“the Spirit of Christ” (1 Pet 1:11), was at work in regenerating his people, generating faith and uniting believers to Christ. We see the gospel going forth prior to the flood in the case of Noah. Peter tells us that it was the same Spirit of Christ who later raised Christ from the dead, who through Noah “preached to the spirits in prison” (1 Pet 3:19). Through this prophet’s word God “condemned the world”, yet those who believed “became heir of the righteousness which is by faith” (Heb 11:7).
The Reformed Baptist covenantal paradigm displays unity in its simplicity. There is no covenant duality within the new covenant. Salvation has always been the same, namely by exercising faith in Christ, the mediator of the new covenant. It is usual for many, if not most, Reformed theologians, when examining the way covenantal blessings in the Old Testament, refer to the “covenant of grace.” In this work, I have, on the whole, done the same. It is, however, something I have not been completely comfortable with. This is because the term is not employed in the Scriptures, and also because no one has ever been saved but by the new covenant. It seems, therefore, more reasonable to say that all believers were members of the new covenant.
With God there is no favoritism, one child is not favored over another on the basis of what its parents may believe, except, of course, of finding itself in a privileged position in regard to the hearing of the gospel. Unlike Israel where all were members of the old covenant, children of believers do not become members of the new covenant simply in virtue of being born into a certain family. God is Spirit and those who worship him do so in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). The only way into Christ is by the new birth, by becoming a new creation; having a new heart of flesh. The church of God is, and always has been, the body of Christ, and Christ as the head of his church is transforming it into the image of his glorified humanity. About all the saints of God John Calvin surprisingly states:
The children of the promise [Rom. 9:8], reborn of God, who have obeyed the commands of faith, working through love [Gal. 5:6], have belonged to the New Covenant since the world began. This they did, not in hope of carnal, earthly, and temporal things, but in hope of spiritual, heavenly, and eternal benefits.127
I say surprisingly because Calvin was a paedobaptist, and the majority of Reformed paedobaptists maintain that the new covenant did not become operative until consummated by Christ.
God’s Covenant with Abraham
According to paedobaptists, the old and new covenants are not radically different from each other. The new covenant is deemed to be of the same substance as the old covenant, although a fuller and more extended version; with salvation being available under the old covenant as it would later be available under the new covenant. So we effectively have one covenant of grace applied under different administrations. What Dabney said about the new covenant applies to most paedobaptists, Wright included: “We understand that the new dispensation is an extension of the old one, more liberal in its provisions, and its grace.”128
The Reformed Baptist position completely rejects this. We do not see the old covenant as being one of grace, and, although it contained elements of grace, there was certainly no salvation under it. Salvation is found only in Christ, the mediator of the new covenant. The Second London Baptist Confession tells us something about those in the new covenant:
All believers are a holy and sanctified people, and that sanctification is a spiritual grace of the New Covenant, and an effect of the love of God manifested in the soul, whereby the believer presseth after a heavenly and evangelical obedience to all the commands, which Christ as head and king in His New Covenant hath prescribed to them.129
By “all believers” is meant all the saints of God from both before and after Christ’s finished work. As Owen reminds us, “the covenant of grace was contained and prepared only in the promise, before it was solemnly confirmed in the blood and sacrifice of Christ, and so legalized or established as the only rule of worship for the church.”130 As there is only one covenant unto salvation revealed in both testaments, so there has only ever been one true church:
Hence it was, that at the coming of the messiah there was not one Church taken away and another set up in the room thereof, but the Church continued the same in those that were the children of Abraham according to faith. The Christian Church is not another Church, but the very same that was before the coming of Christ, having the same faith, and interest in the same covenant.131
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