Baptist Covenant Theology

Do you mean those who believe that the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant are one, yet hold to Believers' Baptism?
I've been told that John Gill held to that, but I've never heard of '20th Century Reformed Baptists.'

 

Most, like myself, would seem to view the Mosaic Covenant as being one primarily of conditional status, as how they obeyed God merited to them Hi spromised health and wealth blessings!

 

The big difference would be where they see the Church founded, and if the Covenant of Grace was just a carried over into the NT, or was a brand new Covenant!

 

The believers baptist would be due to us seeing the new Covenant as a new one, that only those actually in it are qualified to be baptized. Others see it as basically a continuation of the OC, but expanded/enlarged, hence infant baptism.

 

You are right that Baptist Covenant Theology was largely forgotten for most of the 20th Century, and you are right about the reasons.
I recommend The Divine Covenants by A.W. Pink as a good pre-war book about Covenant Theology. The 1689 Federalism guys claim him for their own, but Pink always seems to plough his own furrow. You can find the book on line as well as in print (Pietan Publications).

Apparently the term 'Reformed Baptist' was first coined by Walt Chantry and Geoff Thomas in the 1960s when they were students together at Westminster Seminary.

 

I hold to there being the Covenant of Grace since the fall of Adam being in place, under different adminstrations, Davidic, Mosaic, Abrahamiac etc, but that the New Covenant itself was not in place until Jesus died and ascended on high.

 

This is where reformed Presbytarians and Baptists depart, as I see it as a New Covenant, esablished by the blood/death of Christ!

 

I see this as Covenant Baptist, so there are but Covenant of works, and then the One of Grace,but that the New One is when it got fully implemented and arrived here.
We are now under a superior Covenant, as now have all spiritual blessings in Christ.

 

I don't see the Abrahamic or Davidic covenants as being administrations. No one seems to have been 'in' or 'under' the Abrahamic covenant except Abraham and also Isaac and Jacob who received the covenant separately (Genesis 26:2-5; 28:13-14). No one except these three is ever described as being in the Abrahamic covenant (c.f. Exodus 2:24 etc.). These are covenants of promise.

I wrote a series of articles about the covenants on my blog many years ago. the first one can be found here:
https://marprelate.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/the-covenants-part-1-the-covenant-of-works/ If anyone reads them he will find that they owe a lot to the A.W. Pink book I recommended above.

 

Mikey, welcome to the B.B. I hope you have a great time here.
Why don't you go to the 'Introductions' forum and tell us a bit about yourself?

 

The Abrahamic covenant extended forward, as we are now all hiers to God thru faith faith in jesus, just as He was, correct?

 

This article and this video clarify just who the "20th Century Reformed Baptists" faction is (those who were overly influenced by Presbyterian ideas, and historically ignorant of Baptist teaching on the subject):

contrast2.wordpress.com/2017/04/14/some-comments-on-john-gills-covenant-theology/

"The reason '20th century' was used is because it described a view that arose in the 20th century largely without any influence from historic baptist covenant theology...When confessional baptist theology was recovered...in the 20th century, it was nursed primarily by Westminster Theological Seminary (notably John Murray) and the Banner of Truth (which did not reprint historic baptist works on covenant theology). As a result, baptists attempted to construct a covenant theology while wearing 'Presbyterian glasses' (though they were still obvious critical of various aspects)....When we say this, we are not necessarily talking about all baptists everywhere in the 20th century....We are referring specifically to an influential group of pastors who helped lead and educate other reformed baptists (such as Walt Chantry, Samuel Waldron, Fred Malone, Earl Blackburn, etc)."