Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
What’s Wrong With New Covenant Theology?

What’s Wrong With New Covenant Theology?

Last updated on: March 21, 2019 at 7:52 pm by Keith Giles

What’s Wrong With New Covenant Theology? 2019-03-21T19:52:46+00:00 Keith Giles

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

New Covenant Theology was the “new thing” a few decades ago and many were called heretics for defending and promoting it.

Previously, the two main theologies were Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism.

According to Wikipedia:

“New Covenant Theology (teaches) that the person and work of Jesus Christ is the central focus of the Bible. One distinctive result of this is that Old Testament Laws have been abrogated or cancelled with Jesus’ crucifixion, and replaced with the Law of Christ found in the New Covenant.”
This view also says that:

“The New Testament interpret(s) the Old Testament…when the NT interprets an OT promise differently than the plain reading, then New Covenant Theology concludes that that is how God interprets His promise.”

“As an example, Amos 9:11-12 is quoted by James in Acts 15 and is interpreted by him to associate the rebuilding of “David’s fallen tent” with the Gentiles’ salvation. This would be a highly surprising interpretation to the Jewish believers, since there is no precedent for it to be interpreted as anything other than a promise to the nation of Israel. (Instead), New Covenant Theology says that God has given us His interpretation of that passage, through James.”

As for me, New Covenant Theology has been my own personal perspective on scripture for a while now. Most of what I have written here on my blog, and in my various books, has been from this perspective.

But lately, my theology has started to progress a bit further than this.

I embraced New Covenant Theology because it affirmed that the Flat Bible perspective is flawed and reorients scripture with Christ as our ultimate authority. But unfortunately it stops short of allowing Jesus to fully reform our ideas about God.

So, while New Covenant Theology (NCT) affirms Christ as the center of scripture, it fails to completely embrace Jesus as our one and only image of who the Father is and what He is really like.

Where NCT falters is in fully admitting that the revelation of the Father found in Jesus is often at odds with what the Old Covenant prophets have to say about Him.

Furthermore, the NCT position also fails to admit that the prophets themselves are often at odds with one another about what God said and what God’s character is like. [See, for example the differing statements made in the OT scriptures about whether God did, or did not, command the Israelites to offer animal sacrifices].

To help explain this, let me borrow an analogy. There are various answers to the question “Where do babies come from?” and someone might say “the stork brings them” and another might say “when mommy and daddy love each other very much the baby starts to grow in her tummy” and still another might say “the male contributes the sperm which he secretes during sexual intercourse to fertilize the egg which the woman provides and in 9 months the embryo matures into a fetus and a child is born.”

Two of those answers might be considered “true”, one of them is obviously a story designed to symbolize the reality without actually addressing any of the mechanics, and yet all of them are still an attempt to answer the question about where babies come from.

This is similar to what we have in the Hebrew Bible when it comes to question of what God is like. Some voices give us the “stork” version of the story, with great symbolism and hyperbole. Some voices give us an approximation of the answer. Other voices may give us more detailed and specific answers that more closely align with reality.

For us, Jesus is the reality. He is “the exact representation” of the Father. He is the one in whom “the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” He is “the Word made flesh who dwelt among us.”

So, the best picture of the Father is found in Christ. If we have “seen Him,” we have truly and accurately “seen the Father” in the most complete and full way possible.

Because “no one has ever seen God” except Jesus and the reason He came was to reveal the Father to us like no one else before ever could, or did.

In our analogy, David the Psalmist might be one who provides the more poetic “stork version” of the Father’s character. Isaiah and Jeremiah might be the “mommy loves daddy” version of the story. But only Christ gives us the version of the story that includes every specific detail we need to fully understand who the Father is and what the Father is like.

As long as we insist upon holding tightly to the rigid inerrancy of the Old Testament scriptures, we will forever be kept from fully embracing the clearest and most accurate portrayal of who God really is.

Until we relax our grip on the idea that the Old Testament prophets were truly seeing God clearly and recognize that the Abba Father we see revealed in Christ overrides those limited and flawed perspectives of God, we will remain confused about who God really is.

As long as we allow the tarnished testimony of Moses to describe God as one who commands His people to slaughter infants and toddlers without showing compassion, we will forever stand in opposition to the testimony of Jesus who showed us an Abba Father God who loves children, cares for His enemies, shows compassion to the broken and commands us to do the same – specifically because this is who He is and what He is like. [See Matt. 5:44-45]

So, even as those who stood up and defended the New Covenant Theology view a few decades ago were considered heretics and false teachers by the Dispensationalists and Covenant Theology teachers of their day, we should not be surprised when the same charge is leveled at those of us who affirm a Jesus-centric perspective of Scripture today.

Ultimately I believe it simply boils down to this: Who is our authority? Is it the Bible? Or is it Christ? Do we center our theology on a book, or on a person who is indeed God Himself incarnate?

The Book, as wonderful as it may be, is imperfect. It contains the testimony of men who sometimes saw clearly and sometimes did not. The Book contains the voices of men who don’t always agree with one another about who God is and what God is like.

Our choice is simple: We either agree with Jesus about who God is, because He is God made flesh, or we side with those Old Testament prophets who were not perfect, not flawless and not Emmanuel [God with us].

I choose Jesus.

Keith Giles was formerly a licensed and ordained minister who walked away from organized church 11 years ago, to start a home fellowship that gave away 100% of the offering to the poor in the community. Today, He and his wife live in Meridian, Idaho, awaiting their next adventure.

His new book “Jesus Unbound: Liberating the Word of God from the Bible”, is available now on Amazon and features a Foreword by author Brian Zahnd.

He is also the author of the Amazon best-seller, “Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics To Pledge Allegiance To The Lamb” with a Foreword by Greg Boyd.

Keith also co-hosts the Heretic Happy Hour Podcast on iTunes and Podbean.

BONUS: Want to unlock exclusive content including blog articles, short stories, music, podcasts, videos and more? Visit my Patreon page.

General Christian Topics

Theology

Previous Post

March 20, 2019

Loving The Sinner: An Unpopular Mercy

Next Post

March 22, 2019 Stop Trying To Fix People. Just Love Them.

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art Biblicism Christian Politics Cosmic Christ Deconstruction Discipleship Dispensationalism Divine Unity Ekklesia End Time Stuff Eschatology Evergreen Following Jesus Gender General Christian Topics Gnostics God's Love Gospel of Judas Gospel of Mary Gospel of Philip Gospel of the Kingdom Gospel of Thomas Gospel of Truth Hell Historical Jesus Inner Circle Investigative Reporting Islam LGBTQ Issues Marriage Mental/Emotional Health Mystery Non-Duality Philosophy Podcast Poetry Politics Poverty Preemptive Love Prophecy Psychology Quantum Theology Racism Reconstruction Satire Sex Technology Theology Uncategorized Universalism

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did the angel tell Mary she would name her son?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Immanuel John Peter Jesus

Books by This Author Books by Keith Giles

See All Titles »