Carson on Covenants

Well, Carson gives a pretty good basic exposition of the covenants, although he does not place enough weight upon the land/nation promise which is central to the making of the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 15. Early on when speaking about Genesis 1-3 he says,

“In any case, there is an agreement made by a sovereign — in this case, God — with human beings where there is worship and adoration on one side, and blessing and protection and privilege granted by God on the other side — on condition of certain obedience with threat of certain judgment if there is disobedience.”

But this is simply false. There is no “agreement” and there is no condition of obedience. As I have said before, and as anyone interested can substantiate, hardly any recognized liberal OT scholar sees a covenant before Noah. That is significant because as Williamson explains in the book Carson recommends, the oath is the indispensable key to covenant. There is no oath until Genesis 9.

Finally, Carson holds to one people of God and thus to an expansionist typological understanding of the land. But this is fed by his theology and not by the biblical text, which nowhere teaches such a thing. I say more about this here