John Calvin’s Integrated Covenant Theology (1): The Nature of the Covenant
This article by Rev. Angus Stewart examines John Calvin's integrated covenant theology, specifically focusing on Calvin's doctrine of the unity of the covenant across Old and New Testament dispensations. Stewart demonstrates how Calvin systematically developed the covenant concept in his Institutes (2.10-11) and polemically defended the covenant's essential oneness against Anabaptist and other heretical distortions that denied Old Testament saints a spiritual inheritance.
Rev. Angus Stewart (Slightly modified from an article first published in the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal) While Calvin is neither the originator of Reformed covenant theology nor the author of the first book on the covenant—these honours falling to Zwingli and Bullinger respectively—he is, as Peter Lillback states, “the first … to integrate the covenant concept extensively into his theological system.”1 Calvin’s longest and most detailed treatment of the covenant is found in book...