Part One
INTRODUCTION: 1 PROLOGUE
A DISPENSATIONAL THEOLOGY
By Charles F Baker
Covenant Theology sees all of
God’s dealings with humanity under one of two covenants. The Covenant of Works,
though not mentioned in the Bible, is supposed to be a covenant God made with
Adam when He created him, under which Adam had the opportunity to earn eternal
life by his good works. It is taught that Adam broke the covenant, and that he
and his offspring, having become totally depraved, were no longer able to earn
eternal life by their works. Therefore God proceeded to make a Covenant of
Grace with Adam and his seed, so that everything that follows from Adam to the
present and to the end of time is the outworking of this Covenant of Grace. The
Mosiac Covenant, according to this view, is not a covenant of works, as Paul
represents it in both Romans and Galatians, but is a part of the covenant of
grace. Says Berkhof: “The covenant of Sinai was essentially the same as that
established with Abraham, though the form differed somewhat.”11 This system of doctrine makes the Church
of this dispensation to be spiritual Israel; it spiritualizes all of the promises
of the Old Testament; it denies that Israel as a nation will ever be established
in a Messianic Kingdom here on earth; it denies the truth about a Millennium;
and it fails completely to recognize the truth which the Apostle Paul emphasizes,
namely, that the present dispensation of the grace of God was formerly hidden
in God and never before revealed to the sons of men in other ages and
generations.
11 Berkhof, op
cit., p.297.
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