Covenant Theology: From Adam to Christ, by Nehemiah Coxe & John Owen (Reformed Baptist Academic Press, 2005).

‘There were giants in the land in those days’. Two of them have contributed to this valuable book presenting a Baptist view of the covenants of God. One of them is the famous John Owen, a selection of whose work on the New Covenant in his exposition of the Hebrews is given in the second half of this book. The other one is hardly known by many today but still a very learned and able theologian, the baptist Nehemiah Coxe. Incidentally he was probably the main editor of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith. His contribution to this book is on the covenants before that with Moses – so with Adam, Noah and Abraham. He is very helpful on a vital topic for giving us a big picture view of the flow of the Bible – of the thread of grace which strings it all together.

I have almost finished Coxe’s contribution and have found it most enlightening. Here is a classic covenantal approach, whilst unpicking the notion that circumcision under the Abrahamic covenant provides the basis for infant baptism in the New Covenant. More to come when I have finished!

Jeremy