Progressive Dispensationalism, Covenant Theology, and the Problem of Double Standards

Progressive Dispensationalism is often unfairly accused of many things, one of them being that it represents a move toward Covenant Theology. Usually this accusation is meant pejoratively, as if Progressive Dispensationalists had abandoned literal hermeneutics or blurred the distinctions that have historically characterized dispensational thought. But I would like to point out something I have documented for my forthcoming book—something many dispensationalists themselves do not seem to realize.

The Three Theological Covenants of Covenant Theology

Before making the point, we need to remember that one of the central features of Covenant Theology is its organization of the biblical narrative around three theological covenants. By "theological," I mean that these covenants are not explicitly presented in Scripture under these formal titles, but are derived by theological inference. The three covenants are: the Covenant of Redemption, the Covenant of Works, and the Covenant of Grace.

What Traditional Dispensationalists Actually Taught

With that in mind, did some of the most important dispensationalists simply reject all of these covenants? Not at all. In fact, some of them spoke openly about them and accepted at least some of them.

Lewis Sperry Chafer and John F. Walvoord accepted what is commonly called the pactum salutis, or the Covenant of Redemption. Chafer discusses this covenant in his Systematic Theology, and Walvoord refers to it in more than one of his works. S. Lewis Johnson, a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, also taught the Covenant of Redemption as a legitimate and well-supported doctrine in his lecture series on biblical covenants.

Walvoord went even further and taught another theological covenant, which he called the Covenant of Grace. This same Covenant of Grace was also affirmed by Herman A. Hoyt.

Seen from this angle, authors such as Chafer, Walvoord, Johnson, and Hoyt were, in this specific respect, closer to Covenant Theology than Progressive Dispensationalists are. Progressive Dispensationalists, as far as I know, do not affirm any extra-biblical theological covenant in the technical sense used by Covenant Theology.

The Argument and Its Obvious Implication

Of course, dispensationalists may respond by saying that, even though these earlier dispensational theologians accepted one or more theological covenants, we must look at the actual content of their theology. And I agree. They were dispensationalists. Their acceptance of certain theological covenants did not turn them into covenant theologians.

But that is precisely the point. When Progressive Dispensationalists say the same thing—that one must look carefully at what they actually affirm rather than judge them by superficial similarities—their critics often refuse to apply the same standard. Instead, they remain at the level of appearances, treating resemblance as equivalence. This is the same kind of inconsistency documented in the canonical reading double standard of traditional dispensationalism.

A Double Standard, Not a Theological Argument

This is inconsistent. If Chafer, Walvoord, Johnson, and Hoyt can affirm certain theological covenants without ceasing to be dispensationalists, then Progressive Dispensationalists should not be dismissed as crypto-covenantal simply because some of their formulations sound, at first glance, closer to Covenant Theology. The real question is not whether a theologian uses a term, shares a category, or sounds similar at certain points. The real question is what that theologian means, how the doctrine functions within the system, and whether the essential commitments of dispensationalism are preserved.

This is the same principle behind the question of who can and who cannot be called a dispensationalist: labels and surface resemblances settle nothing. Content and internal coherence are what matter. It is also worth noting that unexpected convergences between dispensational and non-dispensational categories are not unique to the progressive stream—as the case of traditional dispensationalism and replacement theology demonstrates.

On that basis, the charge against Progressive Dispensationalism is often overstated and poorly argued. It rests more on suspicion than on careful theological analysis. Progressive Dispensationalism is, properly understood, a reform within the tradition, not a rupture with it.

All the authors mentioned above are documented in a chapter of my forthcoming book. As for Charles Ryrie, I have the impression that he may also have referred to the Covenant of Grace somewhere in his writings, but I still need to locate the exact citation. For that reason, I will not make that claim at this point. Until I can verify the reference, I prefer to leave Ryrie aside on this specific issue rather than attribute to him something I have not yet documented with precision.