Abide in Me

What is a covenant? The word "covenant" appears so often in Scripture, but Reformed theologians have frequently disagreed on a biblical definition of the concept. Doctrinal formulations of "covenant," or ancient Near Eastern conceptions of "covenant," have often clashed.

In this book, Ralph Allan Smith contends that "covenant," far from being a secondary biblical theme, is the fundamental relationship of the triune God. Exploring the "covenantal" relations of the Trinitarian Persons, the author shows how God's triune, covenantal being shapes all history and all human relationships in a triune and covenantal structure. Every relationship with God from creation to consummation is a covenant relationship.

The author also brings the Bible's revelation of the Trinity and covenant to bear in a critical appreciation of theological work by James B. Jordan, Peter J. Leithart, Cornelius Van Til, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, Karl Rahner, Thomas Torrance, Karl Barth, and others.

Ralph Allan Smith, born in 1949, began a serious Christian life after he graduated from Ohio University in 1971. He served in the Navy for two years before he entered Grace Theological Seminary, graduating in 1978 (M. Div.). In 1976, he married his seminary class mate Tsing (Sylvia) Kou, and the two of them arrived Tokyo, Japan in 1981, where they started church planting work with Sylvia's mother and her brother's family. That was the beginning of the Mitaka Evangelical Church. Ralph and Sylvia's son, Ben Zedek, is now the main pastor of the Mitaka Evangelical Church. Their second son, Berek, is an Anglican minister, also serving God in Tokyo, Japan. He is the author of Trinity and Reality as well as Hear My Son: An Examination of Fatherhood of Yahweh in Deuteronomy.