I comment on three things in Mr. Chellis’ article: the phrase “cut a covenant,” the term “federal,” and the place of nations in God’s plan.

Most English translations use the phrase “make a covenant,” but the Hebrew idiom is “cut a covenant.” Behind the Hebrew idiom lay the ratification ceremony for establishing a covenant. The parties would cut animals in two, then pass together between the bloody parts. The vivid meaning was, “May God do so to me and more also if I break this covenant.”

In Jeremiah’s day, for example, the nobles made a covenant to free their slaves. Then they went back on it. God said, “And I will give the men who have transgressed My covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before Me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between the parts of it…I will give them into the hand of their enemies” (Jer. 34 :18-20, see Gen. 15:7-21). The translation “make” sounds like signing a document; the Hebrew “cut” makes clear that covenants were sealed by a blood oath.

The term “federal” comes from a Latin word foedus, related to another Latin word, fides, meaning “faith.” “Federal” translated the Hebrew and Greek words for covenant. Therefore covenant theology in older textbooks, and even today, is called “federal theology.” Christ is our “federal head,” meaning that He is the One with whom God made a covenant on behalf of everyone united to Him by faith. For Americans, the word “federal” has political meaning, our national constitution being known as the federal constitution. In 1787, when all educated Americans knew both Latin and federal theology, the term “federal Constitution” would have suggested the covenantal nature of the American political system, even while it looked no more deeply for its authority than the “People” (see Webster’s Second Unabridged Dictionary entry “federal”).

Finally, it should be noted that when people today read the Great Commission, “Go therefore and teach all nations,” we tend to hear, “Go therefore and convert individuals from among all nations.” But the Old Testament prophetic background points to corporate, national reading of the Great Commission.

Already in Israel’s day, individuals from other nations believed in Israel’s God: Rahab the Canaanite, Ruth the Moabitess, Naaman the Syrian, Uriah the Hittite, Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian, and so on. What God promised for a future age was something greater, that nations, not just individuals from the nations, would come to God. “Yes, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem” (Zech. 8:22). “Envoys will come out of Egypt, Ethiopia will quickly stretch out her hands to God” (Ps. 68:31). “The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising” (Isa. 60:3) The Book of Acts, thus, follows the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome, with special attention to Roman officials such as the Roman centurion Cornelius and Sergius Paulus, governor of Cyprus. Jesus commissioned Paul to go the Gentiles, with special attention to kings (Acts 9:15).

The calling of the nations as nations had begun. For many centuries, it was natural for nations from Armenia to Ethiopia to Rome to Scotland to think of themselves as Christian nations, enjoying as nations the light of the gospel and living under the righteous judgment of God Almighty. The denial of God’s call to our nation to submit corporately to Christ, therefore, defies God’s announced plan for the nations, and calls forth the question, “Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing?” (Ps. 2:1).