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the gospel, he has in mind particularly the ministry of the law as it was understood by the later
Jews, who turned the Sinaitic covenant into a covenant of works.
4. Finally, the New Testament dispensation brings richer blessings than the Old Testament
dispensation. The revelation of God’s grace reached its climax, when the Word became flesh
and dwelt among men “full of grace and truth.” The Holy Spirit is poured out upon the Church,
and out of the fulness of the grace of God in Christ enriches believers with spiritual and eternal
blessings. The present dispensation of the covenant of grace will continue until the return of
Christ, when the covenant relation will be realized in the fullest sense of the word in a life of
intimate communion with God.
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY.
How did the introduction of the doctrine of the covenant
affect the presentation of the truth in Reformed theology? Why did this doctrine meet with
little favor outside of Reformed circles? Who were the first to introduce this doctrine? What
characterized the federal theology of Coccejus? Why did some insist on treating the covenant
of redemption and the covenant of grace as a single covenant? Why do others prefer to treat
them separately? What can be said in answer to the flippant rejection of the covenant idea as a
legal fiction? How can Christ be both party and surety in the same covenant? What can be said
against the idea of Blake that the covenant of grace is a purely external relationship? What
objections are there to the idea of two covenants, the one external, and the other internal?
Why does Kuyper maintain that Christ, and Christ only, is the second party in the covenant of
grace? In what sense does he regard the covenant of grace as an eternal covenant? What must
we think of the tendency of modern Premillennialism, to multiply the covenants and the
dispensations? How did modern dispensationalism originate? How does it conceive of the
relation between the Old and the New Testament?
LITERATURE:
Bavinck, Geref. Dogm. III, pp. 199-244; Kuyper, Dict. Dogm., De Foedere, pp. 118-
154; ibid., Uit het Woord, De Leer der Verbonden; Vos, Geref. Dogm. II, pp. 76-140; ibid., De
Verbondsleer in de Geref. Theol.; Hodge, Syst. Theol., II, pp. 354-377; Dabney, Syst. and Polem.
Theol., pp. 429-463; H. H. Kuyper, Hamabdil, van de Heiligheid van het Genadeverbond; A.
Kuyper, Jr., De Vastigheid des Verbonds; Van den Bergh, Calvijn over het Genadeverbond;
Heppe, Dogm. der Ev-Ref. Kirche, pp. 268-293; ibid., Dogm. des Deutschen Protestantismus, II,
pp. 215-221; ibid., Geschichte des Pietismus. pp. 205-240; Mastricht, Godgeleerdheit, II, pp.
363-412; a Marck, Godgeleerdheid, pp. 463-482; Witsius, De Verbonden, pp. 255-299; Turretin,
Opera, Locus XII Q. 1-12; Brakel, Redelijke Godsdienst, I, pp. 351-382; Pictet, Theol., pp. 280-
284; Strong, Discourse on the Covenant, pp. 113-447; Owen, The Covenant of Grace; Gib,
Sacred Contemplations, pp. 171-389; Ball, A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace; Boston, The
Covenant of Grace; Girardeau, The Federal Theology: Its Import and its Regulative Influence (in