As we continue looking at the Lord’s Supper in the bulletin, I want to remind the church that participants in the Lord’s Supper celebrate the New Covenant (NC), not a covenant of grace with the supper. Our Presbyterian and Reformed brothers and sisters believe in a covenant of grace beginning with Adam and culminating with the last person saved by grace through faith as Jesus returns. This covenant of grace is so much a part of their theology that it is thoroughly referenced in the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF), the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and the “Sum of Saving Faith.” These documents are freely available online. Their emphasis on the covenant of grace and our emphasis on the NC are foundational differences between them and us.
In our doctrinal statements, the NC is the controlling covenant category; in Westminster theology, the covenant of grace is. Here is an example from CH. XXVII, “Of the Sacraments”:
SACRAMENTS are holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, immediately instituted by God, to represent Christ and his benefits, and to confirm our interest in him; as also to put a visible difference between those that belong unto the church and the rest of the world; and solemnly to engage them to the service of God in Christ, according to his word.
In the WCF, the phrase “covenant of grace” appears six times as a formal doctrinal category, while the exact phrase “New Covenant” does not appear in its doctrinal statements. That reflects a difference in theological emphasis. Study the WCF paragraph on baptism and see for yourself.
There are seven references to the NC in the ESV translation, beginning in Jer 31:31 and ending in Hebrews. Jesus said, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luk 22:20). Let me emphasize that the NC is not the Abrahamic covenant, it is not the old covenant, nor is it the covenant of grace. Jesus said his death inaugurated the New Covenant, not a new administration of the covenant of grace.
Now, concerning the “covenant of grace,” there are exactly zero specific references to the covenant of grace in the Bible. While Scripture clearly teaches a unified plan of redemption grounded in grace (Gen 3:15; Rom 4; Gal 3), it does not explicitly identify that plan as a single covenant spanning redemptive history. The question is whether the biblical data require us to identify that unified plan as a covenant. At Berean, our answer is no.
Presbyterians distinguish between outward covenant membership and inward saving union. They believe the covenant of grace includes believers and their children as members of the visible church, though only the elect are inwardly united to Christ. Baptists disagree because we believe the NC, as described in Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8, is restricted to those who are born again.
There are 319 references to covenant in the ESV, and not one of them connects covenant to grace directly. Scripture repeatedly names and defines specific covenants—there is even a covenant of salt. Given that pattern, the absence of an explicitly identified covenant of grace is significant and shifts the burden of proof to those who claim it exists. Our emphasis is on the named covenants.
The covenant of grace and infant baptism have something in common. In both cases, if you read your Bible from Genesis to Revelation, you would not plainly see a covenant of grace, nor would you determine that infants should be baptized. That is where we differ from men like RC Sproul, Tim Keller, Sinclair Ferguson, John Calvin, John Knox, and others.
