Recently, I was in Warrenton, Virginia with Steve Clevenger and the brethren at Covenant Reformed Baptist Church. I had a wonderful time with them. Steve asked me to speak on Saturday to a collection of church officers from various churches on the importance of the 1689 Baptist Confession and threats to the doctrinal heritage it represents.  Since that time my dear friend, David Charles, has been “on my case” to blog on what I spoke about there. This is for you, David. 

Two threats to its heritage confront us today.  Both have to do with misunderstandings of the fundamental issue of the law.  In this post I want to mention the first of two major threats to the confessional heritage the 1689 enshrines: New Covenant Theology.  New Covenant theology is in flux. Over 25 years ago when it first ignited controversy among Reformed Baptists in Baptist Reformation Review, I wrote Jon Zens a ten page letter on the subject that he was kind enough to publish and then write a response to (twice the length of my letter).  The heart of my response then, to what has become known as NCT, still seems valid today.  

To this day I am convinced that the passage which I attempted to expound in response to the views that have become New Covenant Theology remains a strategic, biblical fortress against its errors.  This passage teaches the truth that God’s law is substantially one and the same in all ages and that Christians do not live under a new and different law called the law of Christ.  That passage is Romans 2, especially verses 12a, 14, 15.  It teaches the substantial identity of and continuity between the Law Written in the Heart of Adam, the Ten Commandments, and the New Covenant law of Christ.  Click here: Romans 2 and New Covenant Theology Sam Waldron