01 Unfolding Covenants:  The Key to Scripture

From the Akron, OH Conference on Covenant Theology held at Westminster Community Presbyterian Church:

A Covenantal View of the Christian Faith

Outlines:

Unfolding Covenants: The Key to Scripture (7 pm Friday)
1. Understanding the “Backbone of the Bible”
2. Understanding the Relationship Between Biblical Covenants
Questions & Answers

Children and the Covenants (9 am Saturday)
1. How Children Fit into the Old Testament Covenants
2. How Children Fit into the New Testament/New Covenant

Baptism, Communion, and the Covenants (10 am Saturday)
1. The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism
2. The Case for Covenant Communion

The Future and the Covenants (11 am Saturday)
1. Hopelessly Left Behind: End-Times Fictions
2. Hopefully Looking Ahead: A Covenantal Future

Remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15 He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16 and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. 17 So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; 18 for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; 22 in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.  Ephesians 2:12–22 (NRSV)

The Unfolding Covenants of Promise
The Covenant” is foundationally the union of love within the Triune God. The Trinitarian God has been revealing Himself throughout history. God’s covenant character is revealed in the pattern of promise and obligation in the unfolding story of redemption. The “eternal covenant” (Heb. 13:20) manifests the nature of the Covenant Lord (Yahweh). This one redemptive Oath guiding cosmic history (Eph. 3:10-11) has been administered through the biblical “covenants of promise” (Eph. 2:12): Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and supremely and finally declared in the New Covenant and fulfilled through the One Mediator, Jesus.