{"id":1120,"date":"2006-06-28T04:20:26","date_gmt":"2006-06-28T04:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2006\/06\/how-to-read-the-bible-3.html"},"modified":"2006-06-28T04:20:26","modified_gmt":"2006-06-28T04:20:26","slug":"how-to-read-the-bible-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/06\/how-to-read-the-bible-3.html","title":{"rendered":"How to Read the Bible 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Horton&#8217;s <em>God of Promise<\/em>, chps. 3-4, puts the big blocks of his thesis in place, and the big blocks are not hard to understand, and they go a long way to explain how his understanding of covenant theology works.<!--more|inline--><br \/>\nFirst, there are two kinds of covenant in the OT:<br \/>\n<strong>Promissory Covenant <\/strong>with Abraham: also Adam (after the Fall), Noah, and David. So, each of these covenants is a promissory covenant in which God makes an <em>unconditional <\/em>promise apart from any stipulations and conditions on the part of God&#8217;s people. The emphasis is on God&#8217;s promise, God&#8217;s oath to do what he says.<br \/>\nGenesis 15 is not simply a suzerainty treaty but a <em>royal grant<\/em> from the human side but a suzerainty treaty from the divine side.<br \/>\nThe New Covenant, with Jesus, is a promissory covenant.<br \/>\n<strong>Law\/Works Covenant<\/strong> with Moses at Sinai: God forms a suzerainty treaty with Israel at Sinai that stipulates the conditions (the Law) under which Israel must live if it wants to live in God&#8217;s blessing in the Land. This covenant had a limited time (Moses to Christ) and a limited purpose (typological manifestation to lead to Christ). This covenant is <em>conditional<\/em>. The emphasis here is on the oath the humans make to do what God has commanded.<br \/>\nCovenant theology provides for a reader of the Bible a comprehensive grasp of the big picture (if it is accurate). To read the Bible we need, so they suggest, to distinguish between the conditional covenant and the unconditional covenant.<br \/>\nA significant text here is Galatians 4:21-31 where Paul speaks of the covenants with Hagar and Sarah, and then of law and promise, and so on. Here is a clear indicator for Horton that this hermeneutic of covenant was at work all along: from beginning to end there are two covenants at work.<br \/>\nFor readers of the book: Horton&#8217;s book is an intramural dialogue between covenant theologians; there are not other serious discussion partners for Horton&#8217;s book. It is largely the dialogue that goes on within the walls of a place like Westiminster between folks like Geerhardus Vos, O. Palmer Robertson, and the like. He relies often on Delbert Hillers and Meredith Kline.<br \/>\nAlso for the same readers: if you do not know the discussions between these folks, this book will have sections that will be meaningless or quite difficult to comprehend. I recommend that readers first read, say, the article on &#8220;Covenant Theology&#8221; in Baker&#8217;s <em>Evangelical Dictionary of Theology<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Horton&#8217;s God of Promise, chps. 3-4, puts the big blocks of his thesis in place, and the big blocks are not hard to understand, and they go a long way to explain how his understanding of covenant theology works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to Read the Bible 3 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/06\/how-to-read-the-bible-3.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Read the Bible 3 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Michael Horton&#8217;s God of Promise, chps. 3-4, puts the big blocks of his thesis in place, and the big blocks are not hard to understand, and they go a long way to explain how his understanding of covenant theology works.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/06\/how-to-read-the-bible-3.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-06-28T04:20:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How to Read the Bible 3 - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/06\/how-to-read-the-bible-3.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How to Read the Bible 3 - 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