Dear Sir,
I appreciated Stephen Dray’s review of Jonty Rhodes’s book on covenants, Raiding the Lost Ark (en October issue). Rhodes writes superbly and I found the book helpful.
I do, however, believe it would be useful for en readers to be alerted to a particular theological emphasis which is, in my view, unconvincing biblically and potentially damaging pastorally. It concerns the idea that one can be a Christian without being saved – a new-covenant member though not a new-covenant beneficiary. Thus on page 156 we read: ‘We can divide humanity into three categories: non-Christians, covenant-breakers and covenant-keepers. Of these, only covenant-keepers are truly saved’.
Begging the question as to how much ‘keeping’ one needs to do, I fear that this position is liable to undermine personal assurance of salvation and detract from Christ’s glorious representative work (his ‘active obedience’) as sole covenant-keeper on behalf of all who have faith. I am not calling into question Rhodes’s understanding of salvation, which is clearly Reformed, but I believe that we need to be aware of these regrettable potential spinoffs of the excessive continuity between old and new covenants that he espouses.
Yours faithfully,
