This is an outlined transcript of the Reform Rookie Video Podcast with Brandon Adams, creator of 1689federalism.com and contrast2.wordpress.com.
What Is 1689 Federalism?
Anthony: Our topic today is 1689 Federalism. A little while ago, some might say you poked the hornet's nest and got a couple of people in a little dust-up. So what exactly is 1689 Federalism? Can you give us a definition and explain it a little?
Brandon: 1689 Federalism is a form of covenant theology. Covenant theology broadly speaking is the idea that the history of salvation — the history of eternal life — is governed by two covenants: the covenant of works with Adam, where God offered him eternal life upon the condition of his perfect obedience to the law; and after Adam failed, the covenant of grace, which offers the same eternal rest, the same eternal life that was offered to Adam, but this time the condition is faith in the finished work of Christ. Covenant theology sees all of history governed by those two federal heads.
Where 1689 Federalism is different from the Westminster view: a Westminster view would tend to see all of the other covenants that come after the one with Adam — the Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic — as different versions of the same covenant. 1689 Federalism would identify only the new covenant as that covenant of grace that offers salvation in Christ. The other covenants are subservient to it — they play different roles throughout history. The Noahic covenant preserves humanity and the earth from destruction as salvation plays out. But they are not the offer of eternal life in Christ. Only the new covenant is.
Westminster vs. 1689 Federalism
Anthony: Would Presbyterians or Westminster people hold to the fact that those covenants are one covenant? Or are they different covenants, and then we get to the new covenant, and that's part of that one covenant?
Brandon: They would see them as — the term they like to use is they're all different "administrations" of the same covenant. An analogy they like to use is: it's all the same person, he's just wearing different clothes. Somebody gets a haircut — they're still the same person. The old covenant was a different pair of clothes; the new covenant is newer clothes that look different. In the old covenant you had circumcision, animal sacrifices, and Passover; now we have baptism and the Lord's Supper. They would say they're really just the same thing, they just look different.
Their argument is that all throughout history, salvation has always only been through faith in Christ — that's how Abraham was saved, how Moses was saved, and David. Therefore it must be the same covenant.
We would say: yes, it is true that they were all saved in the same way — through union with Christ, through faith in Christ. But we would say that must mean therefore that they were saved by the new covenant.
Reformed Baptists Who Don't Hold to 1689 Federalism
Anthony: Within Reformed Baptist circles, there are some 1689 Federalists — what would you call the other people?
Brandon: That's a good question. The trouble is there's never been necessarily a systematic outworking or labeling of what that view was.
Reformed Baptists in general — the Second London Baptist Confession — kind of died out in the early 20th century and was sort of rediscovered in the 50s and 60s. When it was rediscovered, a lot of the history was sort of lost and had to be rediscovered. These men tried to work out a covenant theology — they recognized that Scripture taught credobaptism, but they tried to put the pieces together and they didn't quite put it together the same way as 1689 Federalism does. They tended to adopt more of a one-covenant, one-overarching-covenant-with-different-administrations model. They would tend to argue that, yes, infants and the nation were included in the covenant of grace in the old covenant, but what's new about the new covenant is that it's now only the elect.
Greg Nichols's book is probably the closest to a systematic outworking of that view.
They would tend to view the Mosaic covenant as the covenant of grace — as a gracious giving of the law. 1689 Federalism would see it as a temporal or typological covenant of works — not for eternal life, but for blessing and curse in the land of Canaan. That would tend to distinguish 1689 Federalism from that other Reformed Baptist view. They would not agree with the idea that Old Testament saints were saved by the new covenant.
Sam Waldron's View
Anthony: So they would say that there was grace in the old covenant and they're saved by that grace in the old covenant — until the new covenant comes?
Brandon: The way Sam Waldron has articulated it in the past, he would argue that the covenant of grace was actually an overarching covenant — above and separate from the old covenant. So he would say they weren't saved by the old covenant itself; they were saved by the covenant of grace overarching it. But the covenant of grace is not identical to the new covenant, so they weren't saved by the new covenant. The covenant of grace they would see as over the top of both the new covenant and the old covenant — at least that's the way Sam Waldron had previously argued it.
Apparently he's come around more to the 1689 Federalism view, but that was the earlier articulation.
They would tend to call that a "theological covenant" and distinguish it from what they would see as the historical covenants — the old covenant, the new covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, and so on. It's over and above them — it's God's plan of salvation.
A lot of people who push back against the idea that somebody could be saved from the new covenant in the Old Testament — at the same time they have no problem affirming that those people were saved by the death of Christ even though he hadn't died yet. If you can affirm one, there's no theoretical problem affirming the other.
— Brandon Adams, Can Old Testament Saints Be in the New Covenant Before It Was Ratified?
Can Old Testament Saints Be in the New Covenant Before It Was Ratified?
Anthony: Let me give you a little bit of pushback. How can you be in the new covenant if the new covenant hasn't been ratified yet? How is that possible?
Brandon: Let me give you a question in response: how is it possible that anybody could be saved by the blood of Christ before he died?
Anthony: Well, that's a good question — is it one of the same thing?
Brandon: I would say yes — it's the same idea. A lot of people who push back against the idea that somebody could be saved from the new covenant in the Old Testament — at the same time they have no problem affirming that those people were saved by the death of Christ even though he hadn't died yet. If you can affirm one, there's no theoretical problem affirming the other.
The Payday Loan Analogy
Brandon: The best way to think about it is the idea of a payday loan, or an advance on a paycheck. If you have a contract with an employer, you get a paycheck every two weeks. But if you need some of that before payday comes, you can go to some banks or other places and say: here's my agreement — it's a certainty I'm going to get this paycheck on this date; I just need the money before that date comes. And you're able to get that money.
No analogy is perfect, but in a similar way: God the Son promised God the Father that he would come in history, live a perfect life, die a death on a cross for his people, to redeem his people. The fact that he agreed to do that — that he promised to do it — makes it a certainty. Because of that, the benefits that he earns for his people can be given to his people before he actually completes that act. They receive an advance on the benefits of his life and death before it actually occurs.
The way they receive that is through union with Christ. The Bible talks about us being married to Christ — a legal union, a marriage union. We would say a new covenant union. We would say the new covenant is our marriage union with Christ, and from that, all that's his is ours — we share in those things. The Old Testament saints were able to share in that in advance of its legal establishment in his death.
John 3: The New Birth and Old Testament Saints
Anthony: When we read John 3, starting at verse 5 — Jesus says, "Truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh; that which is born of Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'" And then skipping to verse 11: "Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."
I was just thinking — when he said "we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen," and he's talking about the new birth — total depravity holds true from Genesis to Revelation, so anyone who — no one can get into the kingdom unless he's born again. Would that hold true for all the saints from Adam to Revelation?
Brandon: That's a good question. I haven't looked at that verse in that light before. Possibly — I'd have to look at it more closely. He also says "if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" — I don't know if he's referring to that there, since the new birth isn't really something that we see. I'd have to give that one a little more thought.
The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and Pentecost
Anthony: Would you say it's the same indwelling Spirit that we receive in the new covenant that they received in the Old Testament? Would they receive the Spirit the same way we have — with all the power we have as believers with the indwelling Spirit?
Brandon: Generally speaking, yes — I would say it is the same work of the Spirit. What does the Spirit do in our life? He takes our heart of stone, gives us a heart of flesh, and continues to indwell us — to continually mortify our flesh, put to death the deeds of the flesh, sanctify us, and sustain our faith. If we need the Spirit for that, obviously Old Testament saints did as well. And their faith and lives excel many of ours. On that idea alone, yes — I would say it was the same work of the Spirit, the same indwelling of the Spirit.
Anthony: What exactly was Pentecost, then, if the Spirit hadn't come yet?
Brandon: I would tend to see all those things in the same way we just talked about the new covenant. The kingdom of God wasn't an Old Testament reality — it's something that came to earth and was inaugurated in the new covenant. But we wouldn't want to exclude Old Testament saints from that either.
Similarly with the Spirit: I believe it's something that receives its power from Pentecost. Christ sends out the Spirit at Pentecost to dispense the benefits that he has earned for his people. Regeneration is a benefit that Christ earned for us, and he delivers it to us through the Spirit. Pentecost is the official sending out of that Spirit — and I think the Old Testament saints, in advance of that formal sending out, were able to participate in that by the Spirit as well.
Can a Believer Be in Two Covenants at the Same Time?
Anthony: So really the only options are: either they're saved by the grace found in the old covenant — looking towards the new covenant — or they're saved retroactively in the actual new covenant. Would there be any other options?
Brandon: I'd have to think about it some more, but yes — basically, if you're coming from a Reformed perspective, the option is you're saved by the new covenant, or you were saved by the new covenant — which is the same thing.
Anthony: Is it possible for a human being to be in two covenants at the same time? Like, the covenant of Moses and the new covenant at the same time?
Brandon: On a human level, you and I can be in multiple human covenants at the same time. We're in a covenant of marriage; if we're employed, we also have a covenant with our employer. Each covenant carefully defines what that relationship is, and we can be in multiple at the same time — even the same parties in two different covenants.
I think the same is true on a divine-human level, provided the terms of those covenants are not mutually exclusive. The covenant of works with Adam offered eternal life upon the condition of perfect obedience to the law. The covenant of grace — or what we call the new covenant — offers eternal life upon the condition of faith in Christ. Those are mutually exclusive; you couldn't be in both of those at the same time. But as long as those conditions don't conflict, I don't see any problem.
We would say that after the fall, all human beings are in the Noahic covenant — God has promised not to destroy again in a worldwide flood, and Christians and non-Christians alike are both in that covenant at the same time as they are also either in the Adamic covenant of works or in the new covenant.
As you said about the Mosaic covenant — I would say yes, it was not a covenant of works for eternal life. It was a covenant of works for life and blessing, or potentially temporal cursing, in the land of Canaan: sickness and disease and famine, or bountiful harvest, victory over enemies. Could David be in the Mosaic covenant as well as the new covenant? I would say yes — I don't see any conflict between those two.
Hebrews and Dr. James White's Pushback
Anthony: Dr. White did a little video on this, and his pushback was: did the author of Hebrews miss this argument for the supremacy of the new covenant when he wrote the book of Hebrews? Wouldn't he have mentioned the fact that the Old Testament saints were saved by virtue of the new covenant and not the old?
Brandon: I would say he did say that. I would love to talk to Dr. White about this some more. If you look at all of his arguments against paedobaptism, it's all about how the mediation of Christ is tied to the new covenant — and Christ's mediation is perfect, and he saves those for whom he dies, and he applies it through his mediation, the new covenant. All of his arguments there are wonderful and I agree with them, and they're limited to the elect. I would just say: well, then how was Abraham saved? Was he saved by the mediation of Christ? If it's tied to the new covenant — that's the argument of Hebrews, that's the argument Dr. White makes. He just hasn't worked through those logical implications.
Hebrews 10:4 says it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. And Hebrews 9:14–15 says Jesus came to establish a new covenant and offer his mediation for the sins that were formerly overlooked in the old covenant. It's all throughout there — the new covenant is not like the old covenant: "I will send the Spirit and give them faith, and I will forgive their sins." The necessary implication is that this is how Old Testament saints were saved.
Calvin on Hebrews 8
Brandon: Interestingly, wrestling through Hebrews 8 — Calvin in his commentary, when he's forced to exegete verse 10 (which talks about the Spirit working faith as the benefit of the new covenant), he's kind of scratching his head. He says, well, it just means a more abundant grace, more abundant faith — but wait, Abraham's faith was stronger than mine, so how can I solve this? His conclusion — and these are his words — was: "There is yet no reason why the grace of the new covenant could not be extended to the fathers." That's the conclusion Calvin came to wrestling through Hebrews.
I don't think Calvin was some wacky Baptist trying to invent some weird doctrine. It's just the logical outworking when you look at the implications of what Hebrews says.
Romans 9–11: The Olive Tree, Israel, and the Gentiles
Anthony: Speaking about Abraham — in Romans 10–11, we're grafted in. Are we grafted into Abraham, or are we grafted into Jesus? How does that work with regards to 1689 Federalism?
Brandon: A lot of the Israel-and-church issues can be a little confusing — especially when we look at how the New Testament handles certain Old Testament prophecies.
Matthew, for example, talks about Jesus going as a child down to Egypt to escape Herod, and then Joseph brings him back, and it says this was to fulfill the prophecy "Out of Egypt I called my Son." He's quoting Hosea — but if you go back and look, Hosea is explicitly referring to the nation of Israel coming up out of Egypt the first time. But Matthew says that was a prophecy of Jesus, the true Israel, coming up out of Egypt. So there's this overlap where the New Testament will use terms in a way that would seem to equate them with Old Testament ideas, but Israel is not the nation of Israel in a straightforward sense.
Early in Romans 9, Paul talks about "not all who are descended from Israel are Israel," then works through election. At the end of Romans 9, he talks about the prophecy — "Those who are not my people I will call my people" — which in the Old Testament referred to the exiled Israelites, but Paul in Romans 9 applies it to the Gentiles being saved. So they come in and, in that sense, they are the Israel of God, as he says in Galatians.
The Olive Tree in Romans 11
Brandon: In Romans 11, Paul talks about this tree where the natural branches have been cut off — referring to the Jews — and wild branches have been grafted in, referring to Gentiles. Some Reformed people would say that's the church, that's the covenant of grace, and the root is Jesus.
But the root in the text is not Jesus — the root is the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So whatever Paul's talking about, Abraham is the root of it.
In light of what Paul has said in Romans 9 and 10 and the rest of Romans 11, I think Paul is identifying the olive tree with Israel — but which Israel? We just talked about how there are these two different concepts of Israel. My view is that Paul is referring to both: the nation of Israel sprung up from the root of Abraham — they were his offspring, they were the branches — but there came a point in time, with the death of Christ and the establishment of the new covenant, where — and this is what Hebrews talks about — the establishment of the new covenant makes the old obsolete. This is also what John the Baptist refers to when he talks about the ax laid to the root.
So at this point in history, it's not enough to simply be born from Abraham to be considered his offspring, to be part of this tree called Israel. What's needed now is to be united with Christ through faith. In that sense you can be an Israelite. Those who don't have faith are cut off. I'd argue that's also what John 15 — the vine — refers to, along with several other passages: the coming judgment upon the nation of Israel, and those not found in Christ are no longer Israel.
Was Abraham a Gentile?
Anthony: Correct me if I'm wrong, but Abraham is not Jewish — correct?
Brandon: He's not an Israelite — his grandson is called Israel. Abraham at that point is not an Israelite; he's not a Jew from the tribe of Judah. He was a Hebrew. But he wasn't Israel. He was not Israel and wasn't a Jew specifically, but he was naturally their head. I'm not sure I would call him a Gentile, because the nation of Israel receives its holiness because of Abraham — there's still a natural connection there in that sense.
Jesus as the True Israel: Type and Antitype
Anthony: What strikes me is that some people are reluctant to call Jesus "Israel" and say, "Well, Israel is the whole nation." I try to point them back to the fact that Jacob was called Israel — it was a single person. I think this gets back to what Sam Renihan goes through in The Mystery of Christ — the type-antitype. Here's the type: Jacob, who is called Israel, and from him come the 12 tribes. And now I think it points to Jesus, who is the antitype — the type terminates in Christ, and now he brings forth the 12 apostles. It's a picture of what God was pointing to all along — the substance is here and the shadows are gone.
Brandon: Yeah, absolutely. That's how I would see the olive tree — it's a metaphor, an analogy Paul uses for one specific application, and we don't want to stretch it too far. But the general idea is he's referring to Israel as it existed in its typical sense, and as it now exists in its antitypical, spiritual sense — where now the natural branches have no connection to the root. The only connection to the root is through faith, to be grafted in and considered part of Israel in Christ.
Acts 7: The "Church in the Wilderness"
Anthony: When Stephen in Acts 7 talks about "the church in the wilderness" — would you say that's the born-again believers who were in physical Israel who were trusting in Christ? Would that be the church, the gathering of believers?
Brandon: Personally, I really wish they would translate that word more accurately rather than "church." I could be wrong, but I think "church" comes through the Latin. The more accurate translation of ekklesia would be "assembly" or "congregation" or "gathering." Those words are not exclusively Christian or religious — you can have any kind of gathering, congregation, or assembly. It could be political, sports, any number of things. That's really all the word means. Whereas "church" — you say that word and the only thing that comes to mind is specifically Christian.
There's a Hebrew word — qahal — and you see it throughout the Old Testament. It really just means the gathering, the assembly of the nation of Israel. Based on those words alone, I don't think we can equate that with the body of Christ, the assembly of believers. I think they're two different concepts — related as type and antitype, but not equivalent.
Resources for 1689 Federalism
Anthony: If someone wanted more information on 1689 Federalism, do you have any resources you could point listeners to?
Brandon: There's a website: 1689federalism.com. I've tried to make that a helpful resource for people who want to understand more. On the main page there are some introductory videos and a few of the key books. At the top there's a recommended reading list that gives the order in which to read the books. And there's also an "Additional Resources" link — that's an assembly of everything I can find online in terms of journal articles, other books, podcasts, sermons, and videos.
How Brandon Came to 1689 Federalism
Anthony: Did you come to this position, or was it something you kind of always held and then realized, "Hey, this is 1689 Federalism"?
Brandon: When I was first introduced to Reformed theology in college, I hadn't even heard of dispensationalism — I just hadn't looked into any of these things. As I started to read my Bible and heard covenant theology compared to dispensationalism, I sort of just thought that's what covenant theology was — that Abraham was saved by the new covenant — because when you learn the doctrines of grace, you see these passages about "I will remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh," those prophecies in Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 31. And the Bible says that's the new covenant. So I just simplistically — maybe ignorantly — thought that's how it all worked out, and that's what I thought covenant theology was.
A few years later I wound up trying to teach a class through Genesis — just a Bible study — and I realized I was going to have to get into covenant theology and figure things out. I started reading books and putting things together, coming toward the position I have now. As I did that, there was a lot from Reformed Baptist authors I didn't necessarily agree with — they were saying something different.
The Colored Highlighter Method
Brandon: One thing I did — I was just trying to wrap my head around it — I got some colored highlighters and made myself a little code. Orange was all the conditional statements; green was all the statements about blessings or curses limited to earthly, temporal life; yellow was something about eternal life. And I just started reading through the Pentateuch, highlighting as I go. You read through Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, and most of that is orange and green — it's conditional and it's about earthly life.
Some of what I was hearing from other Reformed Baptists was talking about it as the covenant of grace — a gracious giving of the law, teaching redeemed people how to live — and that just wasn't lining up totally with the view I was developing.
Nehemiah Coxe and John Owen
Brandon: Eventually I was pointed to a volume from Reformed Baptist Academic Press — a combination of John Owen's commentary on Hebrews 8 and a Reformed Baptist from the 17th century named Nehemiah Coxe, his treatment of the Adamic covenant all the way through the Abrahamic covenant. I finally saw: yes, this is what I've been trying to formulate.
That experience led me to realize we need a better way to communicate this and let people know about this view — I was really struggling to find things. That's what led to the website.
"...only the new covenant offers the benefits of the ordo salutis — the order of salvation: regeneration, faith, forgiveness of sin, sanctification. The other covenants are largely about earthly life, but they're related in some way to the new covenant... the Abrahamic covenant did not promise forgiveness of sins, regeneration, faith, or sanctification. It promised — the technical term is the historia salutis — the history of salvation. It promised that Abraham would be the father of the Messiah who would come to bless the nations — how would he bless the nations? By establishing the new covenant and dispensing the benefits of his death and resurrection."
— Brandon Adams, Were the Pre-New Covenant Covenants Only for Earthly Blessings?
Were the Pre-New Covenant Covenants Only for Earthly Blessings?
Anthony: When you had gone through the covenants, was your conclusion that all of the covenants prior to the new covenant were basically for earthly blessings and did not pertain to future heavenly promises?
Brandon: To be precise, the way I'd articulate it is that only the new covenant offers the benefits of the ordo salutis — the order of salvation: regeneration, faith, forgiveness of sin, sanctification. The other covenants are largely about earthly life, but they're related in some way to the new covenant.
The Noahic covenant was preserving life for the new covenant to come. The Abrahamic covenant was partly about the land — that Abraham would have numerous offspring, that they would inherit the land of Canaan — but it also promised that in Abraham all the nations of the earth would be blessed. The New Testament interprets that third promise specifically as the promise of Christ. In that sense it did pertain to eternal life — it was related to it — but the Abrahamic covenant did not promise forgiveness of sins, regeneration, faith, or sanctification. It promised — the technical term is the historia salutis — the history of salvation. It promised that Abraham would be the father of the Messiah who would come to bless the nations — how would he bless the nations? By establishing the new covenant and dispensing the benefits of his death and resurrection.
Sam Renihan's The Mystery of Christ
Anthony: I know you were mentioned in Sam Renihan's book. Did you contribute to it, or what were the conversations you had?
Brandon: Sam and I — I used to be a member of Sam's church years ago. I interviewed Sam for some of the first videos on the 1689federalism.com website. That sort of started a broader conversation and got a lot of people realizing that there's this idea here. That was when Sam Renihan was still in seminary — he hadn't finished his dissertation or his book yet. It kind of paved the way and gave a platform for him to articulate and express these views.
Pascal Denault's The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology
Anthony: Did you read Pascal Denault's book on Reformed Baptist covenant theology?
Brandon: Absolutely. That came out shortly after we had the website — maybe within the first year the website was up. It was finding one we could really point to and say, "Hey guys, this is an older view that's kind of been forgotten — take a look." So it's very, very helpful.
Final Encouragement
Anthony: Any final words — any words of encouragement for those who are maybe on the fence? How could they embrace 1689 Federalism?
Brandon: I would just say: open your Bible, take out your highlighters, and do the best you can to saturate yourself in the whole story of Scripture.
One thing that was really helpful for me: find a chronological reading plan. I think the ESV puts out a chronological reading plan. If you follow that, you start to see connections that you would otherwise miss in how the story and the narrative fit together. It's really that narrative — what's sometimes referred to as biblical theology — that 1689 Federalism really sharpens over Westminster Federalism. It's something we add to and I think makes it better. The progress through history, how things change — try a chronological reading plan, get through the Bible beginning to end through that plan, take notes on everything you see about these different covenants, and try to wrap your mind around how these fit together. Then maybe visit some of these books and see what you think.
May the Triune God be praised!