of granting forgiveness and distributing the Spirit, have shown that Christ is currently
exercising his regal rule as the ideal Davidic king.
108regarding the relationship between the new covenant and the church indicates the strain of maintaining the Israel-church distinction, which lies at the heart of dispensationalism.
Among more traditional dispensationalists, at least three to four differing views of the new covenant may be discerned.
111First, prominent dispensationalists have argued that there are two new covenants, one for Israel, and one for the church.
112OT and NT texts refer to the new covenant with Israel, which will be completed in the millennial kingdom. Other NT passages (1 Cor 11:25; 2 Cor 3:6) address a new covenant that is enjoyed by the church in the present age.
A second position is that the new covenant is for Israel alone, and as the sole and exclusive covenant partner, Israel will receive the fullness of the new covenant in the eschaton.
113The new covenant is actually not applied to the church in any manner in the NT. The salvation blessings in the church age are only similar to those promised to Israel under the new covenant. There is no indirect or direct relationship to the new covenant
Church Has No Legal Relationship to or Participation in the New Covenant,” in Dispensational Understanding of the New Covenant, 117-19.
111Compton, “Dispensationalism and the New Covenant,” 6-9, surveys four views among dispensationalists while Decker, “The Church’s Relationship to the New Covenant,” 431-47, and
Christopher Cone, “Hermeneutical Ramifications of Applying the New Covenant to the Church: An Appeal to Consistency,” Journal of Dispensational Theology 13 (2009): 5-22, review three positions. Cf. Gary Gilley, “Laying the Groundwork for the Understanding of the New Covenant,” in An Introduction to the New Covenant, 13-38, esp. 15-21; the three views in Stallard, ed., Dispensational Understanding of the New Covenant; and Fruchtenbaum, Israelology, 354-69.
112Walvoord, The Millennial Kingdom, 214-19; Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 202-4, esp. 204.
Walvoord, “Does the Church Fulfill Israel’s Program?,” 219-20, changed his view to positing one new covenant with application to the church, but he later reverted back to his original position, see Walvoord,
“The New Covenant,” 198-99. Ryrie appears to have followed the same pattern, so Compton,
“Dispensationalism, the Church, and the New Covenant,” 6-7n12. Master, “The New Covenant,” 108, seems to articulate something similar to this position when he writes, “There are many new covenants because each dispensation is a new covenant.” For critique of the two covenant position, see Thorsell, “The Spirit in the Present Age,” 401-10; Compton, “Dispensationalism and the New Covenant,” 38.
113Beacham, “The Church Has No Legal Relationship,” 107-44; Cone, “Hermeneutical Ramifications,” 17-21; Master, “The New Covenant,” 108. For critique of this view, see Compton,
“Dispensationalism and the New Covenant,” 39-40.
for the church; the similarities are only due to the fact that the church is in relationship with the same new covenant mediator, Jesus Christ.
A third view popular among traditional dispensationalists with some variation, is that there is one new covenant, but in some manner the church participates in the blessings or benefits of the new covenant ratified by Christ.
114Important for this view is that the church’s experience of the blessings and provisions of the new covenant
(soteriological in nature), as well as the ratification of the new covenant in the death of Christ, in no way mean that the new covenant is fulfilled either partially or in terms of inauguration. With Israel as the covenant partner of the unconditional and prophesied new covenant, fulfillment must occur with the second coming of Christ.
Lastly, the new covenant is understood to be inaugurated or operative in the current age with church members participating in the initial realization of the spiritual blessings.
115The full appropriation of the new covenant is directed to national Israel. This position overlaps somewhat with the progressive dispensational perspective on the new covenant.
Turning to progressive dispensationalism, progressives recognize there is one new covenant and it is established by the work of Christ. Although the new covenant in the OT context has Israel as the covenant partner, Saucy observes, “The fact that the prophetic statements are addressed only to Israel cannot logically be understood to exclude
114Pentecost, Thy Kingdom Come, 174-76; Kent, “The New Covenant,” 296-98; Decker, “The Church’s Relationship,” 447-56; Harless, How Firm a Foundation, 174-77; Benware, Understanding End Times Prophecy, 75-77; Compton, “Dispensationalism, the Church, and the New Covenant,” 47-48.
Although disagreeing on some details, both Elliott E. Johnson, “The Church Has an Indirect Relationship to the New Covenant,” in Dispensational Understanding of the New Covenant, 164-75, and Rodney J. Decker,
“The Church Has a Direct Relationship to the New Covenant,” in Dispensational Understanding of the New Covenant, 194-222, agree that the church does not fulfill any aspect of the new covenant promises to Israel, but the new covenant still applies to the church. For critique of the single covenant, multiple participants perspective, see Cone, “Hermeneutical Ramifications,” 10-17.
115Pettegrew, “The New Covenant,” 265-68; Pettegrew, The New Covenant Ministry of the Holy Spirit, 34-38, 101-7; Ralph H. Alexander, “A New Covenant—An Eternal People (Jeremiah 31),” in Israel, the Land and the People, 169-206, esp. 197-98.
others from participating even though they are not a part of Israel. The texts never say that the covenant would relate only to Israel and not others.”
116The new covenant is extended to Gentiles since it restates or brings to fulfillment the promises of the Davidic and Abrahamic covenant as the universal blessing to all families (Gen 12:3) and the promise of reconciliation with the nations (e.g., Isa 55:3-5) come to initial fruition through the death of Christ which also enacts the new covenant.
117The participation of Gentiles in the new covenant does not mean that they become part of a “new Israel.” The new covenant promises involving the restoration of national Israel and the physical and material blessings, including the hope of Israel becoming a great nation (Gen 12:2), are provisions of the new covenant that await future fulfillment.
118What is vital for the progressive dispensational understanding of the new covenant, as with the other promissory covenants, is their use of inaugurated
eschatology.
119The spiritual aspects or blessings of the new covenant—forgiveness of sins, indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the transformation of the heart leading to faithfulness, and a new relationship to God for all covenant participants—are now inaugurated in this
116Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism, 114, emphasis original; cf. Bock,
“Covenants,” 190, 219n24.
117For the relationship between the new covenant and the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants in conjunction with the inclusion of the Gentiles in the new covenant blessings, see Blaising and Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism, 155-58; Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism, 121-23, 131- 32. Cf. Ware, “The New Covenant,” 72-73. Progressives also connect the new covenant to the Isaianic Servant who brings salvation to the nations.
118Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism, 124-25, 127-32, 134-35; similarly, Blaising and Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism, 158, 202, 205, 210-11; Ware, “The New Covenant,”
92-93. Cf. Vlach, Has the Church Replaced Israel?, 157-60.
119See Ware, “The New Covenant,” 93-96; Blaising and Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism, 206-11; Bock, “The Reign of the Lord Christ,” 48-49; Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism, 134-38; Saucy, “Israel as a Necessary Theme,” 177-79; Thorsell, “The Spirit in the Present Age,” 410-13.
See also Vlach, Has the Church Replaced Israel?, 158-59. Cf. Richard J. Lucas, “The Dispensational Appeal to Romans 11 and the Nature of Israel’s Future Salvation,” in Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course between Dispensational and Covenantal Theologies, ed. Stephen J. Wellum and Brent E. Parker (Nashville: B & H, 2016), 239-40.
age through the mediation of Christ and the agency of the Holy Spirit. The not-yet aspects include the physical or territorial and political promises as those will be consummated for national Israel in the millennium (Rom 11:25-27). However, progressives also recognize that spiritual blessings of the new covenant are not yet. Blaising and Bock, for example, observe that moral and spiritual perfection (freedom from sin) lies in the future and that the full adoption of sonship (Rom 8:23) and the resurrection of the body to a glorious one are associated with Christ’s return.
120Therefore, according to progressives, the spiritual promises of the new covenant have an already and a not yet realization, while the material or physical promises to national Israel are entirely yet to be fulfilled. One of the thrusts of chapter 5 is to
demonstrate that this asymmetrical conception of the new covenant in terms of inaugurated eschatology is off the mark. Israel’s restoration commences with the coming of Christ and the land of promise is confirmed as a typological pattern given the indications within the OT itself and based on the developments of the inheritance and rest themes in the NT.
121Taken together, the evidence strongly suggests that the entire new covenant is ratified by Christ’s work on the cross and all of the new covenant provisions and promises have a present fulfillment and a future realization equally shared by all those in union with Christ, Jew and Gentile Christians alike.
120Blaising and Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism, 208-10. Ware, “The New Covenant,”
95-96, arrives to the same conclusion that the new covenant spiritual aspects are not yet: “The goal [of covenant fidelity] will surely be achieved in the end. At present, however, the struggle with the world, the flesh, and the devil goes on, but it does so with the resources of a new-covenant provision to enable holiness and obedience. . . . [S]uch new-covenant faithfulness will occur fully when Christ comes again and brings to completion the new covenant, which is now inaugurated in a preliminary way.”
121Intriguingly, Blaising and Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism, 153-54, identify the connection between the resurrection from the dead with the inheritance of the promised land (e.g., Ezek 37:14), but they posit these blessings to the future. On the other hand, G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 751, 761- 62, 768, argues convincingly that the land promises have inaugurated fulfillment through the physical resurrection of Christ, which is also the inbreaking of the new creation. Beale thoroughly lays out how the land promises are universalized within the OT and NT in addition to the NT textual warrant for the already- not yet features (750-72). Cf. Lucas, “The Dispensational Appeal to Romans 11,” 241, cf. 241n17.