by Angus Harley

Many NCTers, or those of a PC-NCT mix, refuse to accept that Wellum has embraced Covenant Theology (CT). Yet, not only have he and his fellow PCers embraced the Reformed Baptist stance, even adopting a general allegiance to the 1689 Confession, but Wellum has himself been welcomed into the CT fold, and has already defended his own version of CT, namely, PC. Which brings us to a video of Wellum and other CTers discussing the different models of CT.

In the first part of the article, I will cite Wellum, quoting him extensively, to reveal his open allegiance to CT. I will focus on Wellum’s comments that openly embrace the CT system as a whole, and not spend time on his PC values as such. In the second part of the article I will make some comments on what transpires in the video.

Do remember that, because Wellum is speaking in a live setting, his grammar is very loose. I record his comments as accurately as I can.

THE VIDEO

The blurb

Before even listening on YouTube to the video called, “Covenant Theology Roundtable”,1 we are informed in the blurb on the YouTube page about the participants in the panel and what they are discussing, “A live discussion about what form of Covenant Theology is correct featuring Sam Renihan, Guy Waters, Stephen Wellum, and Michael Beck.” There it is from the point of view of the organizers: it is a discussion about the best form of Covenant Theology. Not ‘covenant theology’, but ‘Covenant Theology’. Sam Renihan represents the Reformed Baptists, Guy Waters- Reformed Presbyterians, Stephen Wellum- Progressive Covenantalism, and Michael Beck- 20th Century Reformed Baptists. Also, the host introduces the purpose of the London Lyceum (the hosting group) under the general title of “Analytic Baptist and Confessional Theology”. The host confirms the purpose of the meeting, “we’re here to discuss Covenant Theology”.

In the entire video, all of the participants verbally affirm that they are working within the same structural, covenantal, framework. Even Waters (Presbyterian CT) says this, “we’ve affirmed our bonhomie, and in that framework we can take up these real differences.”

A CT discussion

Setting the tone of the panel and its CT nature, Renihan opens with the inevitable CT law-talk, “God advanced [Adam] beyond his created state by giving him additional obligations- positive laws- as well as promises unto him that would have been unknowable and unavailable apart from God making them known…to Adam”. This is the covenant group Wellum has joined himself to.

Much agreement

Wellum’s opening statement is to affirm unity with the Covenant Theology theologians on the panel and to state differences in detail, “As I listen to each of the various speakers, obviously there is so much agreement, it’s often how you put it together in the details.” Wellum then moves on to say that if he “were to be pushed”, he would be “more in sympathy with…the 1689 Federalists by saying that in Genesis 3:15 we have the initial promise of redemption….redemption begins in Genesis 3:15. There is no covenant inauguration that takes place there- everyone has to read that in; yet, the promise is there”.

Covenant of Redemption and Covenant of Works

Go big or go home. Wellum immediately commits to two big Reformed covenants: the Covenant of Redemption and the Covenant of Works:

“I would also argue that tied to eternity is…the pactum– the Covenant of Redemption. Then it shows itself out in redemptive history. I would hold to a covenant of creation or a Covenant of Works. I mean basically the same context of Adam as a federal head. He is created in his image. He enters into a covenant relationship. He represents us. Sadly brings us all down. We need the last Adam to come…..There needs to be perfect obedience; and that’s a very, very important truth, so that it is a very, very important concept to hold the Covenant in creation, Covenant of Works, Adam as federal head.”

Covenant of grace

Wellum’s initial enthusiasm slows down over concern for ‘Covenant of Grace’: he agrees with the theological ideas it conveys, but there is no specifically designated ‘Covenant of Grace’ in Scriptures, “I want to make sure [covenants] are tied to Scripture.” Yet, due to his commitment to the theological construct of a Covenant of Grace, Wellum proceeds to use not only the Covenant of Grace model, but the phrase itself, saying that the “concept of the Covenant of Grace really functions as the unpacking of the pactum worked out in history in terms of the plan of redemption, centered in Christ for his people. In that sense I would be fully in agreement with the Covenant of Grace, if that’s what we mean by it. But it functions in different theological systems to lead to different conclusions.”

Doubling down

Not settling with his comments on ‘Covenant of Grace,’ Wellum afterward adds, “…the whole discussion of the Covenant of Grace, which, again, I do not reject- people have claimed I do; I don’t reject it; I want to define it carefully, and I want to make sure it is functioning according to Scripture. So, if we mean the one plan of God across the covenants and so on, there’s no problem- ultimately centered in the New Covenant.”

Wellum, still pursuing the theme of the Covenant of Grace, rehearses his view of it: “…Adam, clearly, under a stable (?) Covenant of Works, the fall into sin, Genesis 3:15, the promise of redemption, the unfolding of that promise all the way through the biblical covenants”.

Law-Gospel is positive

In reply to Beck’s comment, Wellum argues that he holds “to a Law-Gospel as strong as anyone. For people to deny that don’t understand my position.” Wellum takes us back to God’s creation of us as creatures and the law that “demands perfect obedience”.

Tripartite division is a positive

Wellum refers to the “tripartite division of the Old Testament Law” as “a very handy division. The question then becomes, is that the way draw New Testament ethics, and…application simply appealing to that, or do we need more than that?”

Visible-invisible church is a positive

Wellum accepts that in the NT the assembly is made up those who are new creations in Christ Jesus. The NT relates that same assembly as having fake believers (visible church), but that true believers are the invisible church.

Discarding faux Progressive Covenantalists

It is very interesting that at the 1hr 53min mark, the moderator asks Wellum a question coming from listeners. He says, “there seems to be people who would want to call themselves Progressive Covenantalists who would say, ‘No. There is no Covenant of Works”. At that comment, Wellum smiles and shrugs his shoulders. Which to me was striking. He retorts, “First, let me say, just because someone says they’re Progressive Covenantalist doesn’t make them one. You get all sorts of people jumping on band wagons that actually distort your view.”

Discarding NCT

Upon the previous comment, Wellum immediately adds, “We’ve also have distinguished ourself…we’ve had to do this, right? from New Covenant Theology. Just simply because there’s too many versions of New Covenant Theology. So, I’ve affirmed from the very beginning, even although people are slowly recognizing this, that I’ve held to a Covenant of Creation, which is basically a Covenant of Works. We call it a Covenant of Creation as there are debates in Reformed Covenant, classic Covenant Theology, over the terminology. And we didn’t want to just simply reduce it to works; there’s more going on in the Garden. Yet it is a real covenant; it is tied to a promise. So, I’m happy to affirm a Covenant of Works; but we mean the same thing. But many people don’t, right? Many New Covenant people don’t; that’s why I’ve said no more of the label, because we’re not going to identify our view with it. So, we still have people who wanna say, ‘Oh, we like what you’re doing; but we deny Covenant of Creation, or Covenant of Works’. I say, ‘Well, that’s not the view’, and you know, you can’t do much about it.”

Endorsing CT’s view of moral law

Wellum begins by referring to the “major, major confusion” over his position. “I’ve writing that I don’t think the tripartite distinction is ‘the’ way by which you apply moral law to you today. It’s not that the tripartite distinction does not have a long pedigree, that it’s not useful, and so on. I just don’t see the Old Covenant dividing it up that way, or the NT authors simply saying, ‘This now applies, and this doesn’t apply.’” Wellum adds, “the Decalogue, for the most part, reflects creation demand”. He then says, “So, I affirm the Decalogue- I mean I have no problem. That basically reflects the love of God and neighbor.” “Now the problem with simply just treating the Decalogue as eternal moral law that I just apply over without any qualification for where I’m at in terms of the covenants, its fulfillment, is the sabbath issue, right?” To Wellum that Sabbath day is not “transferred from the Old Covenant, ultimately, to the New Covenant”. Wellum then goes on to say that in the NT the sabbath day is only a type of heavnely rest in Christ; “yet there is a Lord’s day”.

Recap

  • Wellum is openly embraced and accepted by all the CT participants as a follower of CT;
  • Wellum professes to be a CTer;
  • Wellum holds to all these CT covenants: Redemption, Works, and, Grace;
  • Wellum qualifies his adherence to the CoG as holding it as a construct containing valid theology, but not as an expressly stated covenant;
  • Wellum accepts the traditional CT view of the Law-Gospel schema;
  • Wellum affirms CT’s threefold division of the Law as a positive;
  • Wellum affirms the visible-invisible church distinction;
  • Wellum calls out some PCers as fake because they don’t follow a Covenant of Works;
  • Wellum discards NCT because it does not follow a Covenant of Works;
  • Wellum endorses CT’s view of moral law, saying that the Decalogue, for the most part, reflects creation law. The sabbath is typological; yet there is a Lord’s day;
  • Wellum endorses the tripartite view of the Law as helpful and useful, but the Old Covenant does not divide up the Law in that way.

MY COMMENTS

Wellum has for the longest time now rejected NCT. What most NCTers are not aware of is that Wellum has always operated with a standard CT hermeneutic. It was this hermeneutic that I opposed in my little book critiquing him. So, his exasperation at being misread and misinterpreted by those who claim to be PC, or who have not understood his CT credentials, is genuine. He is not flip-flopping in that regard, nor does he have a theological case of dissociative identity disorder, or something like it. He is not mislabeling himself, nor does he have theological dementia that causes him to wander from the NCT road and to forget who he is. The exasperation he showed in the video with those who misunderstood his PC model as a proper form of CT is genuine. He has, as I’ve said for years, operated with a CT hermeneutic.

We can say, unequivocally, that Wellum has now openly, in the last year or so, attached himself to CT. He was, in this video, formally initiated into the CT community as a fellow CTer. Nor could this have been achieved by regular CTers, but only by CT scholars. You will see him strengthen this position in years to come, and as he is PC’s leader, more and more will follow him. He will drag with him many of a NCT-PC mix, as this is already happening.

Now, Wellum has a right to be exasperated with certain people, but he is somewhat conceited and dismissive of others in their comments about him. It strikes me as being foolish to blame NCT for not accepting a Covenant of Works as NCT’s hermeneutic. Didn’t NCT leave behind CT and DT? Why would they go back to it? For the evidence is there for all to see that Wellum has traveled from professing an NCT position, to a strictly PC one, then onto a CT one. Wellum’s exasperation and frustration is deliberately shown in front of his new CT, academic, peers to demonstrate the distance between himself and those non-CT readers, especially NCTers, who have not understood him properly. It appears to me that Wellum is doing all that he can to prove to his new lover that he is, indeed, committed to the marriage.

I was in discussion with a sister of a PC-NCT mix recently. She accused PC of ‘intellectual dishonesty’, for it professed to be Reformed Baptist but was actually not cleaving to a classic Reformed Baptist position. I explained to her that ordinary RBers would agree, but, in the world of Wellum and co., the hoi polloi don’t count; all that counts is that academic RBers endorse PC as a form of RB. But I did agree that Wellum was engaging in intellectual dishonesty, and has been doing so for a while. Not because he was always a closet CTer, but because of his handling of language, wherein he takes various terms and concepts that are traditionally understood and proceeds to play a game with their definitions. The proof for this is everywhere in his writings, especially in the video cited above. But I will give one instance: his view of the Covenant of Grace.

HIs position on the Covenant of Grace, is but another version of a CT word salad. For, the term ‘Covenant of Grace’ is not biblical, to him, so he’s concerned about it; but its theology is biblical, broadly speaking; therefore, he is going to use the term, and is in “full agreement” with others if by the term ‘Covenant of Grace’ is meant the general agreement! Imagine someone who is Reformed in discussion with a Roman Catholic: ‘I am uncomfortable with the name ‘transubstantiation’; it’s not in the bible. But its general, broad, theology- the death of Christ, the sanctifying of God’s people by the sacrament- I would be fully in agreement with, and I’m in full agreement with ‘transubstantiation’, if that is what is meant by it.’ What does this mean? Either one is in actual fact in full agreement, or one is mostly in agreement, or partial agreement. I saw a brilliant PhD candidate, who was a Hebraist, get his PhD proposal rejected because he did not have a proper title to his thesis. What was the problem? If the title didn’t match the content, then it showed from the very first words (the title) that the thesis could not stand.

In pointing out Wellum’s blatantly obvious CT credentials over the years, many of a NCT-PC mix have dismissed the evidence, and, at times, dismissed me as being divisive and talking rubbish. I want to go on the record for why I write these things about Wellum and PC. It is for one reason: NCT is not CT! I came from a RB, Confessional, background. That was my theology. My PhD was on John Murray and John Calvin. Murray was one of the very first to experiment with CT of a Biblical Theology nature. His view of the Covenant of Grace is in many regards identical in its theological content to PC’s view of covenants. What am I saying? There is an extreme naivety among some NCTers and those of NCT-PC mix about PC; for what PC has done is taken the covenantal ‘engine’ of CT and put on it a PC Biblical Theology carriage. Just like Murray did! NCT, brothers and sisters, is ‘the’ way ahead- not a souped-up, Biblical Theology rendition of CT! So, I will continue to expose PC as another form of CT, because I don’t want folks to be duped by it and to gleefully hold hands with it and skip of into the CT sunset.

1The London Lyceum, “Covenant Theology Roundtable,” YouTube, September 12, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu7O2YbmSFM&t=3059s&ab_channel=TheLondonLyceum.