Heinrich Bullinger, the First Covenant Theologian
This article establishes Heinrich Bullinger as the first covenant theologian of the Protestant era, examining his foundational 1534 treatise on God's covenant and its lasting influence on Reformed theology. The author demonstrates how Bullinger developed covenant theology as a positive theological framework grounded in Scripture, partly in response to Anabaptist objections to infant baptism, and how this doctrine became central to his entire theological corpus including his sermons and biblical commentaries.
Rev. Angus Stewart (Slightly modified from an article first published in the British Reformed Journal) Heinrich Bullinger’s A Brief Exposition of the One and Eternal Testament or Covenant of God (1534) was the first book devoted to the subject of the covenant in 1500 years of the Christian church.1 Because of its influence on the subsequent development of the doctrine of the covenant, Charles S. McCoy and J. Wayne Baker even go so far as to call it the “fountainhead of federalism,” federalism...