The Christ of the Covenants

Written by O. Palmer Robertson

Narrated by Mike Carnes

What is a covenant? Asking for a definition of "covenant" is like asking for a definition of "mother." A mother may be defined as the person who brought you into the world. That definition may be correct formally. But who would be satisfied with such a definition?

Scripture clearly testifies to the significance of the divine covenants. God has entered repeatedly into covenantal relationships with particular men. Explicit references may be found to a divine covenant established with Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David. Israel's prophets anticipated the coming of the days of the "new covenant," and Christ himself spoke of the last supper in covenantal language.

But what is a covenant?

Robertson leaves no stone unturned as he explains the Bible's covenants. As he explores each covenant in depth, he helps us to see their unity, diversity, and place in the history of redemption.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ChristianAudio.com
• Release date: Jan 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781545919743

O. Palmer Robertson

O. Palmer Robertson is an American Old Testament scholar who has taught at several institutions, including the African Bible Colleges of Malawi and Uganda. His other books include The Christ of the Covenants, The Christ of the Prophets, and The Christ of Wisdom.

Reviews for The Christ of the Covenants

[chriszodrow · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is used as the basic primer on the Covenant in both local churches and seminary classes. It is a great, if not dense, introduction to the coherence of Scripture, the unity of the action of God throughout history: there is truly only one covenant, administered in different ways within Scripture. This is the primary thesis: the covenant is the unifying theme of the whole. Robertson does great job of pulling together the particular passages that tie each covenant to the preceding and the following administrations. He goes far to prove the organic unity that exists between each, from the Adamic to the New Covenant (which is, not all that "new"). The absence of a structural exegesis is one weakness of his work. Robertson very briefly discusses the six-fold pattern of the ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties, but the discussion ends there. Later writers have improved upon this, and there are now many books which discuss the actual biblical structure of the covenant. It has been shown that even Revelation is structured along the same lines as the preceding covenant administrations (writers such as David Chilton and Ray Sutton are good sources).All in all, a very good introduction to the subject.

[theologicaldan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have really enjoyed Robertsons treatment of the Covenants. I find him much more lucid than Horton on this and more convincing. He rejects the idea that the covenants are actually testaments and is scholarly, yet not overly technical. I wish, however, that he had kept the more traditional terminology of Covenant of Works, Covenant of Grace instead of creating his own. I think his labels are good, but make it confusing if you have the other more traditional labels fixed - especially his decision to call the Covenant of Grace a Covenant of Redemption (he rejects the idea of a pre-creation, intratrinitarian covenant of Redemption. In fact, his definition of covenant eliminate an intratrinitarian covenant as a possibility).