The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology – A Comparison between Seventeenth-Century Particular Baptist and Paedobaptist Federalism by Pascal Denault (Solid Ground Christian Books, 2017)

Pascal Denault (Eglise Evangelique de St-Jerome, Qc) has performed an excellent service to all Particular/Reformed Baptists today in seeking to approach Covenant Theology from a Baptist viewpoint. His very careful and irenic study reveals a spectrum of opinion within the broad Reformed camp which may surprise. He further shows that the believer’s baptism versus infant baptism debate has a deeper difference at the heart of it than many Baptist and Presbyterians realise. It arises out of understanding the Covenants of Grace in an opposing way. The one Covenant of Grace with two administrations of it in New Testament and Old is very much a paedo baptist framework, supported by the Westminster Confession. But another view is summed up in the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith. Interestingly one of the most significant voices in support of this is actually from the equally paedobaptist but Congregationalist John Owen. Nehemiah Coxe and other early Baptists drew on him to argue for a model of the Covenant of Grace as promised in the Old Testament but not formalised and revealed until Christ came, who is the mediator of it. Denault quotes extensively from figures on both sides of opinion to give a fair representation of both views.

I found this a very enlightening and helpful study and his conclusions for the Baptist position biblically robust. Covenant theology gives a ‘birds eye’ view of the Bible and necessarily shapes our basic hermeneutics. It has tremendous implications for the doctrine of the church and its ordinances and therefore demands careful attention.

Jeremy