An Exegetical Appraisal Of Colossians 2:11–12

By Richard C. Barcellos

Richard C. Barcellos is one of the pastors of Free Grace Church: A Reformed Baptist Congregation, Lancaster, CA, author of In Defense of the Decalogue: A Critique of New Covenant Theology, and co-author of A Reformed Baptist Manifesto: The New Covenant Constitution of the Church.

“and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” — (Col. 2:11–12)[1]

Colossians 2:11–12 is a text used by paedobaptists to justify their practice of baptizing infants. This text is used to display the relationship between OT circumcision and NT baptism. The conclusion drawn is that what circumcision was, baptism is. As John Murray puts it, “baptism is the circumcision of the New Testament.”[2] Simply put, in paedobaptist thought baptism replaces circumcision as the sign and seal of the covenant. Since infants were circumcised in the OT, infants should be baptized under the NT. A replacement theology between circumcision and baptism is argued by this understanding of the text.

It must be admitted that a prima facie glance at the text seems to give credibility to such an interpretation. Our purpose in this article, however, is to examine Col. 2:11–12 in the Greek text to determine its meaning in context and to compare our findings with the claim that it is a proof text for infant baptism. The approach will be as follows: first, to set the text in its context; second, to examine its syntactical structure and provide exegesis of its contents; third, to compare our conclusions with arguments used in The Case For Covenantal Infant Baptism; and fourth, to draw some pertinent conclusions.

Colossians 2:11–12 in Context

Colossians 2:11–12 comes in a larger context where Paul is exposing error and giving its remedy (Col. 2:4–3:4).[3] In the immediate context, Paul warns the Colossians: “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ” (2:8). Verses 9–15 give the reasons why they are not to be led astray in ways not according to Christ.

Verses 9 and 10 give two (possibly three) reasons why Christ is the remedy against error. “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head of all rule and authority” (2:9–10). The first reason is Christ’s deity (2:9). The second reason is the completeness that Christians have in Christ (2:10). A third reason may appear in the final clause of v. 10: “and He is the head over all rule and authority.”[4] This is surely added due to the complex heresy Paul is combating. Paul assures the Colossians that Christ is head of all rule and authority. T.K. Abbott adds:

He is the head of all those angelic powers to whose mediation the false teachers would teach you to seek. As they are subordinate to Christ, ye have nothing to expect from them which is not given you in full completeness in Christ.[5]

Christ is God and provides everything the Colossians need for their souls.

Verses 11–15 present the means by which completeness in Christ has come.[6] The first means occurs in vv. 11–12 (see the syntactical and exegetical discussion below). Christians are complete in Christ by means of being “circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.” Christ performs this circumcision or it is Christ’s circumcision in that it belongs to Him as Christian or New Covenant circumcision (see below). The second means by which completeness in Christ has come to the Colossians is found in vv. 13–15. It is due to what God did to them while they were “dead in [their] transgressions and the uncircumcision of [their] flesh.” He made them “alive together with Him,” that is, with Christ. This making “alive together with Him” was effected by God the Father. The verb συνεζωοποίησεν (“made you alive together”) implies a subject other than the “Him” of συ.ν αύτᾧ (“with Him”). Christ, therefore, is not the subject of the verb. This would be a cumbersome tautology indeed. Taking ὁ θεὸς (“God” the Father) as the implied subject does away with the tautology and is supported by the parallel passage in Eph. 2:4–5.[7]

The Colossians were told that Christ alone was not enough. Paul argues against such anti-Christian teaching by highlighting Christ’s deity and the completeness Christians have in Him.

Syntactical Structure and Exegesis of Colossians 2:11–12

Having set the verses in context, we are now prepared to uncover the relationship and meaning of their parts. As we move through the text, the completeness Christians have in Christ will become clearer.

The first question is the meaning and function of the first three words in the Greek text, έν ὧ καὶ, translated “and in Him” (NASB), “In Him …also” (NKJV), and literally “in [or “by”] whom also” (KJV). The “whom” (ὧ) refers back to Christ in v. 10. Some commentators take this to mean union with Christ.[8] For instance, John Eadie says:

…the formula έν ὧ has its usual significance-union with Him-union created by the Spirit, and effected by faith; and, secondly, the blessing described in the verse had been already enjoyed, for they were and had been believers in Him in whom they are complete. Through their living union with Christ, they had enjoyed the privilege, and were enjoying the results of a spiritual circumcision.[9]

On the face of it, Eadie’s comments seem appropriate. Upon further examination, however, problems arise. Notice that he is arguing that the union under discussion is vital, experiential union with Christ “created by the Spirit, and effected by faith.” Commenting further, Eadie adds, “It is plain that the spiritual circumcision is not different from regeneration.”[10] Assuming a causal order in Col. 2:11 (which will become clearer below), Eadie’s position would imply that the Spirit creates and faith effects union with Christ, thus, έν ὧ καὶ, which is then followed by spiritual circumcision or regeneration. Eadie understands union with Christ here in terms of a vital union (i.e., communion) “created by the Spirit, and effected by faith.” If this is so, then causally, faith precedes circumcision of the heart or regeneration. Communion with Christ through faith precedes regeneration by the Spirit. As we will see below, in this passage faith comes as a result of spiritual circumcision or regeneration (Col. 2:13; cf., Jn. 3:3–8) and is the means through which believers are personally united to Christ (i.e., vital union and communion).

Can Paul be alluding to union with Christ by έν ὧ καὶ? The answer is yes, but not without crucial qualification. To understand union with Christ here as commonly understood in the realm of the application of redemption effected by faith is unnecessary for several reasons. First, the idea of faith is not found in the text until the end of v. 12. Second, faith itself is a result of the “circumcision made without hands” (see the discussion below). Third, the concept of union with Christ is not limited to the application of redemption effected by faith elsewhere in Paul.[11] John Murray says, “It is quite apparent that the Scripture applies the expression ‘in Christ’ to much more than the application of redemption.”[12] Eph. 1:4, for instance, indicates that Christians were chosen “in Him before the foundation of the world.” This indicates a pre-temporal union with Christ apart from faith and void of communion with Christ. Vital union (i.e., communion with Christ), the type of union experienced in space and time, unites us to Christ in such a way that we experience personally the spiritual benefits of being saved (i.e., justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification). Fourth, assuming a causal sequence in the text and assuming έν ὧ καὶ refers to vital union, we would have an ordo salutis as follows: union with Christ by faith then spiritual circumcision (i.e., regeneration). Again, as we shall see, faith that unites one vitally to Christ is a product of the “circumcision made without hands” and proceeds from it, not the other way around. It may be better to paraphrase έν ὧ καὶ as “through your relation to Him”[13] understanding union with Christ here in a non-vital manner. This would allow for a union apart from faith that corresponds with the broader meaning of union with Christ in many other places in Paul.[14] Richard Gaffin argues for a “broader, more basic notion of union”[15] in his Resurrection and Redemption. He lists three types of union: predestinarian, redemptive-historical, and existential.[16]

There are at least two other ways to understand έν ὧ καὶ. It could be understood like the έν αὐτᾧ (“in Him”) of Col. 1:17. The έν (“in”) would function like a dative of sphere. It would be paraphrased as “in the sphere of Christ’s activity you were circumcised.” Or it could be translated “by whom also.” The έν (“by”) would function like a dative of means or agency. Paul uses έν ὧ 26 times in the Greek text. The NASB translates it “by which” in Rom. 7:6; 8:15 [“by whom” NKJV]; 14:21; and Eph. 4:30. He uses έν ὧ καὶ seven times in the Greek text. Though the NASB does not translate it “by whom also,” the NKJV does in 1 Pt. 3:19a and Clarence B. Hale suggests this translation for Eph. 2:22 (i.e., “…by whom you also are being built together…”).[17] It would be translated as “by whom also you were circumcised.”

The union with Christ in Col. 2:11 may be understood best either as a union based on election “in Him” (Eph. 1:4) and true of all the elect prior to the personal application of redemption in space and time[18] or in one of the last two ways suggested above. Either of these views fits the context of Col. 2:11ff. and is syntactically and theologically consistent with Paul’s usage elsewhere. And either view will allow for the causal relationship between circumcision and union with Christ effected through faith, which is clear in the passage (see the discussion below).

The έν ὧ καὶ refers back to Christ and our being complete in Him (v. 10). Verses 11 and 12 go on to describe just how Christians are complete in Him. The verb perietmhqhte (“you were circumcised”) indicates a past action in which the Colossians were passive. They were acted upon by an outsider. They did not circumcise themselves. Someone else was the subject, the circumciser, and they were the objects, the recipients of circumcision. The rest of vv. 11 and 12 are subordinate to this verb and explanatory of it.

The first thing Paul tells us about this circumcision is its character or nature. It was περιτομᾗ άχειροποιήτὧ (“a circumcision made without hands”). It was performed without human hands, unlike the circumcision of the OT and the type being promoted by Judaizers in the first century. John Eadie says, “The circumcision made without hands is plainly opposed to that which is made with hands.”[19] It is a spiritual circumcision, a circumcision of the heart (cf., Dt. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4; Ezek. 44:7; Rom. 2:28–29; Phil. 3:3).[20] Harris says, “It is spiritual surgery performed on Christ’s followers at the time of their regeneration.”[21] The Colossians are complete in Christ due to being circumcised without hands.

The second thing Paul tells us about this “circumcision made without hands” is its effect. This spiritual circumcision was έν τᾗ άπεκδύσει τουͅ σώματος τᾐς σαρκός (“in the removal of the body of the flesh”). “[T]he body of the flesh” (τοῦͅ σώματος τῆς σαρκός) is also spiritual. Since the circumcision under discussion is spiritual, then its effect must be spiritual. The preposition έν (“in”) is best understood epexegetically (NASB). It could be stated as “consisting of the removal of the body of the flesh.” It exegetes or explains the “circumcision made without hands.” The effect of the spiritual circumcision was a spiritual “removal of the body of the flesh.” But what does Paul mean by “the body of the flesh”? The noun άπεκδύσει (“removal”) has a double prepositional prefix (άπο and ε̑κ) which intensify the noun so that it can be translated “completely off from.”[22] The “removal of the body of the flesh” was a radical and spiritual act effected by the “circumcision made without hands.” The “body of the flesh” is what is stripped off or radically affected. As noted above, “the flesh” (τῇς σαρκός) is best taken as spiritual. In this case, σαρκός (flesh”) is used in an ethical sense. It refers to the sinful natures of the Colossians (cf., Col. 2:18; Rom. 8:5–7; 13:14; and Eph. 2:3 for similar uses). Eadie says, “Flesh is corrupted humanity.”23 The fleshly body (i.e., the entirety of their sinful natures) was radically altered by this spiritual circumcision. Abbott adds, “The connexion requires it to be understood passively, not ‘ye have put off,’ but ‘was put off from you.’”[24] The sinful souls of the Colossians were radically changed. The body of the flesh was put off from them. This is a description of the radical effects of heart circumcision upon the soul within the complex of the grace of regeneration (cf. Tit. 3:5).[25] Discussing regeneration, Murray says:

There is a change that God effects in man, radical and reconstructive in its nature, called new birth, new creation, regeneration, renewal-a change that cannot be accounted for by anything that is in lower terms than the interposition of the almighty power of God.. .. The governing disposition, the character, the mind and will are renewed and so the person is now able to respond to the call of the gospel and enter into privileges and blessings of the divine vocation.[26]

Regeneration involves both cleansing from sin (Tit. 3:5) and new life (Jn. 3:3–8). Paul is saying that the Colossians have experienced regeneration. They were complete in Christ because of the radical alteration of soul effected by the “circumcision made without hands.”

The third thing Paul tells us about this “circumcision made without hands” is its author or owner. This is indicated by the words ἐν τῆ περιτομῆ τοῦ Χριστοῦ (“by the circumcision of Christ”). This phrase has three possible meanings. The primary issue revolves around the function of the genitive τοῦͅ Χριστοῦͅ (“of Christ”). One option takes it as an objective genitive and translates as “the circumcision performed on Christ” or “experienced by Christ.” This would refer either to Christ’s physical circumcision or “to his death when he stripped off his physical body.”[27] This is strained. Paul has been talking about what has happened in and to the Colossians not for them. Paul discusses what Christ did for the Colossians in vv. 13b and 14. Verses 11 and 12 discuss what happens in the Colossians and to them. Callow says:

Ingenious though this view is, it seems rather far-fetched to take circumcision as figuratively referring to Christ’s death. There is no suggestion of this in such passages as Rom. 2:28f. or Phil. 3:3. And in the nearer context of Col. 2:15, it is not said that Christ put off his body of flesh, but the powers and authorities. Further, in the ethical application of the teaching here which is given in chapter 3, Paul says (3:9) that the Colossians have “put off” the old man with his (evil) deeds, a statement which is very similar to the one used here.[28]

Another option takes the genitive as subjective and translates as “a circumcision effected by Christ.” The NIV reads “done by Christ.” This makes Christ the circumciser of the Colossians’ hearts.

The last option sees the genitive as possessive. It is “Christ’s circumcision” or “Christian circumcision.” It is a circumcision that belongs to Christ. Either of the last two options fits the context better than the first option. The genitive of possession view, of course, does not preclude Christ from performing the circumcision, especially if we translate έν ὧ καὶ (2:11a) as “by whom also.”

In Tit. 3:5–6, God is said to have “saved us…by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Regeneration is by the Holy Spirit and through Jesus Christ and all is connected to God’s act in saving us. The Holy Spirit is the effective agent of regeneration; however, He is, nonetheless, the Spirit of Christ and God. In the economy of redemption, He convicts of sin and glorifies Christ by bringing the fruits of His redemption to the souls of elect sinners. And He does this as Christ’s emissary. The application of redemption is God’s act through Christ by the Spirit. Therefore, the genitive of possession option can be viewed in a way that encompasses the subjective genitive contention. It is Christ’s circumcision, as opposed to Moses’, the fathers’, or anyone else’s. It is Christian or New Covenant circumcision because it is under the authority and administration of Christ. He commissions the Holy Spirit to perform it, yet can be viewed as the author. As God uses means to save us, so Christ uses means to circumcise us.

An important observation to make at this point is that Christian circumcision, the circumcision of the heart, is the counterpart to physical circumcision. Harris says:

.. . v. 11 presents spiritual circumcision, not baptism, as the Christian counterpart to physical circumcision. A contrast is implied between circumcision as an external, physical act performed by human hands on a portion of the flesh eight days after birth and circumcision as an inward, spiritual act carried out by divine agency on the whole fleshly nature at the time of regeneration.[29]

Just as everyone who was physically circumcised under the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants became covenant members, so all who are spiritually circumcised become members of the New Covenant. Physical circumcision is replaced by spiritual circumcision under the New Covenant.

The fourth thing Paul tells us about this “circumcision made without hands” is its subsequent, spiritual concomitant or attendant. We are introduced to v. 12 by an aorist, passive participial clause, συνταφέντες αὐτᾧ έν τᾧ βαπτισμᾧ (“having been buried with Him in baptism”). The participle, συνταφέντες (“having been buried”), finds as its antecedent verb περιετμήθητε (“you were circumcised”) of v. 11.[30] It indicates a further and subordinate explanation of the “circumcision made without hands.” Wallace calls this a dependent, adverbial, temporal participle.[31] Wallace defines this type of participle as follows:

In relation to its controlling verb, the temporal participle answers the question, When? Three kinds of time are in view: antecedent, contemporaneous, and subsequent. The antecedent participle should be translated after doing, after he did, etc. The contemporaneous participle should normally be translated while doing. And the subsequent participle should be translated before doing, before he does, etc. This usage is common.[32]

The antecedent option would translate Col. 2:12a as “you were circumcised after being buried with Him in baptism.” This would make the “circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ” causally dependent upon baptism and, therefore, a result of it. This would argue for post-baptismal (whether water or spiritual baptism) regeneration in the case of the Colossian believers. This seems far-fetched in light of our discussion thus far.

The contemporaneous option would translate Col. 2:12a as “you were circumcised while being buried with Him in baptism.” This would argue either for baptismal regeneration or that burial with Christ in baptism is synonymous with and epexegetical of the circumcision made without hands. This should be discarded for the reasons mentioned in connection with the antecedent option above. As we shall see, aorist participles subordinate to aorist main verbs are not always contemporaneous. And equating circumcision and baptism is not warranted from this text as we have noted and will become more evident as our discussion proceeds.

The subsequent option would translate Col. 2:12a as “you were circumcised before being buried with Him in baptism.” This view is best for the following reasons. First, according to Dana and Mantey, aorist participles subordinate to aorist verbs can express subsequent action.[33] Second, the burial referred to in this verse is subsequent to the death of the old man in v. 11, effected by circumcision. Eadie says, “It is plain that the spiritual circumcision is not different from regeneration, or the putting off of the old man and putting on the new.”[34] Though Paul does not use the same terminology as Eadie in this text, “the removal of the body of the flesh” effected by the “circumcision made without hands” does transform the old man into a new man, and thus implies the death of the old man (Col. 2:20; Rom. 6:6–7; Tit. 3:5). Third, this view maintains the death, burial, and resurrection motif of other Pauline texts (Col. 2:12, 20; 3:1, 3; Rom. 6:3–8). Fourth, this view comports with the rest of the verse, which sees faith as the means through which resurrection with Christ is effected (see the discussion below). Fifth, this view does not get one into the difficulties mentioned above in the other views. This argues for a causal relationship between circumcision and burial with Christ in baptism. The burial with Him in baptism was brought about causally subsequent to the circumcision. The subsequent, spiritual concomitant or attendant to spiritual circumcision, therefore, is burial with Christ in baptism. Burial with Christ in baptism came to the Colossians after being “circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.”

The application of redemption is a complex of interrelated and interdependent divine redemptive acts. Our text has shown this to be the case thus far with the relationship between heart circumcision and burial with Christ. This leads us, however, to another question. What does Paul mean by burial with Him in baptism? Lightfoot takes the position that Paul is referring to physical, water baptism.

Baptism is the grave of the old man, and the birth of the new. As he sinks beneath the baptismal waters, the believer buries there all his corrupt affections and past sins; as he emerges thence, he rises regenerate, quickened to new hopes and a new life.[35]

Commenting on συνταφέντες αύτᾧ έν τᾧ βαπτισμᾧ (“having been buried with Him in baptism”), A.S. Peake says:

This refers to the personal experience of the Christian. The rite of baptism, in which the person baptized was first buried beneath the water and then raised from it, typified to Paul the burial and resurrection of the believer with Christ.[36]

Peake makes a crucial distinction that is necessitated by the flow of our discussion thus far. He does not equate burial with Him in baptism with water baptism, as did Lightfoot. He says, “The rite of baptism [i.e., water baptism], in which the person baptized was first buried beneath the water and then raised from it, typified to Paul the burial and resurrection of the believer with Christ (emphases added).” Lightfoot links regeneration with emerging from baptismal waters. Peake says that water baptism typifies burial and resurrection with Christ. We have seen that the “circumcision made without hands” is the presupposition of and causal prerequisite to burial with Christ in baptism. On this ground we must reject Lightfoot’s view. The baptism in view here, though typified by water baptism, is not to be equated with it.[37]

Another important and related question also arises at this point. Since the circumcision the Colossians underwent was “without hands,” was the burial in baptism they underwent and their being “raised up with Him” also without hands? In other words, is the baptism Paul refers to here water baptism or that which water baptism signifies - burial and resurrection with Christ or union with Christ in His burial and resurrection? From our discussion thus far, it seems obvious that it must be the latter. Paul is not teaching that burial with Christ in water baptism was immediately preceded by their “circumcision made without hands.” How could he know that? How could he know that they were water baptized immediately upon their regeneration? He could not. However, he could know that all who are circumcised of heart are buried with Christ in spiritual baptism and raised with Him spiritually, typified by their water baptism, effected through faith (see the discussion below). We must agree with Ross, when he says:

It is important to say at this point that in both verse 11 and verse 12 Paul is not speaking of any physical rite or ceremony. The baptism in view in verse 12 is just as spiritual as the circumcision in verse 11. The physical rite of baptism signifies and seals that believers are raised up with Christ by faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead, but water baptism in and of itself does not accomplish this.[38]

Paul could know that the Colossians were buried with Christ causally subsequent to their “circumcision made without hands” because he knew that all regenerate persons immediately express faith and are vitally united to Christ in His burial and resurrection. Murray gives eloquent comment to this:

…there is an invariable concomitance or co-ordination of regeneration and other fruits of grace. …As we shall see later, this is a very significant emphasis and warns us against any view of regeneration which abstracts it from the other elements of the application of redemption.[39] 

We must not think of regeneration as something which can be abstracted from the saving exercises which are its effects. …The regenerate person cannot live in sin and be unconverted.[40] 

There are numerous other considerations derived from the Scripture which confirm this great truth that regeneration is such a radical, pervasive, and efficacious transformation that it immediately registers itself in the conscious activity of the person concerned in the exercise of faith and repentance and new obedience [emphasis added].[41]

Paul knew that regeneration was logically and causally prior to faith and is its immediate precondition. He knew that those circumcised of heart immediately expressed faith in the Son of God. This is why he tells the Colossians that upon being spiritually circumcised they expressed faith that united them vitally to Christ. This view is further substantiated when we understand the function of the next clause in the text.

The next issue is what to make of the έν ὧ καὶ clause, translated “in which you…also … (NASB)” of v. 12. Is it to be viewed as a second, parallel clause with the one in v. 11? If so, the Colossians’ completeness in Christ is argued first from their “circumcision made without hands” and second from their being “raised up with Him.” This view seems strained for several reasons. First, a general rule of the Greek language is that clauses and phrases modify the nearest antecedent, unless there is good reason in the text to go further afield. There is no compelling reason to go further than the immediate antecedent έν τᾧ βαπτισμᾧ (“in baptism”). While some argue that the έν ὧ καὶ clause of v. 12 is grammatically parallel with the έν ὧ καὶ clause of v. 11[42] (that’s the only apparently substantial argument for this view), grammatical (formal) parallels are not necessarily syntactical (functional) parallels. A second reason why this view is strained is because the έν ὧ καὶ clause of v. 12 continues with language normally connected to what precedes it. Paul continues, έν ὧ καὶ συνηγέρθητε (“in which you were also raised up with Him”). Paul is completing his thought begun in the beginning of the verse. The fact that Paul often speaks of burial, baptism, and resurrection with Christ together leans us in the direction that this clause is subordinate to έν τᾧ βαπτισμᾧ (“in baptism”). Just as he Colossians were buried with Christ in baptism, so they were raised with Him in baptism.[43]

The rest of v. 12, then, is subordinate to τᾧ βαπτισμᾧ (“baptism”). Paul says that in spiritual baptism συνηγέρθητε δια. τᾐ πίστεως (“you were also raised up with Him through faith”). The prepositional phrase δια τᾐ πίστεως (“through faith”) indicates the means through which the Colossians were raised with Christ. Meyer says:

Paul is describing the subjective medium, without which the joint awakening, though objectively and historically accomplished in the resurrection of Christ, would not be appropriated individually… The unbeliever has not the blessing of having risen with Christ, because he stands apart from the fellowship of life with Christ, just as also he has not the reconciliation, although the reconciliation of all has been accomplished objectively through Christ’s death.[44]

Clearly, the faith here is that expressed by the Colossians. This is the first mention of human response in the text and this response comes as a result of being circumcised “without hands.” Those who already possess the circumcision “made without hands” experience this complex of spiritual events, being buried and raised with Christ in baptism through faith. This is another reason why Paul cannot be speaking of water baptism in the text. For many who are water baptized do not have faith. But the ones described here exercised faith as a means or instrument through which they were united to Christ in His burial and resurrection. Commenting on Eph. 2:5ff and Col. 2:12, Gaffin says, “being raised with Christ is an experience with which faith is associated in an instrumental fashion.”[45] Being raised with Christ, as with being buried with Him, is causally dependent upon being “circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.” As the Colossians’ circumcision was without hands, so was their burial and rising with Christ.

The final words of v. 12 are subordinate to διὰ τῆς πίστεως (“through faith”). There are two ways to understand the words τῇς ένεργείας τοῦͅ θεοῦͅ (“in the working of God”). The question concerns the function of the genitive τοῦͅ θεοῦͅ (“of God”). Either it is subjective or objective. If subjective, then Paul is saying that their faith is the effect of God’s working in them. God gave them faith. God worked faith in them. If objective, then their faith was in the power exercised by God in the resurrection of Christ. The working of God’s power in the resurrection of Christ, according to this view, is the object of their faith. The final participial clause of v. 12, τοῦͅ έγείραντος αύτόν έκ νεκρῷν (“who raised Him from the dead”), is subordinate to τουͅ θεουͅ (“of God”). God is the one who raised Christ from the dead by His power. Though it is certainly true that faith is the effect of God’s working in the soul, it is best to understand τῇς ένεργείἀ τοῦͅ θεοῦͅ (“in the working of God”) here as objective, as the thing believed or the content of their faith. One reason for this view is that “the genitive after πίστις [“faith”], when not that of the person, is always that of the object.”[46] Also, elsewhere Paul makes the resurrection of Christ effected by God the object of saving faith (cf., Rom. 10:9).

Christians are complete in Christ because they have received a circumcision made without hands - regeneration. Regeneration produces faith that vitally unites souls to Christ in the efficacy of His burial and resurrection. This vital union with Christ in burial and resurrection is a spiritual baptism. Vital union brings believing sinners into the orbit of redemptive privilege and power. Every sinner circumcised in heart immediately expresses saving faith in God’s power in raising Christ from the dead. Burial and resurrection with Christ in baptism cannot be abstracted from its causal prerequisite - regeneration. If one has been buried and raised with Christ in baptism, it is only because one has been circumcised “without hands.” The result of regeneration, faith, is the instrumental cause of union with Christ. And the union with Christ of Col. 2:12 ushers the believer experientially into the complex of redemptive privileges purchased by the Lord Jesus Christ for the elect. In other words, this is the experience of all believers, though not of all those water baptized. All of this may be typified by water baptism, though it is not effected by it. Christians are complete in Christ because of regeneration and its effects in the soul.

Colossians 2:11–12 in The Case For Covenantal Infant Baptism

The Scripture index to The Case For Covenantal Infant Baptism contains 17 entries for Colossians 2:11–12. Space does not permit us to discuss every entry. However, we will examine a few of the uses in light of the exposition above.

Mark Ross, in his chapter “Baptism and Circumcision as Signs and Seals,” says:

It is imperative that we look more closely at this verse in the Greek text. Colossians 2:12 is a continuation of verse 11, which itself is a continuation of the sentence begun in verse 9. Verse 12 is a series of participial phrases, all of which are related to the main verb in verse 11, “you were circumcised.” Thus, in verse 12 Paul is explaining more fully just how it is that the Colossians have been circumcised in this circumcision made without hands. They were circumcised, “having been buried with [Christ] in baptism.” Thus, verse 12 explains how the Colossians were “circumcised.”[47]

Colossians 2:12 in fact contains only two participles. The first, συνταφέντες (“having been buried with”), is the first word of the verse and is immediately subordinate to the main verb περιετμήθητε (“you were circumcised”). The second is τοῦ ἐγείραντος (“who raised [Him from the dead]”) and is immediately subordinate to τοῦͅ θεοῦͅ (“of God”). Though it is remotely related to the main verb, it is not in an immediate, adverbial relationship to it. Ross’ statement makes it appear so but it is not. He oversimplifies the syntax. Further, he claims that the participle συνταφέντες (“having been buried with”) begins Paul’s explanation of “how the Colossians were ‘circumcised.’” However, we have seen that Paul already explained how the Colossians were circumcised before he got to v. 12. They were “circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ” (v. 11). Verse 12 reveals to us the subsequent, spiritual concomitant of their circumcision, not “how the Colossians were ‘circumcised.’” It tells us when the Colossians were buried and raised with Christ in baptism.

On the next page, Ross says, “The baptism of Colossians 2:12 can only be the reality of the Spirit’s working to regenerate the heart and free the soul from the dominion of sin.”[48] But, as we have seen, v. 12 speaks of a spiritual, vital union with Christ effected through faith. This presupposes regeneration (v. 11). If both verses are describing regeneration, then Paul could be paraphrased as saying, “You were regenerated when you were regenerated.” This would certainly be a cumbersome tautology and does not respect the syntax of the text. The Bible uses other words and phrases to describe regeneration that Paul could have used here (i.e., born from above). However, it is clear from the exposition above that Paul is not speaking about regeneration in v. 12. He is speaking about the fruit of regeneration - union with Christ in burial and resurrection, effected through faith.

Cornelis Venema, in his chapter “Covenant Theology and Baptism,” says:

…it is not surprising to find the apostle Paul treating baptism as the new covenant counterpart to circumcision (Col. 2:11–13). …Baptism now represents the spiritual circumcision “made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh” (Col. 2:11).[49]

Venema offers no exegesis, only assertions. Our exegesis above has made it clear that Col. 2:11–12 does not warrant such statements. The New Covenant counterpart to physical circumcision is spiritual circumcision. Venema’s claim, in essence, is that water baptism represents regeneration. The baptism of Col. 2:12, however, is spiritual baptism that represents vital union with Christ. Regeneration is presupposed and effects burial and resurrection with Christ in baptism through faith. Venema is assuming that baptism has replaced circumcision by this statement. Our exegesis has shown this to be an unwarranted implication of the text.

In a context discussing the household baptisms of the New Testament, Joel Beeke and Ray Lanning say:

Similarly, children of believing parents are addressed as members of churches at Ephesus (Eph. 6:1–4) and Colossae (Col. 3:20). These children were also baptized, as Paul affirms in Colossians 2:11–12, where he calls baptism “the circumcision of Christ.”[50]

This appears to claim that Paul is speaking of water baptism in Col. 2:11–12. If this is what the authors are claiming, it contradicts what we have seen Ross claim later in the book, where he says, “It is important to say at this point that in both verse 11 and verse 12 Paul is not speaking of any physical rite or ceremony. The baptism in view in verse 12 is just as spiritual as the circumcision in verse 11.”[51] Also, we have already seen that all who are spiritually circumcised are spiritually buried and raised with Christ, effected through faith. Beeke and Lanning’s statement would then imply that all the children Paul was addressing were also regenerated. But, of course, they do not advocate that. The main problem with their statement comes in its final sentence. “These children were also baptized, as Paul affirms in Colossians 2:11–12, where he calls baptism ‘the circumcision of Christ.’” They equate circumcision with baptism. But, as we have seen clearly, Paul does not do this.

Pertinent Conclusions

Baptism does not replace circumcision as the sign and seal of the covenant. We have seen clearly that spiritual circumcision, not baptism, replaces physical circumcision. Baptism in Col. 2:12 (i.e., vital union with Christ) is a result of spiritual circumcision. Burial and resurrection with Christ is not equivalent to but causally subsequent to spiritual circumcision. Physical circumcision has been replaced by spiritual circumcision under the New Covenant. The correspondence between the two, however, is not one-to-one. Paul tells us this by saying that New Covenant circumcision is “a circumcision made without hands.” Though physical circumcision and spiritual circumcision are related they are not equivalent. One is physical and does not affect the heart; the other is spiritual and does not affect the body. Both are indications of covenant membership. But only the circumcision of the heart guarantees one’s eternal destiny, for all the regenerate express faith and “are protected by the power of God through faith” (1 Pet. 1:5).

We must take issue with those who argue from this text that baptism replaces circumcision. The Lutheran scholar Eduard Lohse asserts, “Baptism is called circumcision here… The circumcision of Christ which every member of the community has experienced is nothing other than being baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ.”[52] We have seen, however, that the only replacement motif in this text is between physical circumcision and spiritual circumcision. Spiritual circumcision is not equivalent to baptism. Baptism (i.e. union with Christ) is the sphere in which burial and resurrection with Christ occurs, which is effected through faith, and a result of spiritual circumcision.

The Reformed commentator William Hendriksen says:

Evidently Paul in this entire paragraph magnifies Christian baptism as much as he, by clear implication, disapproves of the continuation of the rite of circumcision if viewed as having anything to do with salvation. The definite implication, therefore, is that baptism has taken the place of circumcision. Hence, what is said with reference to circumcision in Rom. 4:11, as being a sign and a seal, holds also for baptism. In the Colossian context baptism is specifically a sign and seal of having been buried with Christ and of having been raised with him [emphasis Hendriksen’s].[53]

We take issue with Hendriksen’s view on several fronts. First, Paul is not magnifying Christian baptism in this text. He is magnifying Christian circumcision. This is evident by the fact that “you were also circumcised” is the regulating verb to which the rest of vv. 11 and 12 are subordinate. Second, there is not a “definite implication …that baptism has taken the place of circumcision.” Our exegesis has shown us this clearly. Third, it is not true that “what is said with reference to circumcision in Rom. 4:11, as being a sign and a seal, holds also for baptism.” This is so because Paul is not arguing for a replacement theology between physical circumcision and water baptism and because the seal of the New Covenant is the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13; 4:30).

Fourth, Paul says nothing in Col. 2:11–12 about baptism being “a sign and seal of having been buried with Christ and of having been raised with him.” He does say that the subsequent, spiritual concomitant of spiritual circumcision is spiritual burial and resurrection with Christ in baptism effected through faith. There is no hint of baptism being a sign and seal as argued by Hendriksen. It is of interest to note one of Hendriksen’s footnotes to these statements. Notice the concession he makes.

I am speaking here about a clear implication. The surface contrast is that between literal circumcision and circumcision without hands, namely, the circumcision of the heart, as explained. But the implication also is clear. Hence, the following statement is correct: “Since, then, baptism has come in the place of circumcision (Col. 2:11–13), the children should be baptized as heirs of the kingdom of God and of his covenant” (Form for the Baptism of Infants in Psalter Hymnal of the Christian Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1959, p. 86). When God made his covenant with Abraham the children were included (Gen. 17:1–14). This covenant, in its spiritual aspects, was continued in the present dispensation (Acts 2:38, 29; Rom. 4:9–12; Gal. 3:7, 8, 29). Therefore the children are still included and should still receive the sign, which in the present dispensation, as Paul makes clear in Col. 2:11, 12, is baptism [emphases Hendriksen’s].[54]

Hendriksen’s concession that “The surface contrast is that between literal circumcision and circumcision without hands” surely sheds doubt over his initial claim of “speaking here about a clear implication.” Again, we have seen that Paul is not arguing that water baptism replaces physical circumcision as a sign and seal of the covenant. It does not follow, then, that “the children should be baptized as heirs of the kingdom of God and of his covenant.” Paul does not say or imply that the sign of the covenant is baptism. Instead, the sign of the covenant is regeneration. All who are spiritually circumcised are immediately buried and raised with Christ in baptism, effected through faith. Colossians 2:11–12 is about the application of redemption to elect souls and does not imply infant baptism, some of which are not elect. If it implies anything about water baptism, it implies that it ought to be administered to those who have been circumcised of heart and vitally united to Christ through faith as a symbol of these spiritual blessings.

All who are circumcised of heart are buried and raised with Christ through faith immediately subsequent to their heart circumcision. Regeneration cannot be abstracted from its immediate fruits. All regenerate souls are immediately untied to Christ through faith. This is what Col. 2:11–12 clearly teaches. Our exegesis argues for an ordo salutus as follows: regeneration, then union with Christ through faith. And this experience is that of all the regenerate and has nothing to do with the act of water baptism in itself.

This text neither teaches baptismal regeneration nor implies infant baptism. In context, it is displaying the completeness believers have in Christ. It does not apply to unbelievers or to all who are baptized by any mode and by properly recognized ecclesiastical administrators. It has to do with the spiritual realities that come to souls who are Christ’s sheep. It has to do with the application of redemption to elect sinners. It has to do with regeneration, faith, and experiential union with Christ. These are the aspects of completeness in Christ Paul highlights here. We should gain much encouragement from these things. They were revealed to fortify believers against error. They were written to strengthen saints already in Christ. They were not revealed as proof for the subjects of baptism. They were not revealed to teach us that water baptism replaces physical circumcision as the sign and seal of the covenant. God gave us Col. 2:11–12 to display this fact: When you have Jesus, you have all you need!

Notes

1. English Bible references are taken from The New American Standard Bible. Greek references are taken from The Greek New Testament, UBS, third edition.
2. Quoted by Joseph Pipa, “The Mode of Baptism” in Gregg Strawbridge, ed., The Case For Covenantal Infant Baptism (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2003), 123.
3. See Murray J. Harris, Exegetical Guide to the New Testament: Colossians & Philemon (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), 85–143 for his discussion on this section and reasons for his outline of this portion of the epistle.
4. This is a relative clause and should be translated “who is” (NKJV).
5. T.K. Abbott, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians in The International Critical Commentary, eds. S.R. Driver, A. Plummer, and C.A. Briggs (reprint ed., Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1974), 250.
6. “Here in 2:11–15 Paul described in more detail the fullness believers have in Christ through salvation.” Sharon Gray, ed., Translator’s Notes on Colossians (Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 2001), 61.
7. Cf. Harris, Colossians and Philemon, 106 and J.B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon (New York: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1897), 183.
8. Cf. Harris, Colossians and Philemon, 101 and John Eadie, Colossians (reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Klock & Klock, 1980), 149.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., 151.
11. See the discussion by John Murray in Redemption Accomplished and Applied (reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1987), 161–173.
12. Murray, Redemption, 161.
13. Harris, Colossians and Philemon, 101.
14. Cf. Murray’s discussion as noted above.
15. Richard B. Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology (reprint ed., Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1987), 53. Gaffin relies heavily on John Murray at this point. Cf., John Murray, “Definitive Sanctification” in Collected Writing of John Murray, vol. 2, Selected Lectures in Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1984), 277–284.
16. Ibid., 57.
17. Clarence B. Hale, The Meaning of “In Christ” in the Greek New Testament (Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1991), 32. Hale translates Col. 2:11 “in whom also.”
18. John Callow acknowledges that union can be understood “outside the categories of time (Eph. 1:4)” though he does not opt for this view. See John Callow, A Semantic Structure Analysis of Colossians, ed. Michael F. Kopesec (Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1983), 140.
19. Eadie, Colossians, 150.
20. Ibid., 149; Harris, Colossians & Philemon, 101; and Lightfoot, Colossians and Philemon, 181.
21. Harris, Colossians & Philemon, 116.
22. Ibid., 101.
23. Eadie, Colossians, 150. Cf. John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries, vol. XXI, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians (reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1984), 184.
24. Abbott, Ephesians and Colossians, 250.
25. Cf. Calvin, Colossians, 184 and Eadie, Colossians, 151.
26. Murray, Selected Lectures, 171.
27. Harris, Colossians & Philemon, 102. This is also Peter T. O’Brien’s view in David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker, eds., Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 44, Colossians, Philemon (Waco, TX: Word Books, Publisher, 1982), 117–118.
28. Callow, Semantic Structure, 141.
29. Harris, Colossians & Philemon, 103.
30. Ibid.
31. Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 622–627.
32. Ibid., 623.
33. H.E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1955), 230.
34. Eadie, Colossians, 151.
35. Lightfoot, Colossians and Philemon, 182.
36. A.S. Peake, The Epistle to the Colossians in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, vol. 3, ed. W. Robertson Nicoll (reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988), 525.
37. I am not claiming that Peake holds the view I’m advocating. I am using the distinction he makes and may be applying it in a different way than he would have.
38. Mark E. Ross, “Baptism and Circumcision as Signs and Seals” in Strawbridge, ed., Infant Baptism, 103.
39. Murray Redemption, 101.
40. Ibid., 104.
41. Ibid., 104-105. Murray’s comments come after discussing Jn. 3 and 1 Jn. concerning regeneration and its effects.
42. Abbott, Ephesians and Colossians, 251. This is Meyer’s view according to Abbot.
43. Ibid.
44. Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, Critical and Exegetical Hand-Book to the Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians, and to Philemon (reprint ed., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1983), 301.
45. Gaffin, Resurrection, 129.
46. Abbott, Ephesians and Colossians, 252. Cf., Eadie, Colossians, 156; Harris, Colossians & Philemon, 105; Lightfoot, Colossians and Philemon, 183; Peake, Colossians, 526.
47. Ross, “Baptism and Circumcision as Signs and Seals” in Strawbridge, ed., Infant Baptism, 102.
48. Ibid., 103.
49. Cornelis P. Venema, “Covenant Theology and Baptism” in Strawbridge, ed., Infant Baptism, 222.
50. Joel R. Beeke and Ray B. Lanning, “Unto You, and to Your Children” in Strawbridge, ed., Infant Baptism, 52.
51. Mark E. Ross, “Baptism and Circumcision as Signs and Seals” in Strawbridge, ed., Infant Baptism, 103.
52. Eduard Lohse, Colossians and Philemon (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 101, 102.
53. William Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon (reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1995), 116.
54. Ibid., 116, n. 86.

The Calvin Of England: Some Aspects of the Life of John Owen (1616–1683) and his Teaching on Biblical Piety

By Michael A. G. Haykin

Michael A.G. Haykin, Th.D. (University of Toronto), is Principal, The Toronto Baptist Seminary and Bible College and Senior Fellow, The Jonathan Edwards Centre for Reformed Spirituality.

The Puritan John Owen…was one of the greatest of English theologians. In an age of giants, he overtopped them all. C.H. Spurgeon called him the prince of divines. He is hardly known today, and we are the poorer for our ignorance.[1]

Charles II (r.1660–1685) once asked one of the most learned scholars that he knew why any intelligent person should waste time listening to the sermons of an uneducated tinker and Baptist preacher by the name of John Bunyan (1628–1688). “Could I possess the tinker’s abilities for preaching, please your majesty,” replied the scholar, “I would gladly relinquish all my learning.” The name of the scholar was John Owen, and this small story – apparently true and not apocryphal – says a good deal about the man and his Christian character. His love of and concern for the preaching of the Word reveals a man who was Puritan to the core. And the fragrant humility of his reply to the king was a virtue that permeated all of his writings, in which he sought to glorify the triune God and help God’s people find that maturity that was theirs in Christ.[2]

In his own day some of Owen’s fellow Puritans called him the “Calvin of England.”[3] More recently, Roger Nicole has described Owen as “the greatest divine who ever wrote in English” and J. I. Packer says of him that during his career as a Christian theologian he was “England’s foremost bastion and champion of Reformed evangelical orthodoxy.”[4] But, as will be seen, Owen’s chief interest was not in producing theological treatises for their own sake, but to advance the personal holiness of God’s people.[5]

“Bred Up…Under…A Nonconformist”: Owen’s Early Years [6]

John Owen was born in 1616, the same year that William Shakespeare died. He grew up in a Christian home in a small village now known as Stadhampton, about five miles south-east of Oxford. His father, Henry Owen, was the minister of the parish church there and a Puritan. The names of three of his brothers have also come down to us: William, who became the Puritan minister at Remenham, just north of Henley-on-Thames; Henry who fought as a major in Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army; and Philemon, who was killed fighting under Cromwell in Ireland in 1649.[7]

Of Owen’s childhood years only one reference has been recorded. “I was bred up from my infancy,” he remarked in 1657, “under the care of my father, who was a nonconformist all his days, and a painful labourer [that is, diligent worker] in the vineyard of the Lord.”[8] If we take as our cue the way that other Puritans raised their children, we can presume that as a small boy Owen, along with his siblings, would have been taught to pray, to read the Bible and obey its commandments. At least once a day there would have been time set aside for family worship when he would have listened to his father explain a portion of God’s Word and pray for their nation, his parishioners and for each of them individually.[9]

At twelve years of age, Owen was sent by his father to Queen’s College, the University of Oxford. He obtained his B. A. on June 11, 1632, when he was 16. He went on to study for the M. A., which he was awarded on April 27, 1635. Everything seemed to be set for Owen to pursue an academic career. It was not, however, a good time to launch out into the academic world. The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud (1573–1645), had set out to suppress the Puritan movement, and to that end had begun a purge of the churches and universities. By 1637 Owen had no alternative but to leave Oxford and to become, along with many other Puritans who refused to conform to the Established Church, a private chaplain. He eventually found employ in the house of Lord Lovelace, a nobleman sympathetic to the Puritan cause. However, when the English Civil War broke out in 1642 and Lord Lovelace decided to support the King, Owen left his service and moved to London.

A “Clear Shining From God”

The move to London was providential in a couple of ways. First, it brought Owen into contact with some of the leading defenders of the Parliamentary cause, Puritan preachers who viewed the struggle between the King and Parliament in terms of the struggle between Christ and anti-Christian forces. Moreover, it was during these initial days in London that he had an experience he would never forget. By 1642 Owen was convinced that the final source of authority in religion was the Holy Scriptures and moreover, that the doctrines of orthodox Calvinism were biblical Christianity. But he had yet to experience personally the Holy Spirit bearing witness to his spirit and giving him the assurance that he was a child of God.[10]

Owen found this assurance one Sunday when he decided to go with a cousin to hear Edmund Calamy the Elder (1600–1666), a famous Presbyterian preacher, at St. Mary’s Church, Aldermanbury. On arriving, they were informed that the well-known Presbyterian was not going to preach that morning. Instead, a country preacher (whose name Owen never did discover) was going to fill in for the Presbyterian divine. His cousin urged him to go with him to hear Arthur Jackson (c.1593–1666), another notable Puritan preacher, at nearby St. Michael’s. But Owen decided to remain at St. Mary’s. The preacher took as his text that morning Matt. 8:26: “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” It proved to be a message that Owen needed to hear and embrace. Through the words of a preacher whose identity is unknown, God spoke to Owen and removed once and for all his doubts and fears as to whether he was truly regenerate or not. He now knew himself to be born of the Spirit.[11]

The impact of this spiritual experience cannot be over-estimated. It gave to Owen the deep, inner conviction that he was indeed a child of God and chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, that God loved him and had a loving purpose for his life, and that this God was the true and living God. In practical terms, it meant a life-long interest in the work of God the Holy Spirit that would issue thirty years later in his monumental study of the Holy Spirit, A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit.[12] As he later wrote: “Clear shining from God must be at the bottom of deep labouring with God.”[13]

Pastoral Ministry And Preaching Before Parliament

In 1643 Owen was offered the pastorate in the village of Fordham, six miles or so north-west of Colchester in Essex. Owen was here till 1646 when he became the minister of the church at the market town of Coggeshall, some five miles to the south. There, as many as two thousand people would crowd into the church each Lord’s Day to hear Owen preach.[14] Thus, although Owen would later speak slightingly of his preaching to King Charles II – as seen in the anecdote with which this article began – it is evident that he was no mean preacher. It is also noteworthy that this change in pastorates was also accompanied by an ecclesiological shift to Congregationalism. Up until this point Owen had been decidedly Presbyterian in his understanding of church government. His reading of The Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven by John Cotton (1584–1652), which had been published in 1644, was decisive in changing his mind in this area of theology. It was also at Coggeshall that he wrote the classic work on particular redemption, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (1647).[15] The backdrop for these early years of Owen’s pastoral ministry was the English Civil War when England knew the horrors of bloody fields of battle, and father was ranged against son and neighbour against neighbour on the battlefield. Well has this period been described as “the world turned upside down.”

During these tumultuous days Owen clearly identified himself with the Parliamentary cause. He developed a friendship with the rising military figure Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) and was frequently invited to preach before Parliament. By late 1648 some of the Parliamentary army officers had begun to urge that Charles I be brought to trial on charges of treason since he had fought against his own people and Parliament. Charles was accordingly put on trial in January, 1649, and by the end of that month a small group of powerful Puritan leaders had found him guilty and sentenced their king to death. On January 31, the day following the public execution of the king, Owen was asked to preach before Parliament.

Owen used the occasion to urge upon the members of Parliament that for them, now the rulers of England, to obtain God’s favour in the future they must remove from the nation all traces of false worship and superstition and wholeheartedly establish a religion based on Scripture alone. Owen based his sermon on Jeremiah 15. He made no direct reference to the events of the previous day nor did he mention, at least in the version of his sermon that has come down to us, the name of the king. Nevertheless, his hearers and later readers would have been easily able to deduce from his use of the OT how he viewed the religious policy and end of Charles. From the story of the wicked king Manasseh that is recorded in 2 Kings 21 and with cross-references to Jeremiah 15, he argued that the leading cause for God’s judgments upon the Jewish people had been such abominations as idolatry and superstition, tyranny and cruelty. He then pointed to various similarities between the conditions of ancient Judah and the England of his day. At the heart of the sermon was a call to Parliament to establish a reformed style of worship, to disseminate biblical Christianity, to uphold national righteousness, and to avoid oppression. He assured the Puritan leaders who heard him that day that God’s promise of protection to Jeremiah was also applicable to all who in every age stood firmly for justice and mercy.[16]

Ireland And Oxford

Later that same year, Own accompanied Cromwell on his campaign in Ireland, where he stayed from August 1649 to February 1650. Though ill much of this time, he preached frequently to “a numerous multitude of as thirsting a people after the gospel as ever yet I conversed withal.”[17] When he returned to England the following year, he confessed that “the tears and cries of the inhabitants of Dublin after the manifestations of Christ are ever in my view.” Accordingly, he sought to convince Parliament of the spiritual need of this land and asked:

How is it that Jesus Christ is in Ireland only as a lion staining all his garments with the blood of his enemies; and none to hold him out as a lamb sprinkled with his own blood to his friends? Is it the sovereignty and interest of England that is alone to be there transacted? For my part, I see no farther into the mystery of these things but that I could heartily rejoice, that, innocent blood being expiated, the Irish might enjoy Ireland so long as the moon endureth, so that Jesus Christ might possess the Irish. …If they were in the dark, and loved to have it so, it might something close a door upon the bowels of our compassion; but they cry out of their darkness, and are ready to follow every one whosoever, to have a candle. If their being gospelless move not our hearts, it is hoped their importunate cries will disquiet our rest, and wrest help as a beggar doth an alms.[18]

Although Owen’s pleas were heeded and this period saw the establishment of a number of Puritan congregations – both Congregationalist and Baptist – in Ireland, Crawford Gribben has recently shown that the inability of the Puritans in Ireland to work together with like-minded brethren for the larger cause of the Kingdom of Christ hindered their witness.[19]

By the early 1650s, Owen had become one of Cromwell’s leading advisors, especially in national affairs to do with the church. There is little doubt that Owen was a firm supporter of Cromwell in this period. As Owen told him on one occasion in 1654, for example: “The series and chain of eminent providences whereby you have been carried on and protected in all the hazardous work of your generation, which your God hath called you unto, is evident to all.”[20] Two years later, though, when Cromwell was urged to become the monarch of England, Owen was among those who opposed this move. As it turned out, Cromwell did not accept the crown. But Owen’s friendship with Cromwell had been damaged and the two men were nowhere near as close as they had been.[21] This would have distressed Owen since he had viewed Cromwell with enormous admiration.

Cromwell had appointed Owen to the oversight of Oxford University in 1652 as its Vice-Chancellor. From this position Owen helped to re-assemble the faculty, who had been dispersed by the war, and to put the university back on its feet. He also had numerous opportunities to preach to the students. Two important works on holiness came out of his preaching during this period. Of Temptation, first published in 1658, is essentially an exposition of Matt. 26:4. It analyzes the way in which believers fall into sin. Central among the remedies to temptation that Owen recommends is prayer. His pithy remark in this regard is typically Puritan: “If we do not abide in prayer, we shall abide in cursed temptations.”[22] A second work, The Mortification of Sin in Believers (1656), is in some ways the richest of all of Owen’s treatises on this subject. It is based on Romans 8:13 and lays out a strategy for fighting indwelling sin and warding off temptation. Owen emphasizes that in the fight against sin the Holy Spirit employs all of our human powers. In sanctifying us, Owen insists, the Spirit works

in us and upon us, as we are fit to be wrought in and upon; that is, so as to preserve our own liberty and free obedience. He works upon our understandings, wills, consciences, and affections, agreeably to their own natures; he works in us and with us, not against us or without us; so that his assistance is an encouragement as to the facilitating of the work, and no occasion of neglect as to the work itself.[23]

Not without reason does Owen lovingly describe the Spirit in another place as “the great beautifier of souls.”[24]

Oliver Cromwell died in September of 1658 and the “rule of the saints,” as some called it, began to fall apart. In the autumn of that year, Owen, now a key leader among the Congregationalists, played a vital role in drawing up what is known as the Savoy Declaration, which would give the Congregationalist churches ballast for the difficult days ahead. Only a few days after Cromwell’s death, Owen met with around 200 other Congregationalist leaders, including men like Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680), Philip Nye (c.1596–1672), and William Bridge (c.1600–1671),[25] in the chapel of the old Savoy Palace in London. One of the outcomes of this synod was a recommendation to revise the Westminster Confession of Faith for the Congregationalist churches. Traditionally Owen has been credited with writing the lengthy preface that came before the Savoy Declaration. In it he rightly argued, anticipating a key issue over the rest of his life:

The Spirit of Christ is in himself too free, great and generous a Spirit, to suffer himself to be used by any human arm, to whip men into belief; he drives not, but gently leads into all truth, and persuades men to dwell in the tents of like precious faith; which would lose of its preciousness and value, if that sparkle of freeness shone not in it.[26]

The following year Owen preached again before Parliament. But the times were changing, and this proved to be the last of such occasions.

“The Church In A Storm”: Owen, A Leader In A Time Of Persecution, 1660-1683

In 1660 a number of Cromwell’s fellow Puritan leaders, fearful that Britain was slipping into full-fledged anarchy, asked Charles II, then living in exile on the continent, to return to England as her monarch. Those who came to power with Charles were determined that the Puritans would never again hold the reins of political authority. During Charles’ reign and that of his brother James II (r.1685–1688), the Puritan cause was thus savagely persecuted. After the Act of Uniformity in 1662, which required all religious worship to be according to the letter of The Book of Common Prayer, and other legislation enacted during the 1660s, all other forms of worship were illegal.

A number of Owen’s close friends, including John Bunyan, suffered fines and imprisonment for not heeding these laws. Although Owen was shielded from actual imprisonment by powerful friends, he led at best a precarious existence till his death. He was once nearly attacked by a mob, who surrounded his carriage.[27] At one point he was tempted to accept the offer of a safe haven in America when the Puritan leaders in Massachusetts offered him the presidency of Harvard. Owen, though, recognized where he was needed most. His first wife, Mary, died in 1676. When Owen remarried the following year, his second wife, Dorothy D’Oyley, was the widow of a wealthy Oxfordshire landowner whom Owen would have known from his connections to his home village of Stadhampton.[28] Added to the toil and anxieties of these years were physical challenges, especially asthma and kidney stones.

But these years were also ones of great literary fruitfulness. His exhaustive commentary on Hebrews appeared between 1668 and 1684. A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit came out in 1674 and an influential work on justification, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, in 1677. Owen’s Meditations and Discourses on The Glory of Christ (1st ed. 1684; 2nd ed. 1696), what Robert Oliver has rightly termed “incomparable,” was written under the shadow of death in 1683 and represents Owen’s dying testimony to the unsurpassable value and joy of living a life for the glory of Christ.

He fell asleep in Christ on August 24, 1683. His final literary work is a letter to a close friend, Charles Fleetwood, written two days before his death. “Dear Sir,” he wrote to his friend,

I am going to him whom my soul hath loved, or rather who hath loved me with an everlasting love; which is the whole ground of all my consolation. The passage is very irksome and wearysome through strong pains of various sorts which are all issued in an intermitting fever. All things were provided to carry me to London today attending to the advice of my physician, but we were all disappointed by my utter disability to undertake the journey. I am leaving the ship of the church in a storm, but whilst the great Pilot is in it the loss of a poore under-rower will be inconsiderable. Live and pray and hope and waite patiently and doe not despair; the promise stands invincible that he will never leave thee nor forsake thee.[29]

He was buried on September 4 in Bunhill Fields, where the bodies of so many of his fellow Puritans were laid to rest until that tremendous Day when they – and all the faithful in Christ – shall be raised to glory.

Owen, A Pioneer In Biblical Pneumatology

It is vital to realize that a concern for biblical piety lies at the very core of English Puritanism, of which Owen’s theological corpus is a marvelous exemplar.[30] Owen and the Puritans had, in fact, inherited from the continental Reformers of the sixteenth century, and from John Calvin (1506–1564) in particular, “a constant and even distinctive concern” with the person and work of the Holy Spirit.[31] American historian Richard Lovelace rightly maintains:

Among the Reformers, John Calvin has been called the theologian of the Holy Spirit because his doctrinal work so carefully honors the sovereign agency of the Spirit in regeneration and sanctification. This emphasis continued in the Reformed tradition, for the English Puritans (particularly John Owen and Richard Sibbes) have given us the most profound and extensive biblical-theological studies of the ministry of the Holy Spirit which exist in any language.[32]

Owen’s pneumatology takes its start from the main pneumatological achievement of the Ancient Church, found in the credal statement of the Council of Constantinople in 381: “[We believe] in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and Son is together worshipped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets.” Owen, like other Puritan theologians, completely embraced as his own this landmark statement of patristic pneumatology. For example, in his A Brief Declaration and Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, he declared that the

first intention of the Scripture, in the revelation of God towards us, is …that we might fear him, believe, worship, obey him, and live unto him, as God. That we may do this in a due manner, and worship the only true God, and not adore the false imaginations of our own minds, it [that is, the Scripture] declares …that this God is one, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.[33]

And he affirmed that the Holy Spirit is “an eternally existing divine substance, the author of divine operations, and the object of divine and religious worship; that is, “Over all, God blessed for ever”.”[34] Where Owen, however, may claim to be doing pioneering work in biblical pneumatology is the way that he draws out the implications of classical pneumatology for faith and practice.[35] Thus, Owen can rightly state: “I know not any who ever went before me in this design of representing the whole economy of the Holy Spirit.”[36]

Owen and biblical piety [37]

For Owen, genuine spiritual experience is vital. He asserts that ultimately it is the Spirit who gives the believer such experience: “He gives unto believers a spiritual sense of the power and reality of the things believed, whereby their faith is greatly established…”[38] It is these inner experiences that motivate external attendance on the various ordinances of the Christian life. “Without the internal actings of the life of faith,” Owen writes, “external administrations of ordinances of worship are but dead things, nor can any believer obtain real satisfaction in them or refreshment by them without an inward experience of faith and love in them and by them.”[39]

Inward experience of the power of God is especially important in the context of spiritual warfare, particularly the temptation to doubt God’s existence:

Therefore the way in this case, for him who is really a believer, is, to retreat immediately unto his own experience; which will pour shame and contempt on the suggestions of Satan. There is no believer, who hath knowledge and time to exercise the wisdom of faith in the consideration of himself and of God’s dealings with him, but hath a witness in himself of his eternal power and Godhead, as also of all those other perfections of his nature which he is pleased to manifest and glorify by Jesus Christ. Wherefore, on this suggestion of Satan that there is no God, he will be able to say, “He might better tell me that I do not live nor breathe, that I am not fed by my meat nor warmed by my clothes, that I know not myself nor any thing else; for I have spiritual sense and experience of the contrary:” … “How often,” will he say, “have I had experience of the power and presence of God in prayer, as though I had not only heard of him by the hearing of the ear, but also seen him by the seeing of the eye! How often hath he put forth his power and grace in me by his Spirit and his word, with an uncontrollable evidence of his being, goodness, love, and grace! How often hath he refreshed my conscience with the sense of the pardon of sin, speaking that peace unto my soul which all the world could not communicate unto me! In how many afflictions, dangers, troubles, hath he been a present help and relief! What sensible emanations of life and power from him have I obtained in meditation on his grace and glory!”[40]

Similarly Owen can write elsewhere:

[L]et a gracious soul, in simplicity and sincerity of spirit, give up himself to walk with Christ according to his appointment, and he shall quickly find such a taste and relish in the fellowship of the gospel, in the communion of saints, and of Christ amongst them, as that he shall come up to such riches of assurance in the understanding and acknowledgment of the ways of the Lord, as others by their disputing can never attain unto. What is so high, glorious, and mysterious as the doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity? Some wise men have thought meet to keep it vailed from ordinary Christians, and some have delivered it in such terms as that they can understand nothing by them. But take a believer who hath tasted how gracious the Lord is, in the eternal love of the Father, the great undertaking of the Son in the work of mediation and redemption, with the almighty work of the Spirit creating grace and comfort in the soul; and hath had an experience of the love, holiness, and power of God in them all; and he will with more firm confidence adhere to this mysterious truth, being led into it and confirmed in it by some few plain testimonies of the word, than a thousand disputers shall do who only have the notion of it in their minds. Let a real trial come, and this will appear. Few will be found to sacrifice their lives on bare speculations. Experience will give assurance and stability.[41]

Here then is a strong emphasis on an experiential Christianity rooted in the Spirit’s application of biblical truth to the heart of the believer. This sort of spirituality, Owen argues, provides assurance against doubt and ballast against apostasy.[42]

One of the ways in which the believer grows in this area of biblical piety is growth in spiritual-mindedness. Indeed, Owen almost regards the striving to grow in spiritual-mindedness as a mark of conversion.43 At the core of genuine spiritual-mindedness is meditation, reflection, both cognitive and affective. As Owen wrote: “Spiritual affections, whereby the soul adheres unto spiritual things, taking in such a savour and relish of them as wherein it finds rest and satisfaction, is the peculiar spring and substance of our being spiritually minded.”[44] Truly biblical meditation aims at “the affecting of our own hearts and minds with love, delight, and humiliation.”[45]

“The Beatifical Manifestation Of God And His Glory”

On the subject of meditation, Owen stressed that the person and work of Christ especially must occupy first place. “If we are spiritually minded, we should fix our thoughts on Christ above, as the center of all heavenly glory,” for it is in Christ that “the beatifical manifestation of God and his glory” is made for all eternity.[46] Owen cautions believers, though, that such meditation on Christ must be according to the Word. “In your thoughts of Christ,” he declared, “be very careful that they are conceived and directed according to the rule of the word, lest you deceive your own souls” and do not allow your “affections to be entangled with the paint or artificial beauty of any way or means of giving [your] love unto Christ which are not warranted by the word of truth.”[47]

Owen is never slow to enumerate the blessed effects of such Christ-centered meditation. It will, he emphasizes, enable believers “to endure all [their] trials, troubles, and afflictions, with patience unto the end.” And it will transform believers “every day more and more into the likeness of Christ.” Thus, Owen can exhort his readers: “Let us live in the constant contemplation of the glory of Christ, and virtue will proceed from him to repair all our decays, to renew a right spirit within us, and to cause us to abound in all duties of obedience.”[48] Thus, Owen concludes that such meditation

will fix the soul unto that object which is suited to give it delight, complacency, and satisfaction. This in perfection is blessedness, for it is caused by the eternal vision of the glory of God in Christ; and the nearer approaches we make unto this state, the better, the more spiritual, the more heavenly, is the state of our souls. And this is to be obtained only by a constant contemplation of the glory of Christ…[49]

Some might feel that Owen’s recommendations are unduly subjective. To this criticism, Owen rightly responds:

I had rather be among them who, in the actings of their love and affection unto Christ, do fall into some irregularities and excesses in the manner of expressing it (provided their worship of him be neither superstitious nor idolatrous), than among those who, professing themselves to be Christians, do almost disavow their having any thoughts of or affection unto the person of Christ.[50]

One final text in this regard provides both a powerful indicator of Owen’s own spirituality as well as a confirmation of the emphasis on piety among those to whom he preached and for whom he wrote. And it is a fitting conclusion to this brief study of some aspects of the life and piety of the “Calvin of England.”

The spiritual intense fixation of the mind, by contemplation on God in Christ, until the soul be as it were swallowed up in admiration and delight, and being brought unto an utter loss, through the infiniteness of those excellencies which it doth admire and adore, it returns again into its own abasements, out of a sense of its infinite distance from what it would absolutely and eternally embrace, and, withal, the inexpressible rest and satisfaction which the will and affections receive in their approaches unto the eternal Fountain of goodness, are things to be aimed at in prayer, and which, through the riches of divine condescension, are frequently enjoyed. The soul is hereby raised and ravished, not into ecstasies or unaccountable raptures, not acted into motions above the power of its own understanding and will; but in all the faculties and affections of it, through the effectual workings of the Spirit of grace and the lively impressions of divine love, with intimations of the relations and kindness of God, is filled with rest, in “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”[51]

Notes

1. J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 191.
2. For the story, see Andrew Thomson, Life of Dr. Owen, in The Works of John Owen (reprint ed., London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1965), 1:xcii; Allen C. Guelzo, “John Owen, Puritan Pacesetter”, Christianity Today, 20, No. 17 (May 21, 1976), 14; Peter Toon, God’s Statesman: The Life and Work of John Owen (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1971), 162. Subsequent references to the works of Owen are cited according to the volumes and page numbers of William H. Goold, ed., The Works of John Owen, 16 vols. (reprint ed., London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1965–1968).
3. Guelzo, “John Owen,” 14.
4. Ibid., Packer, Quest for Godliness, 81.
5. Guelzo, “John Owen,” 15, 16.
6. For a good account of Owen’s life, see Toon, God’s Statesman. For his theology, the best study is undoubtedly Carl R. Trueman, The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology (Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster Press, 1998). See also Sinclair B. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1987); and Robert W. Oliver, ed., John Owen – the man and his theology. Papers read at the Conference of The John Owen Centre for Theological Study September 2000 (Darlington: Evangelical Press/Phillipsburg, NJ: Evangelical Press, 2002).
7. Toon, God’s Statesman, 2.
8. Owen, Works, 13:224.
9. Toon, God’s Statesman, 2.
10. Ibid., 12.
11. Ibid., 12, 13.
12. Ibid., 13.
13. Cited in Peter Barraclough, John Owen (1616–1683) (London: Independent Press Ltd., 1961), 6.
14. Robert W. Oliver, “John Owen (1616–1683) – his life and times” in his ed., John Owen, 16.
15. For a study of this work, see Jack N. Macleod, “John Owen and the Death of Death” in ‘Out of Bondage’ (London: The Westminster Conference, 1983), 70–87.
16. Righteous Zeal encouraged by Divine Protection (Works, 8:133–162); Toon, God’s Statesman, 33, 34. For help with this reference, I thank Mr. Greg McManus of London, Ontario.
17. Of the Death of Christ (Works, 10:479).
18. The Steadfastness of the Promises, and the Sinfulness of Staggering (Works, 8:235, 236).
19. Crawford Gribben, The Irish Puritans: James Ussher and the reformation of the church (Darlington, Durham: Evangelical Press, 2003), 91–115.
20. The Doctrine of the Saints’ Perseverance Explained and Confirmed (Works, 11:5).
21. Oliver, “John Owen (1616–1683)” in his ed., John Owen, 26; Toon, God’s Statesman, 97–101.
22. Works, 6:126.
23. Ibid., 6:20. See also the comments of J.I. Packer, “‘Keswick’ and the Reformed Doctrine of Sanctification,” The Evangelical Quarterly, 27 (1955), 156.
24. The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of the Remainders of Indwelling Sin in Believers (Works, 6:188). For further discussion of this area of Owen’s teaching, see Michael A.G. Haykin, “The Great Beautifier of Souls,” in The Banner of Truth, 242 (November 1983), 18–22.
25. For biographical sketches of these three men, see William S. Barker, Puritan Profiles: 54 Influential Puritans at the time when the Westminster Confession of Faith was written (Fearn, Ross-shire: Christian Focus, 1996), 69–94, passim.
26. “A Preface” to the Savoy Declaration in Philip Schaff, ed. and David S. Schaff, rev., The Creeds of Christendom (reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983), 3:709. For a recent edition of this confession, see The Savoy Declaration of Faith (Millers Falls, MA: First Congregational Church, 1998).
27. Barraclough, John Owen, 15.
28. Oliver, “John Owen (1616–1683)” in his ed., John Owen, 35.
29. The Correspondence of John Owen, ed. Peter Toon (Cambridge: James Clarke, 1970), 174.
30. Irvonwy Morgan, Puritan Spirituality (London: Epworth Press, 1973), 53–65, especially 60; Dewey D. Wallace, Jr., The Spirituality of the Later English Puritans. An Anthology (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987), xi-xiv; Packer, Quest for Godliness, 37, 38.
31. Richard B. Gaffin, “The Holy Spirit,” in The Westminster Theological Journal, 43 (1980), 61. See also the detailed discussion by Garth B. Wilson, “Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Reformed Tradition: A Critical Overview,” in George Vandervelde, ed., The Holy Spirit: Renewing and Empowering Presence (Winfield, British Columbia: Wood Lake Books, 1989), 57–62.
32. Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life. An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1979), 120.
33. The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity Explained and Vindicated (Works, 2:377, 378).
34. Works, 2:399, 400.
35. Geoffrey Nuttall, The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946), 7.
36. A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit (Works, 3:7).
37. Extremely helpful in summarizing Owen’s teaching on biblical piety and pointing out key texts in this regard in Owen’s massive corpus has been David M. King, “The Affective Spirituality of John Owen,” in The Evangelical Quarterly, 68 (1996), 223–233.
38. A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit (Works, 4:64). See also Owen’s advice in a sermon preached on May 26, 1670: Sermon XVIII (Works, 9:237).
39. The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded (Works, 7:435).
40. Ibid., 7:371.
41. A Practical Exposition Upon Psalm CXXX (Works, 6:458, 459).
42. See also The Nature of Apostasy from the Profession of the Gospel and the Punishment of Apostates Declared, in An Exposition of Heb. VI.4–6 (Works, 7:112, 113).
43. Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded (Works, 7:274).
44. Ibid., 7:395.
45. Ibid., 7:384.
46. Ibid., 7:344.
47. Ibid., 7:345, 346.
48. Meditations and Discourses concerning the Glory of Christ (Works, 1:460, 461).
49. Ibid., 1:461.
50. Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded (Works, 7:346).
51. A Discourse of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer (Works, 4:329, 330).

The Newness Of The New Covenant: Better Covenant, Better Mediator, Better Sacrifice, Better Ministry, Better Hope, Better Promises (Part II)

By James R. White

James, R. White, D. Min., Th. D., Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, Phoenix, AZ, Adjunct Professor of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and Columbia Evangelical Seminary, is founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries and author of numerous books.

In the first part of this study[1] we examined the text of Hebrews, focusing on the “new covenant,” taking special note of the phrase “better,” and following closely the argument of the writer in chapters eight and ten, where the key prophetic passage Jer. 31:31–34 is cited, applied, and interpreted within the context of the author’s presentation. In this part of our study we will recap our exegetical conclusions and then interact with the presentations of various paedobaptist writers, all reflecting on the issue of the New Covenant, focusing on the presentation given by Pastor Jeff Niell in The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism.[2] Pastor Niell co-authored The Same Sex Controversy with me, and hence this topic provides an opportunity for modeling exegetically based dialogue and even disagreement regarding important issues, while honoring our common bond in Christ.

Recapitulation of Exegesis

Throughout his epistle, the writer of Hebrews presents a defense of the supremacy of Christ, seeking to demonstrate that in every aspect Christ is superior to the former administration, so that there is nothing in the “old ways” to attract the believer in Him. We also saw that the complex of terms related to “better” (mediator of a “better covenant,” “better sacrifices,” “better promises,” “better hope” and “more excellent ministry”) are found in distinctively soteriological contexts. The writer introduced the citation of Jeremiah within a context of contrast (8:6–7), continued it within the citation itself (“not like the covenant which I made with their fathers,” v. 9), and made the contrast explicit in his conclusion at 8:13. The text presents an apologetic argument that unlike the Old Covenant, where “they did not continue in My covenant” (v. 9), the New Covenant presents a perfect, full work of God which includes the internal renovation of the heart, salvific knowledge of God, and the forgiveness of sins. There is nothing in the text that suggests that there are different audiences envisioned in vv. 10–12; those who have God’s law written on their hearts are also those who know the Lord savingly and whose sins are remembered no more. Unlike under the Old Covenant, in the New all know the Lord, “from the least to the greatest of them.” That we have accurately discerned the writer’s intention in seeing the New Covenant soteriologically is borne out by reference to the second citation of Jer. 31 in Heb. 10:16–17, for not only does the author cite the passage in support of one of the central soteriological arguments of the entire book (Heb. 10:10–14), but his interpretation of the final words regarding forgiveness of sins is clearly expressed in the same context.

Reformed Baptists have asserted that this passage is directly relevant to the commonly presented arguments of covenantal paedobaptists. Arguing from the common ground of a Covenant of Grace, Reformed credobaptists have asserted that if this passage teaches that the New Covenant differs from the Old in the matter of the extensiveness of the work of grace in the lives of the members (i.e., the New Covenant is not a mixed covenant of regenerate and unregenerate, elect and non-elect), then the most needed element of the paedobaptist argument regarding the continuity of the covenants and the covenant sign is disrupted at its most vital point. The “continuity” of the Covenant of Grace is seen in the expansion of God’s work of grace, so that the New Covenant in the blood of the Son encompasses all of God’s elect, with the older administration’s ceremonies pointing forward to the perfection that would come in Christ. The New Covenant is soteriologically extensive in scope: all who are in it receive eternal life. The giving of the covenant sign, then,[3] must reflect the nature of the New Covenant as the covenant in the blood of Christ, a covenant which fulfills, and hence a covenant that differs on the level of membership. If the New Covenant is extensive in that all those who are in it know the Lord and have forgiveness of sins in the blood of Christ, this fact must be allowed to speak directly to the question, “To whom do we give the sign of the new covenant?” While the common theme in paedobaptist writings emphasizes continuity (while other writings go to the opposite extreme seeking to create complete discontinuity), the biblical emphasis is on fulfillment and completion. The “not like” of Heb. 8:9 points to a perfect covenantal work in the blood of the Son of God shed in behalf of His people.

Classically, credobaptists have seen the elect filling the New Covenant (due to its nature), and hence have recognized that the visible church is a mixed body, not to be seen as fully co-extensive with it. Apostasy, then, is viewed as apostasy from a profession of faith, not from membership in the New Covenant. The visible church contains true covenant members and false: but since the New Covenant is inherently soteriological in nature, and is made in the blood of Christ Himself, its members cannot apostatize anymore than Christ can lose His sheep (Jn. 10:27–30) or fail to do the Father’s will (Jn. 6:38–39). Apostasy then is not from the New Covenant, but from false profession of faith in Christ, which may include membership in the visible church. As we interact with the paedobaptist position, we will note that its understanding of the classic apostasy passages is, we believe, allowed to overturn the presentation of the inspired writer regarding the perfection and extent of the New Covenant.

The Newness of the New Covenant

Pastor Jeffrey Niell’s contribution to The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism is entitled “The Newness of the New Covenant.” The thesis of the chapter can be summarized briefly. Its fundamental assertion is that of the things listed in Heb. 8:10–12, only the content of v. 11 is truly “new.” Since men experienced the writing of God’s law on their hearts under the Old Covenant, and since God’s mercy was expressed under the Old Covenant as well, these are not “new.” The essence of the newness of the covenant is in the doing away with the mediating Jewish priesthood that was involved in teaching the people. As Niell writes, “one can see that Hebrews 8:11 is referring to the removal of the old covenant priesthood and the people and duties associated with it.”[4] His thesis is that the Old and New Covenants are substantially the same in reference to the fact that both present a mixture of regenerate and unregenerate members, leading to the assertion that “God has implemented no change whatsoever in covenant membership in the new covenant.”[5]

Pastor Niell rightly points out:

Many misunderstandings arise because of the failure to properly understand the experience of the regenerate in the older covenant….The entire quotation is concerned with its newness, not just Hebrews 8:11.[6]

This is perfectly in line with our own exegesis. The entire quotation is indeed concerned with newness, as our exegesis showed. But this truth must be kept in mind when seeing the contrast inherent in the context before and after the citation of Jer. 31. The only way to remove this element is to bring in outside considerations, and this is what Pastor Niell does. Responding, seemingly, to Paul Jewett’s oft-repeated (and documented) assertion regarding the reading of the NT as if it were the Old, and vice-versa, Niell writes:

All too often, covenant theologians have been accused of treating the New Testament as if it were the Old. This misrepresentation of covenant theology is not helpful. But the question remains, How is the new covenant different? Does the newness pertain to its essential nature, making it qualitatively different from the previous covenant, or does the newness pertain to membership—or both? Those who would utilize the Hebrews passage to argue against paedobaptism would say that the new covenant is new in both respects.[7]

This assumes that “covenant theology” must, as a necessary element, include the assertion that the essential nature and membership of all administrations of the Covenant of Grace are identical (and therefore that credobaptists cannot, despite the claims of Reformed Baptists, truly hold to “covenant theology”). Yet, if one believes the Covenant of Grace began with Adam, was the essential nature and membership of the covenant the same from Adam to Abraham? From Abraham to Moses?

From Moses to Christ? From Christ to the present? What covenant sign was given to covenant members from Adam to Abraham? Unless one limits “essential nature” to the mere description of everything that God does being “gracious,” differences in administration (and, in the covenant in the blood of the Son of God, in the qualitative nature of it) would be contrary to the needed foundation that underlies the insistence that the covenant sign should be given to all offspring of covenant members. When credobaptists look at the insistence that we change our hermeneutical process solely in this one area of investigation, and when we insist that outside traditions are operational in paedobaptist interpretations so that they are reading out of the text the very distinctions emphasized by the text, we are not being “unhelpful.” We must identify violations of proper hermeneutical process, and when deeply held traditions are very likely to impact our reading, we should be quick to recognize and consider them.

A common element of paedobaptist discussions of the New Covenant is the prioritizing of a particular view of apostasy above the direct teaching of Heb. 8 and 10 regarding the nature of the New Covenant. That is, we are told that since apostasy from the New Covenant is taught elsewhere (the exegesis of said passages is, of course, questionable on many grounds), this consideration must become the a priori interpretational grid through which Heb. 8 must be seen. This is seen in these words:

Hebrews 8:11 cannot mean that every single member of the new covenant knows the Lord savingly, for that would be contrary to the rest of the New Testament. We must avoid equating covenant membership with election while we recognize that Scripture exhorts new covenant disciples to continue on in the faith. We will see that the distinction between the new covenant and the previous one does not relate to its essential nature or membership.[8]

When the final conclusion of the argument provides the foundation for its own annunciation, we have encountered a hermeneutical circle. We believe that the direct teaching of the text should determine the nature of the New Covenant first and foremost. Then, we can look at other passages assumed to be about it and determine, from a solid foundation, if in fact we are addressing apostasy from the New Covenant or apostasy from an empty profession of faith. But when we have clear, compelling didactic revelation concerning the nature and extent of the New Covenant, we surely are working backwards to mitigate such teaching on the basis of an assumed doctrine of apostasy from highly questionable passages in foreign contexts. It is unlikely that in any other area of exegetical study (Trinity, deity of Christ, justification, etc.) would Pastor Niell allow this kind of a priori interpretational methodology to go unchallenged.

At this point in his study, Pastor Niell addressed the views of various writers[9] and concludes, “These writers surprisingly assert that the internal operations of divine grace were not present for the old covenant saint.”[10] Whether this is an accurate summary of the positions of each individual is itself an interesting question, but not one to be pursued here. The point is that for Niell, the “counter-point” to which he is responding is an either/or situation: either the elements of the New Covenant described in Heb. 8:10 were completely absent in the Old Covenant (as he understands the citations he presents to assert) or they were present and hence cannot be definitional of what is ‘new’ in the New Covenant. But it is just here that the position of Reformed Baptists in general, and that seen in our exegesis, must be allowed to speak to the issue. We must agree that considered individually, each of the elements of the New Covenant listed in Heb. 8:10–12 can be found, in particular individuals in the Old Covenant. Surely David knew of the work of God’s law in his heart, knew God intimately and personally and salvifically, and experienced the forgiveness of sins. Our exegesis of the text has not lead us to conclude that no one in the Old Covenant ever experienced these demonstrations of divine favor. But that is hardly the issue, for it is just as clear that for every David there were a dozen Ahabs; for every Josiah a legion of Manassehs. Unfaithfulness, the flaunting of God’s law, the rejection of the role of truly being God’s people, the rejection of His knowledge, and the experience of His wrath, were the normative experiences seen in the Old Covenant, which is why the writer to the Hebrews says that they did not keep His covenant and that He did not care for them. So, if some in the Old Covenant experienced these divine works of grace, but most did not, what then is to be concluded? That the newness of the New Covenant is seen in the extensiveness of the expression of God’s grace to all in it. It is an exhaustive demonstration of grace, for all in the New Covenant experience all that is inherent in the covenant in the blood of the Son of God. It is not merely a remnant that experiences these things, but all, so that the saying, “They did not keep my covenant” cannot be said of them, for unlike the Old Covenant where there were many who did not have the law in their hearts and minds, did not know the Lord, and did not know the forgiveness of their sins, this is not the case in the New Covenant. Therefore, Pastor Niell’s comments are not relevant to the Reformed Baptist position. We are not saying there were none who experienced God’s grace under the Old Covenant, but that the Old Covenant, in and of itself, did not guarantee that those who partook of it were, in fact, heirs of grace. The newness of the New Covenant in the blood of Christ is found in the reality that the better mediator, better hope, better sacrifices, mean that all, from the least to the greatest of them, know the Lord savingly. This is its glory, for it reflects the power of the blood in which it is sealed. Hence, when we read, “God’s law, the transcript of his holiness and his expectations for his people, was already on the hearts of his people, and so is not new in the new covenant,”[11] we respond by saying it is not the mere existence of the gracious act of God writing His law on the heart that is new, but it is the extensiveness of that work that is new. While some in the Old Covenant experienced this, all in the New Covenant do so. This fulfills each and every element of the apologetic argument of the writer to the Hebrews that we identified in our exegesis of the passage. The importance of this point is seen repeatedly in examining the position presented by Niell:

To state the matter as simply as possible, the writing of the law of God on the hearts of his people is not new in the new covenant, nor are the internal operations of God’s Holy Spirit upon the hearts and minds of his people new in the new covenant. These were precious realities for the old covenant saint as well.[12]

We agree that the Old Covenant saint experienced the writing of God’s law upon his or her heart. Obviously, Ps. 119 gives elegant testimony to this reality. But the point is not the presence of the elect as a sub-group in the Old Covenant anymore than it would be that the elect are a mere subgroup in the New Covenant. Ahab was an Old Covenant member but God’s law was not written upon his heart so that he delighted in it. The newness of the New Covenant, as we have seen exegetically, is that all of these divine actions are true for all of those in it. All who receive forgiveness of sins (8:12) likewise have God’s law written upon their hearts, for there is no textual disruption of the audience in view from verse ten to verse twelve. For Niell’s thesis to be established, the text would have to demand a break in audience through 8:10–12, but it does not.

Having asserted that the writing of God’s law on the hearts of the members of the New Covenant is not “new,” Pastor Niell moves to the central part of his presentation: the concept that Heb. 8:11 does not mean that all members of the New Covenant know God savingly. Instead, he argues, the passage is about the removal of the Old Covenant priesthood. This concept is built upon insisting that something that was going on under the Old Covenant would cease. He writes:

Nonetheless, the phraseology is stated negatively: ‘They shall not.’ Something is going to cease; it will disappear in the new covenant era, and it will pertain to teaching and the knowledge of the Lord. It has to do with a form of teaching that occurred among the covenant people of the Lord.[13]

And what is the essence of the “newness” introduced by Heb. 8:11? We are told that v. 11 “is referring to the removal of the old covenant priesthood and the people and duties associated with it.”[14] Or, again in Pastor Niell’s words:

To state it negatively: the newness of the new covenant is seen in the cessation of the ceremonial aspects of the law. To state it positively: Jesus Christ has fulfilled the law. He has become our perfect High Priest and has accomplished our redemption (atonement) through the perfect sacrifice of himself.[15]

What does this mean? The thesis is that the “newness” of the New Covenant is found in the cessation of the priestly office, described in v. 11 in terms of teaching.

These priests, in dealing with the ceremonial aspects of the law, revealed the gospel in pictures and illustrated the way of salvation. Their unique teaching was to cease at the time of the new covenant….Therefore, when God removed the priesthood (the persons and the work), the new covenant is precisely described with these words, “I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And…all will know Me, from the least to the greatest of them” (Heb 8:10–11)….Hebrews 8:11 explains that part of the newness of the new covenant is found in the removal of the Levitical priesthood—an office that was especially engaged in teaching and representing the knowledge of the Lord to the people.”[16]

While the case can surely be made that, in a sense, the ministry of priests included elements of “teaching” through the institutions in which they ministered, our exegesis has shown the text from Jeremiah to be a consistent whole, with all of the descriptions of its newness having the same audience and the same soteriological implications. There simply is no contextual reason to look for this distant application, one that would require some level of explication on the part of the author (in which we would expect the application to be made with significantly greater clarity and force), when the context itself points us in the opposite direction. When a consistent interpretation of the passage is at hand that requires no disruption of the flow of thought, we need a truly compelling reason to look for anything other than the plainest meaning of the words as they would have been read by the original audience. In this instance, while all agree that priesthood terminology in the context of shadow and fulfillment is central to the argument of the author, the specific idea of priests as teachers is far removed from the immediate discussion of the New Covenant as better and superior because it accomplishes that which the Old did not. Further, as we saw before, there is no reason to think the knowledge spoken of here is anything other than that seen in 1 Sam. 2:12, which states that Eli’s sons “did not know the LORD.” Ironically, here you have priests who, by their actions, would be engaged in the very types and shadows that are involved in teaching the knowledge of the Lord to the people of Israel, and yet they did not know the Lord. Was this because they did not perform their duties correctly? No, it is because they were “worthless men,” men who did not have the law written on their hearts and minds, did not know Yahweh, and hence did not experience His mercy and forgiveness. There simply is no contextual reason to think that any other kind of knowledge was in view in Jer. 31, or that the writer to the Hebrews applied such a construct to this one verse without informing his audience of his meaning or intention.

It is important to understand that this interpretation has wider ramifications than simply throwing into question the actual nature of what is “new” in the New Covenant. Pastor Niell includes a footnote regarding what it means to “know the Lord” in Heb. 8:11:

It has been asserted that Heb. 8:11 refers to saving knowledge, but it must be recognized that know can refer to nonsaving knowledge (Jer. 16:21; Gen. 4:1). As argued throughout this chapter, the context deals with the removal of the ceremonial aspects of the law and refers to the knowledge that is possessed and published by the priests. This is true whether or not they were elect before the foundation of the world. With the author of Hebrews, we must be careful to avoid equating covenant membership with election. This is shown by the warnings of apostasy that are given to new covenant members throughout this epistle— referring to apostasy from the covenant, not apostasy from election….”[17]

What is the exegetical basis for seeing the knowledge of Heb. 8:11 as non-salvific? The alleged foundation is two-fold: the already addressed idea that nothing in vv. 10 or 12 is “new” to the New Covenant (i.e., they were present in some, but not in all, of the members of the Old Covenant), along with the continued pre-eminence of a particular understanding of apostasy texts. In other words, we do not find the argument to be exegetically derived, but instead to be an argument based on an over-riding theological grid that pre-determines the outcome of the study. The text has not driven us to divide up the audience envisioned in the New Covenant in this fashion; it has instead shown its consistency and harmony through its emphasis upon the “better” way in Christ. And the soteriological thrust of the entire passage is not interrupted here, and is instead carried on through v. 12. But it is just here that Pastor Niell introduces a most interesting idea. When initially presenting the thesis that the newness of the New Covenant is limited in Heb. 8, he says, “God’s full pardon for sinners was just as present and real for saints in the Old Testament as it is for saints in the New.”[18] So it seems here that in saying this is not new in the New Covenant the words are understood to refer to pardon for sinners. But, once you claim that the knowledge of God in 8:11 is not salvific, how can you then revert back to a context of salvation? When addressing this, Pastor Niell says:

The ceremonial aspects of the covenant of grace are also in view in Hebrews 8:12. Since God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness are not new in the new covenant, this passage must refer to something else and must accord with the context. Hebrews 8:12 refers to the abrogation of the ceremonies of sacrifice, the priestly duties, of the old covenant….God has always been merciful to his people, to their iniquities. Psalm 103 declares that he will separate our sins from us, as far as the east is from the west. He has always offered full pardon, but now, in the new covenant, the continual reminder is removed.[19]

Hebrews 10:3–4 is cited as evidence of this function of the old priesthood “reminders” of the sin of the people. Surely the writer to the Hebrews does contrast the once-for-all, completed, finished sacrifice of Christ with the repetitive sacrifices of the Old Covenant which did, indeed, function as an annual reminder of sin. One of the great truths of the New Covenant is that while those repetitive sacrifices were an άνάμνησις of sin, a regular reminder, built into the economy of the priesthood worship by God himself, there is no such άνάμνησις in the New Covenant, for all those in that covenant have received forgiveness of sins. The “remembrance” of the New Covenant is the Lord’s Supper, in which we proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes as an άνάμνησις of Him (1 Cor. 11:25–26). Evidently, the function of a reminder of sins is no longer needed in the New Covenant; but, if it, like the Old, is a mixed covenant, this introduces an odd discontinuity, unless we recognize the very superiority of the covenant in the blood of Christ. And this is the very point of the writer to the Hebrews. As we noted in our exegesis, the reason all in the new covenant know the Lord is laid out in v. 12, “for I will be merciful to their iniquities.” This is not merely the removal of sacrifices: this is the removal of the very sins of the people so that they are brought into relationship with God through their Savior, Jesus Christ. We must further note that the contrast in Heb. 10 is between the repetitive sacrifices of the Old Covenant, which could never take away sins, and the singular sacrifice of the New, which not only can but in reality does do so for those who are in the covenant (Heb. 10:10–18)!

This is the reason why the writer again introduces the Jeremiah passage and connects these very words to the “one offering” which “perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (8:14).

Do the Apostasy Passages Provide an Over-Riding Theological Matrix?

Though we can hardly enter into a full discussion of all the passages cited in support of a particular theory of apostasy, and though it seems clear that not all of the writers represented in The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism would agree with Pastor Niell on this topic, a brief response to the key passage that is related to our central text (Heb. 10:29) may make our response fuller and more useful.

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?

Following Owen’s understanding of context, we will assume the essential correctness of the position that sees the context of 10:29 as an act of apostasy on the part of a baptized, confessing member of the congregation of Jewish Christians to which the author is writing.[20] Recognizing this immediate context protects the passage from its most common misapplications and brings us to the key issue in our inquiry: in the case of those who knowingly reject their profession of faith and return to Judaism, were these individuals, in the thinking of the writer to the Hebrews, members of the New Covenant, perfected by the death of Christ, sanctified by His blood, who then became imperfect and were lost? Who is the object of the phrase έν ὧ η̑γιάσθη (“by which he was sanctified”): the apostate or the Son of God? Those who press this passage as a clear indication that the New Covenant can be entered into and yet violated assume that the phrase, which can grammatically be attached to either antecedent, must be applied to the apostate.

The exegesis that we have offered, together with the compelling argumentation (that reaches its climax in Heb. 10:10–18) regarding the perfection that flows from the singular, completed sacrifice of the New Covenant, provides a very strong ground on which to argue that the writer would hardly turn around and vitiate the central core of his apologetic argument within a matter of only a few sentences by robbing the New Covenant of its intrinsically perfect soteriological content. And we would be in very good company to assert that the depth of the sin of apostasy here noted is aggravated by recognition that the blood treated as common or unclean (κοινὸν) by the apostate through returning to the sacrifice of goats and bulls is greatly increased by seeing the antecedent as Christ, the very Son of God who has set Himself apart as High Priest as well as offering. And we are hardly alone in seeing the text in this fashion. John Owen expressed it forcefully:

The last aggravation of this sin with respect unto the blood of Christ, is the nature, use, and efficacy of it; it is that “wherewith he was sanctified.” It is not real or internal sanctification that is here intended, but it is a separation and dedication unto God; in which sense the word is often used. And all the disputes concerning the total and final apostasy from the faith of them who have been really and internally sanctified, from this place, are altogether vain; though that may be said of a man, in aggravation of his sin, which he professeth concerning himself. But the difficulty of this text is, concerning whom these words are spoken: for they may be referred unto the person that is guilty of the sin insisted on; he counts the blood of the covenant, wherewith he himself was sanctified, an unholy thing. For as at the giving of the law, or the establishing of the covenant at Sinai, the people being sprinkled with the blood of the beasts that were offered in sacrifice, were sanctified, or dedicated unto God in a peculiar manner; so those who by baptism, and confession of faith in the church of Christ, were separated from all others, were peculiarly dedicated to God thereby. And therefore in this case apostates are said to “deny the Lord that bought them,” or vindicated them from their slavery unto the law by his word and truth for a season, 2 Peter 2:1. But the design of the apostle in the context leads plainly to another application of these words. It is Christ himself that is spoken of, who was sanctified and dedicated unto God to be an eternal high priest, by the blood of the covenant which he offered unto God, as I have showed before. The priests of old were dedicated and sanctified unto their office by another, and the sacrifices which he offered for them; they could not sanctify themselves: so were Aaron and his sons sanctified by Moses, antecedently unto their offering any sacrifice themselves. But no outward act of men or angels could unto this purpose pass on the Son of God. He was to be the priest himself, the sacrificer himself, — to dedicate, consecrate, and sanctify himself, by his own sacrifice, in concurrence with the actings of God the Father in his suffering. See John 17:19; Hebrews 2:10, 5:7, 9, 9:11, 12. That precious blood of Christ, wherein or whereby he was sanctified, and dedicated unto God as the eternal high priest of the church, this they esteemed “an unholy thing;” that is, such as would have no such effect as to consecrate him unto God and his office.[21]

Owen’s exegesis is only strengthened by the considerations raised in our own study of the text. It should be noted that some might be unaware that Owen took this viewpoint, in light of the fact that in the more popular work, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ,[22] Owen did not even mention this exegetical possibility, but took the phrase to refer to the apostate. Why this inconsistency? The answer is easy to ascertain: Owen wrote The Death of Death as a young man; it was his second work, and his first widely received polemic effort. But his massive commentary on Hebrews came many years later, and is the work of a mature exegete. It is clear that he had not even considered the possibility in his younger days.

In light of this exegesis and its consistency with the apologetic argument of the epistle, it is interesting to note that though a number of the authors featured in The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism cite Heb. 10:29 as evidence of apostasy from the New Covenant with accompanying New Covenant curses, only two even note this other interpretation, and then only in footnotes, and none make any note of Owen’s words. Gregg Strawbridge writes:

A minority of interpreters take the implied “he” in “the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified (hegiasthe [third person singular]” as referring to Christ. However, the grammar certainly does not necessitate that interpretation. Such a view seems to be an ad hoc response to the theological difficulties of a baptistic Calvinism, which are alleviated in the general Reformed view of the covenant with its internal and legal dimensions.[23]

Surely Owen would not be guilty of coming up with an ad hoc response due to his holding a baptistic Calvinism, so perhaps it is better to see this view as flowing from a contextual exegesis that is driven by maintaining the apologetic thrust and argument of the epistle to the Hebrews while likewise refusing to allow an external tradition or practice to become an over-riding consideration in our interpretation. Likewise, Randy Booth provides a footnote to his use of Heb. 10:29:

Some contend that the words “by which he was sanctified” refer to Jesus (see John 17:19). Such an interpretation cannot be sufficiently supported. Moreover, even if they did refer to Jesus, it must be admitted that the word “sanctify” is used in a different way than it is earlier in Heb. 10:14. Surely the sanctification experience of Jesus is far different from that which we experience.[24]

One cannot respond to the assertion that “such an interpretation cannot be sufficiently supported” since the author does not expand upon the statement. In light of the above provision of what seems to be more than sufficient support for the position, we cannot accept the assertion. And while the “self-sanctifying” of Christ by His sacrifice must, by nature, be “far different from that which we experience,” it is hard to see how this is relevant to the point at issue, i.e., who is “sanctified” by the blood of the covenant and how this relates to the great guilt of the apostate. It is our firm conviction that this understanding of the text not only comports better with the context, but it has not at all been allowed to have a sufficient voice in the use of the text by paedobaptist authors seeking to establish the case for apostasy from the New Covenant. Further, in reference to Pastor Niell’s thesis, and the centrality of an over-arching concept of apostasy to his entire reading (Heb. 10:29 figuring prominently in the listing of passages supporting his view as he sees it), these considerations seriously undermine the position, especially in light of the positive exegetical thrust of the passage established in the first part of this study.

The New Covenant As Future Fulfillment

Other authors in The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism present the thesis that the New Covenant experiences a gradual growth or fulfillment over time, so that the final establishment awaits the consummation of the ages in the coming of Christ. In fact, Richard L. Pratt Jr. of Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando supports the exegetical conclusions we presented regarding the inherent soteriological nature of the New Covenant in his presentation. Directly contrary to Pastor Niell, Dr. Pratt writes:

A second feature of Jeremiah’s prophecy that is often used to oppose infant baptism is that the new covenant is fully internalized. Jeremiah 31:33 speaks plainly in this regard: “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” This feature of the new covenant demonstrates that God himself will bring about deep internal transformation of his covenant people. The words “mind” and “heart” often denote the inner person, the deeper recesses of personality, or, in contemporary parlance, “the soul.” Jeremiah did not see entrance into the new covenant community as entrance into an external environment, but as undergoing a spiritual, inward change.[25]

And in reference to “knowing” the Lord as cited in Heb. 8:11, Pratt says, “In a word, to know God as Jeremiah spoke of it would be to receive eternal salvation. In the covenant of which Jeremiah spoke, salvation would come to each participant.”[26] We note this simply to demonstrate that the exegesis we have offered of the nature of the new covenant is surely not to be relegated to something that is derived from the uncritical application of “baptistic” presuppositions to the text, since obviously Dr. Pratt brings no such presuppositions. In light of these statements, then, how does Pratt maintain a paedobaptist commitment in light of the nature of the New Covenant? He does so by differentiating between the inauguration of the New Covenant and the final establishment thereof, putting that final consummation off until the return of Christ. He writes:

The new covenant was inaugurated in Christ’s first coming; it progresses in part during the continuation of Christ’s kingdom; but it will reach complete fulfillment only when Christ returns in the consummation of all things. We must approach Jeremiah 31:31–34 just as we approach all prophecies regarding the restoration after exile: with the understanding that the restoration of the kingdom and the renewal of the covenant will not be complete until Jesus returns….When we apply the basic pattern of New Testament fulfillment to Jeremiah’s prophecy of the new covenant, it becomes clear that his expectations provide no basis at all for opposing infant baptism.[27]

This means that the perfect fulfillment of God’s purpose, seen in the New Covenant, is, from the vantage point of both Jeremiah and the author of Hebrews, a future reality. While acknowledging the indefectibility of New Covenant membership, Pratt does not believe this is yet a reality for Christ’s people in the church. “In the consummation of Christ’s kingdom, this prediction will be completely fulfilled. Once Christ returns, it will not be possible to break the new covenant and thereby to enter into another exile.”[28] Evidently, until then, the New Covenant, while inaugurated, is not fully established.

We can have confidence that after Christ returns in glory, everyone in the new creation will have the law of God written on his or her heart. We will all love and delight in his ways, just as Christ already does….In this sense, we expect Jeremiah’s prophecy to find complete fulfillment when Christ returns. 

At the present time, however, this expectation is only partially fulfilled. To be sure, the hearts and minds of believers have been renewed by God’s grace….At the same time, however, we are commanded to be guided by the Scriptures and to watch for corruption in our thinking….The New Testament speaks this way because, while the internalization of the law of God has begun within believers, it has not yet been completed.[29]

Based upon this “partial fulfillment” motif, Pratt can affirm the perfection of the New Covenant but only as it is finally and completely established in the future.

The promise that the new covenant will grant salvation to all who participate will be fulfilled by the removal of the unbelievers at the time of judgment. Only true believers will be left, and thus all who remain in the new covenant will be saved. 

But prior to the judgment that Christ will render at his return, the new covenant community is not restricted to believers only. If it were, there would be no separation of people at Christ’s return….Until the consummation, the new covenant will continue to be a mixture of true believers and sanctified unbelievers.[30]

Before interacting briefly with this concept, it is important to understand why Pratt says the New Covenant is only “partially” fulfilled. He refers to the fulfillment pattern of Jer. 31. “In a word, the fulfillment of the new covenant depended on the fulfillment of the other predictions of chapter 31.”[31] Specifically, Pratt identifies three sections to Jeremiah’s prophecy:

1. Future planting of God’s people in the land (vv. 27–30)
2. Future new covenant with God’s people (vv. 31–37)
3. Future rebuilding and permanence of the holy city (vv. 38–40)

Pratt sees the fulfillment of the first and third portions of the prophecy as yet future, and hence the middle portion cannot yet have come to full completion. He writes:

Because the New Testament does not explicitly apply this threefold fulfillment pattern to Jeremiah’s prophecy of the new covenant, the fulfillment of that particular prophecy is often misunderstood. Often interpreters approach this text as if the new covenant was realized in its fullness when Christ first came to earth, but this is a serious error.[32]

The two elements of this presentation, then, that need to be examined in light of the exegesis already offered are first, is there warrant to insist that a particular theory of fulfillment of prophetic material surrounding the Jeremiah passage must be obtained before the New Covenant it promises can be fully realized? and, second, what are the ramifications of creating a dichotomy between “partial fulfillment” and “final fulfillment” with reference to the use of the passage by the writer to the Hebrews?

With reference to fulfillment themes in the NT, we note that there are numerous passages that the NT writers saw as fulfilled completely in the ministry of Christ that are plainly part of a larger narrative that has not yet been fulfilled in a particular fashion. One can think of Ps. 22 and the fact that its entire thrust leads us from the suffering Messiah (1–18) through to the resurrected and conquering King (27–31). Can one section be fulfilled without the other? Surely.

Moving to Jeremiah, a close contextual passage is found in Jer. 32:40. “I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me.” Here Jeremiah re-states the New Covenant theme from the preceding chapter (indeed, Pratt likewise saw the element of indefectibility in the Jeremiah 31 prophecy that is here laid out with greater clarity). Yet, the immediate context is very closely tied to Jerusalem (v. 36), restoration (v. 37), and the very internal promises of the New Covenant (vv. 38–39). And though the context continues in close proximity with the historic Jerusalem motif (v. 42), clearly these promises are fulfilled in the church. So if particular elements of the prophecy can be fulfilled in the coming of the Spirit and His ministry in the church, upon what basis are we to insist upon a particular “level” of fulfillment of surrounding prophetic material before allowing a “full” fulfillment for the New Covenant?

Further, one could argue that it is artificial to insist upon such a strong connection between the elements Pratt lists. There is a clear break after Jer. 31:26, followed by two “days are coming” oracles. It is hard to insist that the first oracle is to be connected to the second, especially in light of the “sour grapes” saying (v. 29). And after v. 34 we have another break, with the form of the text changing once again to a poetic revelation motif. The real question that must be asked is, does the writer to the Hebrews see the same three-part fulfillment motif that Pratt insists must be followed? And we can only answer that we see no evidence that he does.

But far more compelling is the consideration of the result of making the New Covenant something that is yet future in its fulfillment. We noted in our exegesis that central to the thrust of the writer is the establishment of the supremacy of Christ over the old ways, and in our key texts, he does this through the assertion of a better ministry, a better and New Covenant, with better sacrifices, and a better hope. We are never given the slightest indication that this better covenant is only partly better now, and will get much better in the future. When the writer says in 8:6 that this covenant has been enacted (νενομοθέτηται), there is nothing in the verb used, or in the tense form, to indicate a progressive action that has been “inaugurated” but is still in process and will not come into full force until far in the future. Instead, he chooses the very form of the term that is the most difficult to fit with such a concept. The covenant has been enacted (perfect tense) as a completed action. This establishment of a second covenant (in contrast with the “first,” Heb. 8:7) is related to the passing away of the first (8:13). But if the first passes away, and the second is not fully established, are we left with some form of “partial covenantalism” that is to fill the description of the “better” covenant to which the people should cling rather than returning to the old ways? Is this really how we are to read the writer to the Hebrews? We have insisted that any interpretation that diminishes the apologetic weight of the epistle is to be questioned. Surely the introduction of partiality (and hence imperfection) into the original readers’ experience of the New Covenant falls into this category. How could it not, when the writer concludes his citation with the assertion that the old ways are “about to disappear” (8:13) and yet must then, in the next breath, say that all the promises of the New Covenant are yet future in their final fulfillment, and that the partial covenant that he is offering to them continues to have the very same faults in it that the passage in Jeremiah had addressed (specifically, the fact that they did not keep the covenant, hence, there were apostates and unfaithfulness and individuals for whom the Lord “did not care”)? We suggest that any concept of partiality stands in direct opposition to the apologetic thrust of the writer himself. If we take the inspired interpretation of the NT as our norm, we must reject the partial fulfillment theory based upon the usage of the text itself.

But there is another immediate problem with this theory. As we noted, Jer. 31 is not cited only in Hebrews chapter eight. It appears also in chapter ten. There we saw that it was once again intimately tied to the salvific purpose of God in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The writer cites it once again as the Holy Spirit’s testimony to the truthfulness of the point he just established, i.e., the once-for-all offering of Jesus Christ that perfects those who are sanctified. The writer’s conclusion is, “Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin” (10:18). Consider well what the “only inaugurated, but only partially fulfilled” theory of the New Covenant means in a passage such as this. Is not the very forgiveness of sins dependent upon the completed sacrifice of Jesus Christ? Is it not a part of the writer’s argument that the old offerings have been done away with because the one offering of Christ (the blood of the New Covenant!) has brought about forgiveness? Surely it is. So where is this concept of partiality in the text that directly addresses the nature and result of the New Covenant? It is nowhere to be found. Indeed, we are left to wonder exactly how this “partiality” would be applied in light of the fact that Pratt has clearly seen that the New Covenant is exhaustive and perfect in its soteriological element.

Evidently Pratt believes the full establishment of the New Covenant implies sinless perfection on the part of its members. But this means that while the audience of the Jeremiah prophecy, as applied by the writer to the Hebrews, remains the same from v. 10 through v. 12 (as Pratt seems to agree), the actual fulfillment of the divine blessings differs along the line: there is a partial writing of the law upon the heart, a partial knowledge, but full forgiveness. We are again forced to point out the inconsistency created by not allowing the New Covenant to be fully established by the shed blood of Jesus Christ or to in any way seek to make room within its perfection for the unregenerate. The impact upon the apologetic thesis of the book of Hebrews of such a theory of “partiality,” along with the simple fact that we do not have the first word of description of the covenant in this form as something that will only truly become better in the final completion of all things, argues convincingly against this theory.

Conclusion

Semper reformanda is a phrase that despite its repetition is often set aside in the service of tradition. The concept underlying the phrase is the unfathomable riches of the Word of God, the very words of God inscripturated and given as a gift to Christ’s body, the church. And while semper reformanda does not mean that we never set down boundary markers of truth, it does mean that the highest authority for the church is always the Scripture, and the church is constantly to be examining her faith in the light of God’s Word, knowing our penchant for apathy, our love of the comfortable, the ease with which we confuse human traditions with divine revelation and call them “good.” Engaging the text of Scripture afresh, seeking to hear only what the Holy Spirit has given us in it, eschewing the myriad forms of pious unbelief that mar the work of exegesis in modern times (and question its truly divine nature and clarity), is truly the highest form of obedience to the divine truth contained in the phrases sola scriptura and semper reformanda.

We have sought to fairly and honestly engage the text of the tremendous epistle to the Hebrews and to do justice to the themes and concerns of the writer. The text is clear, compelling, and once again captivates the heart with the glory of its self-consistency. The New Covenant is seen as a divine work, comprehensive in its perfection, reflecting the radiance of the One who defines its every contour, the Lord Jesus Christ, its mediator and its sacrificial offering.

We have likewise sought to be fair to those we have reviewed as we view them as our fellow heirs of grace, our brothers in Christ, even when our exegesis has lead us to question, and reject, the substance of their position. We have written in the firm conviction that Christ’s Word is truth, and Christian unity can only be forged when His people seek His truth there, and nowhere else. It is our hope that this interchange will aid those who seek to examine the issue of baptism, the covenant, and the proper place of these beliefs in the ministry of the church.

Notes

1. See RBTR I:2, Summer 2004, 144–168.
2. Gregg Strawbridge, ed., The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2003).
3. We do not here engage the argument over whether water baptism, in and of itself, is the best candidate for the “covenant sign” in light of the importance of the presence of the Spirit as the down payment in the life of all of the elect, and in light of the intimate connection between the Spirit’s presence and the intention of God in the atoning work of Christ. The discussion here proceeds on the basis of the assumed paedobaptist argumentation, and contrasts it with the viewpoint of Hebrews on the nature of the New Covenant.
4. Ibid., 148.
5. Ibid., 130.
6. Ibid., 131
7. Ibid., 132
8. Ibid., 133.
9. John MacArthur, Leon Morris, and Philip E. Hughes.
10. Ibid., 134.
11. Ibid., 132.
12. Ibid., 136
13. Ibid., 138, 139.
14. Ibid., 148.
15. Ibid., 143.
16. Ibid., 149, 151, 153.
17. Ibid., 153.
18. Ibid., 140.
19. Ibid., 154.
20. John Owen, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, (reprint ed., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1991), 6:530, 531.
21. Ibid., 545, 546.
22. John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (reprint. Ed., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1985), 252–256.
23. Strawbridge, ed., Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism, 281.
24. Ibid., 198. Previous to this Booth had stated, “The old and new covenants are essentially one.”
25. Ibid., 159.
26. Ibid., 161.
27. Richard L. Pratt Jr., “Infant Baptism in the New Covenant” in Strawbridge, ed., The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism, 169.
28. Ibid., 169.
29. Ibid., 171.
30. Ibid., 173.
31. Ibid., 165.
32. Ibid., 168.