Publisher's Synopsis
Volume 1 of the Biblical Theology set explores the common grace covenants of the Bible, the Adamic and Noahic, while Volume 2 studies the special grace covenants in the Old Testament, namely, the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic. Volume 2 also further develops the idea that all divine-human covenants are both unconditional and conditional, in contradistinction to prevailing terminology and understanding of the covenants as either conditional or unconditional, or unilateral or bilateral. Ancillary to the discussion of the covenants is a fresh exploration and demonstration of covenant making and covenant sustaining terminology
Volume 3 examines the final and culminating special grace covenant: the new covenant. It examines formation of the new covenant, life under the new covenant, and eschatological fulfillment of the goals of the new covenant, which also fulfills the eschatological trajectory of all the divine-human covenants taken together in God's plan of redemption. Secondary discussions include what the author calls a soft Arminian approach (which is explored and rejected) to foreknowledge and election; recognition that the new covenant is not, and cannot be, a renewal of the old covenant; a proposal for understanding righteousness, throughout the Bible, as faithfulness to God's nature, with the resultant conclusion that God's own righteousness is his faithfulness to himself, and not merely his faithfulness to some product of his (such as the Old covenant); and a concluding amillennial understanding of the end times. According to author Jeffrey Niehaus, The three volumes taken together present the covenant as an expression of God's nature, and show a paradigm of activity by which God works in covenantal relations, first to create the world and then, through a redemptive program after the fall, to redeem what was lost. The proposed paradigm, by which all the divine-human covenants are expressed and understood, is a new and, it is hoped, helpful way of portraying God's covenant making dynamic, and it also thereby illustrates the divine consistency.
