Cal Gal,

Well, you certainly have asked a VERY controversial question and most likely it will open the old proverbial "can of worms"! [Linked Image]

In its most simplistic form, one could perhaps reduce all the views down to four:

1. Dispensationalism
2. New Covenant Theology
3. Credo-baptist
4. Paedobaptist (Reformed)

Yes, there are Reformed Baptists who differ with their evangelical Arminian baptist brethren here and rightly so on many points, but their ecclesiology (Doctrine of the Church) is governed by it. So, in case you hadn't known or guessed, this subject of "covenant" entails far more than one's view of how God saves sinners. It also has a very definite influence upon how one defines and regulates the Church.

What I will say on my own behalf is that the "new" of the "new covenant" doesn't mean in contradistinction to the old but rather improved and expanded on the old.

Here are three articles which you may find beneficial in sorting all this out. grin

1. The Covenant of Grace, by John Murray

2. Jonathan Edwards on the Covenant of Grace, by Carl Bogue

3. The Covenant of Grace, by G.H. Kersten

[Linked Image]

In His grace,


[Linked Image]

simul iustus et peccator

[Linked Image]