R.C. Sproul

I've never really appreciated that distinction too much because I believe that

all branches of theology recognize to some degree the importance of covenants in understanding biblical redemption.

Now, to be sure, there's a certain focus on covenant that you find within Reformed theology, but we're not going to be just simply developing Reformed theology in this course so much as looking actually at the content of the biblical covenants as they occur to us.

I think it's very important for us to understand at the outset that the whole concept of covenant is integral, it's foundational, it's basic to the whole scope of divine revelation.

We could even say, for example, that the way that God reveals His Word and His plan biblically is through the structure of various covenants.

And yet at the same time, as frequently as the Bible speaks about covenants, there's a lot of confusion, I'm afraid, that attends the very meaning of the term covenant.

For example, we frequently speak about the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, and then we speak of the Old Testament.

and the New Testament, and the tendency is to use those terms interchangeably, that is, to consider the Old Testament as a synonym for the Old Covenant and the New Testament as a synonym for the New Covenant.

Well, of course, those terms are closely related, but they really aren't synonyms.

They don't mean exactly the same thing, and I'm hoping that in the process of this course, we'll begin to see the distinctions between these two and how they impact our understanding of Scripture.

Now, let me just say again that

The biblical revelation that we encounter in Scripture is progressive.

That is, there is a gradual unfolding of God's revelation.

He doesn't give it all to us in the book of Genesis, but as history moves through time, God gives more and more and more revelation of Himself and of His plan of redemption.

Now, that continuing progressive revelation is not corrective.

It's not like the newest revelation corrects the old one because God doesn't need to be corrected, but He augments or adds additional content to that revelation as time passes.

And again, the basic structure that carries that progression is the structure of covenant.

Now the first question that we ask about covenants is, what are they?

What is a covenant?

And again, there's a little bit of confusion there.