Adapted from the Preface of Pat’s new book entitled Covenant Theology

There are those things that you cannot unsee once you have seen them. Covenant theology is wonderfully that way for me. Once I was convinced of the expressly biblical nature of the theological realities known as the covenant of redemption, the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace, the whole Bible made so much more sense and my perspective has been forever changed.

I am aware that not everyone shares my love for covenant theology. I was once there myself. At first, I was simply ignorant of covenant theology. I was not raised in a Christian home and was not taught the Bible.

By God’s grace I not only heard the gospel and trusted in Christ, but I was also called by God to pastoral ministry and seminary trained. During my time as a student, I was exposed to covenant theology where it got mixed reviews. Some of my professors affirmed covenant theology and others warned against it.

The initial catalyst for sorting out the issues and concluding that covenant theology is biblical and vital was the ever so important gospel matter of justification. I lived through the Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) controversy in 1994 where men like R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur confronted evangelicals like Charles Colson for compromising the doctrine of justification through faith alone in Christ alone.

This lit a fire in me to better understand issues related to justification leading me to read everything I could get my hands on. I was not aware of it at the time, but the historic champions of the doctrine of justification through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone were the covenantalists.

The next catalyst drawing me toward covenant theology was the imputation of the active obedience of Christ as the basis for justification through faith alone in Christ alone. In 2012 my alma mater was embroiled in a behind the scenes controversy with one of its young professors denying the active obedience of Christ.

The professor was undermining justification through faith alone by teaching that the righteousness imputed to the believer was not the perfect obedience of Christ (as taught in covenant theology), but the imputation of the divine attribute (as taught by heretics of old and opposed by people like John Owen).

Making matters worse, he was being affirmed by senior faculty members. The controversy drove me to further research into matters relating to imputation and the active obedience of Christ as it relates to justification. My deep dive exploration left me more convinced than ever that Christ’s active obedience is absolutely vital to justification and that covenant theology is therefore patently biblical.

In short, my path to embracing classic covenant theology has been through the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls, the doctrine of justification sola fide (through faith alone).

Classic covenant theology teaches that sinners are justified by faith alone in Jesus alone because He perfectly obeyed the divine law and thereby fulfilled the obligation known as the covenant of works so that all who experience salvation do so by grace alone and all of this according to the predetermined purpose of the triune God before the foundation of the world as per Ephesians 1.

Covenant theology is therefore about the saving work of Jesus for sinners. It is not about a certain millennial perspective, baptismal views, or whether or not Israel has a future as sometimes advertised. Covenant theology is a gospel issue and therefore it is a matter of first importance.

My book is an articulation of the manifestly biblical nature of covenant theology. As such, the covenants of works, grace, and redemption will be substantiated from the text of Scripture itself.

Far from being the boogieman warned of by its foes, it is proven to be the biblical perspective of the ages that is once seen to never be unseen by the saints for the good of Christ’s church and for the glory of His name.