In our previous chapter, we discussed various ways in which theology, rather than biblical texts, often drives competing versions of the doctrine of continuity/discontinuity. In particular, we considered the two theologically-derived covenants crucial to Covenant Theology: a Covenant of Works made with Adam before he fell, and a Covenant of Grace made with Adam after he fell. In this chapter, I want to look at several key texts of Scripture that I believe have a direct bearing on the subject of continuity and discontinuity. Once we have a biblical foundation upon which to build, then we can construct a systematic theological formulation of the doctrine, rather than vice versa. The first text is 2 Corinthians 5:17. We need to look at and unpack two translations of this verse. As we do, we will establish a vital point upon which New Covenant Theology rests, and we will find a partial answer to the problem of continuity and discontinuity.

Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (KJV, emphasis added)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (NIV, emphasis added) 

The KJV translates the Greek noun ktísis as creature; the NIV as creation. It is important that we understand the difference. Ktísis, a noun, derives from the verb ktízō (to create: to produce from nothing; to form out of pre-existent matter; to make or compose) and is closely related to another noun, ktísma. The first noun, ktísis, stresses the work or the process of creation—the original formation of an object. Think in terms of a founding, a doing, an act—a creating. The latter noun, ktísma, emphasizes the product of creation—the result of the work of ktísis.

Preachers and teachers often quote this verse to prove the necessity of a radical moral change in a person’s life when that person has made a profession of faith in Christ. In this view, new creature refers to the product of moral transformation. The professing disciple’s old sinful habits have disappeared, and new and godly habits have taken their place. If these things have not happened, then the person’s confession of faith is suspect. The new creature is evidence of the process of new creating, but the evidence is the significant thing. The emphasis is on the product rather than the process, which is closer to the meaning of ktísma. Phillips’ paraphrase embodies this view of the text.

For if a man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether—the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new.

A paraphrase represents the translator’s personal understanding of a text put into everyday language. If the translator has caught the truth of the text, then his paraphrase is a great help. If he has not understood the text theologically, then his paraphrase will cloud the issue. I find Phillips’ paraphrase helpful most of the time, but in the case of this verse, I think he missed the original author’s intention.

I have often noted that when we misunderstand a text of Scripture, we do not make just one mistake—we make two. First, we make the text say something it is not saying. If the particular doctrine we have mistakenly derived from the text is taught somewhere else in Scripture, then we are not teaching false doctrine; we are merely using the wrong text to teach a biblical truth. The second mistake, however, can be far more serious. We miss the truth the text is teaching. If this truth is not taught anywhere else in Scripture, then we have lost that truth.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul is not talking primarily about the morally changed believer, even though the text legitimately implies that. If we make the text mean that, as do Phillips and the translators of the KJV, we are not teaching something contrary to biblical revelation. Elsewhere, Paul constantly teaches the necessity of a changed life as evidence of true conversion. We are neither questioning that fact nor minimizing it. We insist, however, that in this text, Paul’s main point is not the creature—the product of creation—but the creating itself—the process of creating a new way of knowing made possible by a historical change in redemptive history. In verse 16, Paul links Christ’s death and resurrection to a new way of knowing our fellow human beings—we know no longer after the flesh. For the Corinthian believers, this meant that they would no longer judge according to appearances. Status, wealth, and power (the three significant cultural factors of the early Roman Empire) would not figure in how they viewed their fellow human beings. In the Roman world, “knowing after the flesh” meant paying attention to visible distinctions between people and enforcing separations on the basis of those visible markers. To “know” contrary to that way was to begin creating a new community where a person’s soul or heart was the significant factor.

“Regard no one from a worldly point of view,” Paul writes. In other words, “Change your worldview. Do not judge by appearances, as is the way of the world (the Roman world to which Paul and his readers belonged). Create a new world, through Christ, wherein your heart attitude, rather than your social status (your wealth and position), is what matters at the judgment.” This new world (new creation) is a reconciled world (God, through Christ, reconciled the world to himself—2 Cor. 5:17-21), a new dwelling place, a new way of being. It includes improved morals, but these improved morals stem from a radically changed worldview—a “reconciled” worldview. This new worldview is creative—it is a ktísi—the formation of an object.

The new object made possible through the creative act of reconciliation is the “new creation” of the church, viewed as the body of Christ, or as the “new man” in Ephesians 2:1-22. This new creation was generated by the advent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. It is the “in Christ” experience wherein a believer is united to Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and enthronement. This is a post-Pentecost experience; it is built on the newly established New Covenant, which derives from our Lord being seated on a throne with all power. Being part of the new creation is being “seated together with Christ in heavenly places” (Eph. 2:6). A New Covenant believer lives on the resurrection side of the cross. He is part of the new “Christ’s creation” that was established on the redemptive work of God’s Messiah and the advent of the Holy Spirit. He is part of the new kingdom. He has entered into the new age.

In the “new creation” of which Paul speaks, all things (KJV) have become new, which implies that all things in the old have passed away (KJV). The old creation has gone (NIV). The text is clear: the old way of viewing the world, of thinking about the world and the people in it, is obsolete. If Paul is talking about a moral change, who among us can say, “all things” have, once and forever, aorist tense, passed away? In the new creation of which Paul writes, “all things” have become, aorist tense, new (KJV). That is sinless perfection if it is talking about a moral change.

The coming of new things necessitates the going of the old version of those things. Part of the “old things” that are gone is the Old Covenant. Although Paul’s immediate context in the letter is the overturning of social conventions of the Greco-Roman world, the context that precedes it is Jewish—explicitly, the Mosaic Covenant (2 Cor. 3:1-18). This is what is salient for our discussion of continuity and discontinuity. Just as there is a New Covenant that is radically new and different that replaces an Old Covenant that is obsolete, so everything that the Old Covenant brought into being has been done away with and has been replaced by something much better. The old has served its purpose, and we have moved on to new and better things. However, the new things that have replaced the old were clearly prophesied in the old as “coming.” The new that came was not a surprise, but was exactly what was expected because it was promised in the old. The new and the old are both essential parts of God’s one sovereign purpose of redemption by grace through faith. They are radically different despite the fact that both serve the same ultimate goal.

Theologically, we view the move from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant in terms of promise and fulfillment. We do not start at ground zero in the New Covenant. We build on the Old. There is only one story line in Scripture. The New Covenant does not start a new story line, but demonstrates that the one unchanging story line has moved from promise to fulfillment. This theme of fulfillment is why the Old Covenant is no longer significant. The promised reconciliation has occurred. In a sense, within the New Covenant, there is both a total continuity and a total discontinuity. Some adherents to New Covenant Theology miss this fact.

1 Peter 1:9-12 is helpful at this point.

Receiving the end of your faith—even the salvation of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things which angels desire to look into.

When New Covenant Theology insists that everything in the New Covenant really is new, we are not implying that the New Covenant is completely unrelated to what went before. We agree with the statement, “The new is in the old concealed, and the old is in the new revealed.” I repeat; the principle to which we ascribe is that of promise/fulfillment. The new that has come has given us the very things to which the Old Covenant believers looked forward in hope. We are not in any sense suggesting that the Old Covenant equals bad and the New Covenant equals good. We are insisting that the Old and New are both good, but the New is much better than the Old. The Mosaic law is as “holy, just, and good” (Rom. 7:12) today as it was when God gave it at Sinai, but its status, function, and authority as a covenant have been replaced by a new and better covenant. Remember, God is the author of both the Old and the New Covenants. He gave the Old Covenant to Israel for a specific purpose—to perform a specific job—and when it had accomplished its purpose, he replaced it. The contrast of Old and New is not between good and bad, but between childhood-immaturity and adulthood-maturity.

There is a sense in which the book of Hebrews provides a commentary on 2 Corinthians 5:17. Some Jews may well have taunted Christians by saying, “You people have none of the things it takes to have a religion. You have no covenant, no priesthood, no temple, no law, no altar, and no sacrifice. All of these things are essential to religion, and you have none of them.” The Christian response would have been the truth of Hebrews, “We have all that you have, and ours is better than yours. We have a better covenant, a better High Priest, and the like. In each case, ours is better.” The better things of Hebrews are the better things of the new creation, and there is a complete newness in them.

In the Greco-Roman world of Paul’s day, newness was not invested with the same kind of superiority it is in our culture. For Paul’s contemporaries, antiquity was better. Judaism could boast a lineage that predated Plato and even Homer. Given this cultural preference for things ancient, we can easily imagine a second taunt from the Jews. It would address the newness of Christianity: “Christianity is a Johnny-come-lately. You have no history or great leaders. You are nobodies. You have no one like Moses or Abraham.” The writer of Hebrews never explicitly states that Christ is greater than Abraham, but he proves it in a subtle manner. Abraham is a key figure in Jewish history. To make his case about the superiority of Christianity to Judaism, the writer first must prove Christ to be superior to Abraham. In the first four chapters, the writer proves that Christ is greater than the prophets, greater than the angels, greater than Joshua, greater than Moses, and greater than Aaron. In this list, he does not include Abraham by name; however, he proves beyond question that Christ is greater than Abraham. In effect, he argues thusly, “You want antiquity, you want to boast about great leaders with a history, you want to boast about Moses and go back and claim Abraham as your father. Fine, but don’t stop with Abraham. We go back farther than Abraham. Don’t you remember that your father Abraham paid tithes to a priest after the same order as our High Priest? Abraham paid tithes to a priest after the order of Melchizedek, and our High Priest is after the same order of priesthood as was Melchizedek. We had a functioning priest before Abraham was born.” What a response!

I repeat; all things are new in the new creation. As we think about continuity and discontinuity within the new creation, we find that Hebrews speaks to both. The content of the letter demonstrates complete discontinuity in relationship to the Old Covenant. However, we must keep in mind that the new creation demonstrates complete continuity in that the New Covenant fulfills the specific types, shadows, and promises recorded in the Old Testament Scriptures. Throughout the book of Hebrews, the author makes many comparisons and contrasts between Christianity and Judaism, and not between weak and strong Christians, as some people read it. The nature of the comparisons and contrasts is essential to proper interpretation of the letter. John MacArthur has said it well:

The central theme and message of the book of Hebrews is the superiority of the New Covenant to the Old, that is, of Christianity to Judaism. Within this theme are the sub themes of the superiority of the new priesthood to the old, the new sacrifice to the old ones, the new Mediator to the old ones, and so on. This is the key that unlocks every section of Hebrews, and to use any other key is, I believe, to make forced entry.

In the book of Hebrews the Holy Spirit is not contrasting two kinds of Christianity. He is not contrasting immature Christians and mature ones. He is contrasting Judaism and Christianity, the unsaved Jew in Judaism and the redeemed Jew in Christianity. He is contrasting the substance and the shadow, the pattern and the reality, the visible and the invisible, the facsimile and the real thing, the type and the anti-type, the picture and the actual.

The Old Testament essentially is God’s revelation of pictures and types, which are fulfilled in Christ in the New Testament. The book of Hebrews, therefore, compares and contrasts the two parts of God’s revelation that our division of the Bible reflects.^[1]

The realities of which the old types and shadows testified are found in Christ.

Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, is writing about creating a radically new way of being in the world. For the believing Gentiles, this meant abandoning the prevailing cultural predilection for judging according to appearance (status, wealth, and power). For the believing Jews, this meant turning from the Old Covenant to the New. For both groups, this new way of being in the world meant living in the light of being reconciled to God and to each other through Jesus the Messiah.

The second text that is significant for the discussion of continuity and discontinuity is Romans 6:14. 

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. (KJV)

This is a startling statement, broad in its scope and especially important for our study. Covenant theologians will agree with much of what I have said about 2 Corinthians 5:17 and the book of Hebrews. They will agree that the Old Covenant is ended, as long as we first excise the Ten Commandments out of the covenant. To accomplish this excision, Covenant Theology defines the Ten Commandments as the law of the Old Covenant. They then claim the Old Covenant is gone (in agreement with 2 Cor. 5:17), but stipulate that the law of the Old Covenant continues into the New Covenant. Their definition is not biblical, however, since the Ten Commandments are, in and of themselves, the words of the Covenant. It is impossible to separate the law of the Old Covenant from the covenant itself. 

Covenant Theology, with its view of the continuity of the moral law (they refer to the Ten Commandments as the moral law), faces a challenge when confronted with Paul’s statement in Romans 6:14. This verse presents an exegetical problem for anyone who views the Ten Commandments as the universal rule of life and the standard of judgment for all people in all ages. Within the system of Covenant Theology, God has given only one canon of conduct. Paul, in this section of Romans, however, seems clearly to teach that those who are united to Christ have a new life that is characterized as dead to sin (Rom. 6:4-14). In this new life, a Christian is free from the law in a sense that an Old Covenant Jew never could have been. This new life also means that an Old Covenant Jew had been under the law in a sense that a Christian must not be. Within this new life described immediately prior to verse 14, law and grace are antithetical. It would seem as though God has given two canons of conduct. One, the law, belongs to an old age. The other, Christ, belongs to a new age. Look at the text again: For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

A few paragraphs earlier (Rom. 5:20), Paul had explained the function of the law in terms of trespass, sin, and death. He contrasted it with grace, set forth in terms of righteousness and life:

Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. (KJV)

Imagine the shock devout Jews would have felt upon hearing this read. They would have been ready to stone Paul to death for such a statement. To say that God’s purpose in giving the law was to “make sin abound” would be bad enough, but to say, But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, would be even worse. So Paul, in the next sentence, immediately raises the objection he foresees:

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? (Rom. 6:1)

It is safe to say that if our preaching of law and grace does not lead to this same conclusion on the part of some of our hearers, then we are not preaching Paul’s view of law and grace. The context sets law and grace in opposition. I once heard a Reformed Baptist preacher say, “You will never hear me set law and grace in opposition. Law and gospel, yes, but not law and grace.” Strange—Paul does just the opposite!

Romans 6:2-13 is Paul’s answer to the objection in 6:1. Whatever those verses mean, that meaning must contribute to answering this objection. Paul’s statement in Romans 6:14 is his conclusion to the argument he has constructed as an answer to the objection in 6:1. The verse begins with “for” or “because.” Paul is saying that the conclusion in verse one (“let’s sin more in order to get more grace”) is impossible for a child of God. It is impossible for sin to have dominion over a child of God simply because he is “not under the law but under grace.” In Paul’s theology, it is (1) impossible to be under the law and not be also under sin, and (2) impossible to be free from the tyranny of sin without being free from the law. Those two things go together.

In Romans 6:15, Paul anticipates another logical implication of his antithesis. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?

In verse 1, Paul anticipates the argument that an incentive to sin comes from a corresponding magnification of grace. In verse 15, he anticipates the argument that an incentive to sin comes from no fear of punishment. If it impossible for me ever to come into condemnation because I am eternally secure in Christ and so under his grace that I can never be lost, then does it not follow that I can live like the devil and still go to heaven? Is being free from the law, which is a facet of discontinuity, not a license to sin? Without law, what motivates and informs holy living? 

Paul answers that just the opposite is true: true holy living is possible only when the conscience has been set free from the law and has been wedded to a risen Christ. Paul, in Romans 6:14, provides the inspiration for the great hymn, “Free from the Law—O Happy Condition.”^[2] I have heard people mock that hymn, changing the words to make them promote licentious living, and then justifying their censure of the hymn. In a similar fashion, those people unconsciously mock Romans 6:14. In so doing, however, they mock the gospel of sovereign grace. I challenge anyone to show me one word in that hymn, as Bliss wrote it, which is contrary to the gospel. If we understand the words in the hymn to be, like Romans 6:14, referring to justification by faith, then we will see that Bliss is preaching the same thing as was his contemporary, Priscilla Owens, in her hymn, “Jesus Saves, Jesus Saves.”^[3] Who among believers wants to mock that hymn?

Isn’t it amazing that the very thing that a legalist believes will lead to sin is the only thing that gives power to conquer sin! It is the absolute assurance that I can never be condemned (Rom. 8:1) that makes me want to love and serve my Father in heaven.

The one word you will never hear in the New Covenant concerning a child of God is “punishment.” Discipline from the hands of a loving Father, yes, but punishment by a judge, no. No New Covenant believer will ever face God as a judge who decides his eternal destiny; that judgment is past for a child of God. We are in the family of God and are treated accordingly (John 5:24 and Rom. 8:1). We cannot be “unborn.”

Let me illustrate what it means to be “not under the law.” Christians have “diplomatic immunity.” They are free from the law. A diplomat to the United States from France, or from any other country, is not subject to the laws of the United States. American authorities cannot arrest a person with diplomatic immunity. The diplomat may kill someone in front of ten witnesses, and American authorities cannot arrest him. All that the American authorities can do is to make the diplomat leave the country. Of course, the same is true of our diplomats to France. While serving in France, they are not under the law of France, but are under the laws of the United States.

If the premise of the legalist were correct, we would expect all kinds of unlawful behavior from diplomats. After all, they cannot be punished for anything they do. In actual fact, diplomats rarely break our laws. A true diplomat is deeply concerned with making a good impression on behalf of his country. Good diplomats want the people in the country in which they are serving to think well of the diplomat’s native country.

Suppose you were riding in a car with a French diplomat, and you were in a hurry. You ask the diplomat to speed it up. He says, “No, I am already going the speed limit.” You say, “What are you afraid of? You can’t get a ticket. You are a diplomat; you have immunity from our law.” His response would be, “I am not afraid of anything. My motive for obeying your laws is not fear of punishment. I am fully aware I cannot be arrested in your country because I am not under your law. It is because I am a diplomat that I will not exceed the speed limit. I do not want your country to think that France is a nation of lawless rebels. I want my behavior to show how much I respect your laws.”

The same principle is at work in a Christian’s behavior. He is “an ambassador for Christ” (2 Cor. 5:20) and lives in such a way that his “good works may be seen and his Father in heaven glorified” (Matt. 5:16).

The doctrine of justification also demonstrates a Christian’s freedom from the law. In Romans 8, that glorious chapter on absolute assurance of everlasting life, Paul argues, “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth” (Rom. 8:33, KJV). The extent of the authority of the one justifying dictates the extent of the benefit of the pronouncement of justification. I can declare that I justify you, and it does not mean much. When President Gerald Ford pardoned, thus justifying, former President Richard Nixon, it was an act by the highest authority in the land. It meant that not a single person, authority, law agency, or court, including the Supreme Court, could bring charges against the former president. He was free from all law enforcement individuals and agencies in the United States. He had been justified by the current president, the highest authority in the land. No one has the authority to override the president’s pardon. Paul is saying that an even higher authority than the president of a country has declared poor sinners to be justified in his sight, and no one dare question God’s authority. When God justifies, every mouth of accusation is stopped.

Let me give one more illustration of the discontinuity of our relationship to the Old Covenant, or to use Paul’s words, to be “not under the law but under grace.”

Suppose Faith Baptist Church decides to become Faith Presbyterian Church. The first thing they do is to write a new constitution and doctrinal statement. The new constitution contains much of the content of the old constitution from Faith Baptist Church, but it also contains many significant changes. The new constitution retains the former constitution’s statements about the person and work of Christ and incorporates doctrines such as justification by faith, with no change from its formulation in the old constitution. The new constitution drops believers-only baptism by immersion and adds infant baptism by sprinkling. The new constitution eliminates the congregational form of government and replaces it with the presbyterian form of government. The vital point of this illustration for our discussion is this: what is the legal relationship of Faith Presbyterian Church to the old Faith Baptist Church constitution? The answer is, “none at all.” The constitution of Faith Baptist Church is invalid as a legally binding document. It has been replaced with a new constitution. No one in Faith Presbyterian Church may use the old constitution to support a doctrine or practice that was not brought over into the new constitution.

The life and worship of Faith Baptist Church was controlled by the old constitution under which they lived. The life and worship of Faith Presbyterian Church, despite the fact that the congregation comprises the same people, is no longer under the old constitution, but is under the new constitution. The old constitution is invaluable in helping the people at Faith Presbyterian Church to understand why they believe what they do, who they are, how they got to where they are, and especially how and why they now believe differently from what they once believed. The primary change in their relationship to the old constitution is their freedom from it as a legal, binding document.

The two constitutions in our illustration function in the same way as do the two biblical covenants we have been discussing. Just as the Old Covenant ruled the life and worship of the nation of Israel, so the New Covenant rules the life and worship of the true Israel of God, the church. This is precisely what Paul means in Ephesians 2:19-20 by referring to Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone and the apostles and prophets as the foundation of the household of God.

Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone. (KJV)

Nearly every commentary on Ephesians written over a hundred years ago would have said something like this: “The phrase apostles and prophets is another way of saying, ‘the entire Bible.’ It means the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles.” Then, commentators began to consider the possibility that prophets could mean New Testament prophets. Now, nearly every commentator will say that prophets must refer to the New Testament prophets. The identity of these prophets has serious implications for understanding the subject of continuity and discontinuity. Two quotations, one from William Hendricksen, and the other from John Stott, demonstrate this significance.

Hendricksen comments:

The position that the term prophets as here used refers to the Old Testament bearers of that appellative, such as Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc., (thus Lenski, op. cit., pp. 450-453), is open to serious objections; such as the following: (1) Apostles are mentioned first, then prophets; (2) the designation of ‘foundation’ of the house, a dwelling shared equally by Jew and Gentile, suits the New Testament prophets better than those of the older dispensation; (3) according to 4:8-11 the prophets there mentioned immediately after the apostles, just as here in 2:20, are ‘gifts’ bestowed on the church by the ascended Christ; hence, prophets of the New Testament era; and (4) 3:5, where the same expression ‘apostles and prophets’ occurs in a context from which the reference to the prophets of the old dispensation is definitely excluded, would seem to clinch the argument in favor of New Testament prophets.^[4] 

You may find it hard to believe (as I do) that a committed Covenant theologian would make such statements. His explanation seems inconsistent with his theological system. I admire him for being honest with the text. His comments compellingly demonstrate that Paul refers to New Testament prophets and not to Old Testament prophets. John Stott goes further and points out the implications of this identity, for both further biblical exegesis and theological formulations:

The reference must again be to a small group of inspired teachers, associated with the apostles, who together bore witness to Christ and whose teaching was derived from revelation (3:5) and was foundational. In practical terms this means that the church is built on the New Testament Scriptures. They are the church’s foundation documents… The church stands or falls by its loyal dependence on the foundation truths which God revealed to his apostles and prophets, and which are now preserved in the New Testament Scriptures.^[5]

As Stott explains, Paul’s statement in Ephesians 2:20 means that the coming of Christ has produced a historical shift of authority. Moses and the Old Covenant were authoritative for the life and worship of Israel, but Jesus and the New Covenant are authoritative for the life and worship of the body of Christ. The law of Moses ruled the conscience of an Old Covenant believer. The law of Christ rules the conscience of a New Covenant believer. In the conscience of a New Covenant believer, there is a discontinuity of the law as the pedagogue, even while there is a continuity of expectation: “be ye holy as I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:15 quoting Lev. 11 and 19).

If we minimize or ignore Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:19 and 20 by making Moses carry authority over the worship and conscience of either the church or the individual Christian, we deny the discontinuity of the Old Covenant and accept an unbiblical continuity that negates a true New Covenant and its replacement of the Old Covenant. Ultimately, this denial is a denial of the unique and final authority of Christ as Lord over the church.

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