Neo-Assyrian treaties of Esarhaddon, and Ernest Nicholson, in God and His People (1986), gives the classic statement of covenant as a late development. The dating question is separate from the question of the two readings, and readers of both readings often agree about the treaty forms.
How the Question Came Down
The two systems are modern, and some of the pieces they are built from are old.
Five dated marks trace the history of the question.
- about AD 204Hippolytus, Commentary on DanielPlaces the seventieth week of Daniel 9 at the end of the age.
- 1646The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 7Gives covenant theology its confessional statement.
- 1894Sir Robert Anderson, The Coming PrinceCounts out the seventy weeks of Daniel 9.
- 1909The Scofield Reference BibleCarries John Nelson Darby's teaching of the 1830s, Israel and the church held distinct, into common use in English-speaking churches.
- 2022Brent Parker and Richard Lucas, editors, Covenantal and Dispensational TheologiesSets four positions side by side.
A timeline of five dated marks from Hippolytus to the four views volume of 2022.
The Site's Tradition
The site's tradition is Wesleyan-Pentecostal, and on this question it holds the dispensational reading.
It stands pre-tribulational and premillennial, and it holds Israel and the church distinct and the covenants sworn to Israel kept to Israel. It rests that position on three verses.
“Only if this fixed order departed from My presence, declares the LORD, would Israel’s descendants ever cease to be a nation before Me.”Israel's standing as a nation is staked here to the fixed order of sun, moon and sea.
Jesus replied, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority.The risen Christ answers the disciples about the times and leaves their question about the kingdom standing.
the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory and the covenants; theirs the giving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises.Paul writes of Israel's covenants in the present tense, years after the resurrection.
The tradition holds the dividing wall of Ephesians 2:14 down, so no distinction between Israel and the church may become a difference in dignity, access or the way of salvation.
It honours covenant theology as the work of careful exegetes who take the apostles' handling of the Old Testament seriously.
The Positions Between the Two Readings
Progressive dispensationalism and progressive covenantalism each take part of both readings.
Progressive dispensationalismBlaising and Bock, 1993
Craig Blaising and Darrell Bock, in Progressive Dispensationalism (1993), keep Israel's national future. They read the Davidic covenant as begun now in the reigning Christ and completed later, so the church is the kingdom's present phase. Its cost is the point where it meets covenant theology: an inaugurated fulfilment lets a later word shape an earlier promise, the principle the covenantal reading holds.
Progressive covenantalismGentry and Wellum, 2012
Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum, in Kingdom through Covenant (2012), trace the biblical covenants in their own order to their climax in Christ. They do without the covenant of grace and without the partition of Israel and the church. Gentry and Wellum read the land and the national promises as types that widen to the new creation, which sets the position nearer covenant theology on this question. The dispensational claim on the land, stated before their book by Michael Vlach (2008) and Charles Ryrie (revised 2007), keeps those promises to national Israel in their own terms.
Books to Read Next
Seven works state the two readings and the positions between them.
The Westminster Confession of Faith
The Westminster Assembly · 1646
The confession is short, and chapter 7 reads in a few minutes.
The Christ of the Covenants
O. Palmer Robertson · 1980
Robertson traces the covenants as one unfolding covenant of grace.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
God of Promise
Michael Horton · 2006
Horton introduces covenant theology for a general reader.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
Dispensationalism
Charles Ryrie · 1966
Ryrie's book is short, and it is the first to read for the dispensational reading in its holders' own words.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
Dispensationalism: Essential Beliefs and Common Myths
Michael Vlach · 2008
Vlach answers the common charges against the dispensational reading.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
Progressive Dispensationalism
Craig Blaising and Darrell Bock · 1993
This book gave progressive dispensationalism its name.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views on the Continuity of Scripture
Brent Parker and Richard Lucas, editors · 2022
Each of Horton, Wellum, Bock and Snoeberger states a position and answers the other three.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
Every Promise Is Yes in Christ
Second Corinthians 1:20 is the ground both readings share.
The two readings divide over how the promises are kept and to whom, and they agree that God keeps every one of them in His Son. Both ask the reader to trust the God who swore by Himself to Abram, to rest on the faithfulness that kept that oath at the cross, and to ask the Holy Spirit for understanding.
For all the promises of God are “Yes” in Christ. And so through Him, our “Amen” is spoken to the glory of God.Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Strong's lexicon entries H1285, H3772, H2233, G1242.
- The Westminster Confession of Faith, 1646, chapter 7.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Jeremiah 31:31.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Romans 11:28.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755, on Romans 11:25.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755, on Galatians 6:16.
- John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans, 1554, on Romans 11:1.
- Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, sermon 3561, The Drawings of Love, 1917.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Genesis 15:18.
- The store table scholars: the rows of J.C. Ryle, R. C. Sproul, J.I. Packer, Derek Prince, Chuck Missler and Harold R. Eberle.
- Charles Ryrie, Dispensationalism, Moody, 1966.
Keep Studying
Words1
Places1
Symbols1
Doctrines17