The Progressive Revelation of the Covenant of Grace

This is from the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 7, Of God’s Covenant with Man:

II. The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.

III. Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace;

Unlike the Westminster Confession of Faith, which sets up two covenants, one of works and one of grace, and then describes that second one within the framework of dual administrations (one Old Testament and one New), the 1689 Baptist Confession instead puts forth a view that the covenant of grace has one administration which is progressively revealed throughout history until it achieves its full and final discovery in the New Testament.

Here is the Baptist Confession at the same point as the WCF quoted above:

2. Moreover, man having brought himself under the curse of the law by his fall, it pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace, wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved; and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life, his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe.

3. This covenant is revealed in the gospel; first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman, and afterwards by farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament; and it is founded in that eternal covenant transaction that was between the Father and the Son about the redemption of the elect; and it is alone by the grace of this covenant that all the posterity of fallen Adam that ever were saved did obtain life and blessed immortality, man being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those terms on which Adam stood in his state of innocency.

Same Waldron, in his Modern Exposition of the 1689 Confession, says this:

The Baptist Confession does not artificially limit the development in the covenant of grace to mere changes in its external administration or sacraments. Furthermore, it does not limit its discussion of the revelation of the covenant of grace to a (somewhat narrow) dual presentation of Old and New Covenant administrations of the covenant of grace. Rather, it introduces the idea of progressive revelation, beginning with ‘Adam’, proceeding through ‘farther steps’ until ‘the full discovery’ of the covenant of grace in the New Testament. The presentation of the Westminster Confession of Faith tends to minimize the diversity of God’s covenantal dealings and miss the progress in the characteristics of covenant community. The presentation of the Baptist Confession, with its use of the idea of progressive revelation, provides a balance between unity and diversity and a broader perspective on God’s covenantal dealings.

I may do a series of posts using Waldron’s exposition on the 1689 Baptist Confession, and my next post on this subject will probably be on the distinction which needs to be made between what Waldron calls “the divine covenants”, and the covenant of grace.