Sunday, March 25, 2012

Covenantal creation II

I am reading through Genesis and have been struck by the theme of covenant. This first occurs in Genesis 6 where God promises a covenant with Noah. It is striking that the word covenant occurs 7 times in chapter 9. This is followed by God's covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12-17, particularly 17).

I can see why Karl Barth read the covenant theme back into Genesis 1-2. His detailed exegesis of these 2 chapters in Church Dogmatics 3.1 were respectively entitled:

Creation is the external basis of the covenant

Covenant is the internal basis of creation

John Webster has an elegant summary of these two points.

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