I'm still somewhat new to the practice of covenant baptism (have only seen two of them so far). Sometimes I find the terminology confusing. Could someone answer the following question for me?

We say that we should baptize our children because they are "covenant children," and there are some kind of promises made to them by God. However, what is this promise, exactly? That they will receive the realities of the baptism if the believe? If so, how is this any different from the promise that is made to everyone else? Anyone who exercises faith will receive the realities signified in baptism. What then, makes "covenant children" different from the children of the world? Is there some kind of statistically higher chance the the children of believers are elect?

I found this response in another thread from Bruce:

But how does this make our children special? The children of believers are pouring out of the Church. How can we call them Christians without assuming an ontological difference between them and other children? How can God own them, how can he be their God if they don't have the relationship that David speaks of? He said in Psalm 22 "From the womb you have been my God." What does that mean? And does "being our God" mean the same thing in Psalm 22 as it does when God promises to be a God to us and our children? If so, in what way is God's relationship to us different from his relationship to our children, considering He says that He is our God and our children's God side by side?

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DAVIDIVS DOCTVS VTRIVSQVE LINGVAE
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Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Currently in the process of transferring membership to an as-yet-undecided church in Chapel Hill
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

I think that God's promise to covenant children is that he will be their God, and they will be his people, just as that same promise is toward us. This promise contains blessings and curses. If the child is faithful, God will bless, if not, God extends curses.

I think that part of the confusion on the part of many is that the invisible/visible distinction is not kept in mind when we speak of our children. Nobody can truely know the heart, and we don't pretend to do so with our children either. However, we can judge the visible church, by their fruit. The hard part comes in when the fact is realized that infants do not exhibit fruit in the same way adults do. However, God has stated that our children our by his grace a part of the visible church from infancy. You would judge all those who are a part of the visible church to be saved right? So we too judge our children to be saved (either presently or in the future depending on the position you take) based upon God's Word stating that they are members of the church.

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Jeff Bartel
Mechanical Engineer
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My basic question goes back to what you said at the end of the first paragraph: If the child is faithful, God will bless. If the children repent and believe, they will be saved. How does this give covenant children a special place? It's the same deal that everyone gets. How is it any different to have God as your God, if it just means that you will be blessed if you believe? My unsaved friends will be blessed if they believe, but God isn't their God.

David,

I think that you are forgetting the vast amount of benefits that are associated with being a member of the church! Every member of the church is presented with the same conditions (blessings/curses), yet would you not admit that christians (members of the church) are different from the world?

Even Paul recognized the benefits that the unbelieving Israelites had:
Rom 9:3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen[1] according to the flesh,
Rom 9:4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises;
Rom 9:5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.

WCF 28.4 "...but also the infants of one or both believing parents, are to be baptized."

The promise is made first to the parents, who are believers. God will save them, and anything of theirs that is predestined to life. God lays claim to them and everything of theirs--including their children. As in Abraham's case, God's promise to be a God eternally, "to you and to your children after you," is ever contingent on those children being children of the same Spirit and faith as Abraham possessed.

Nothing of theirs (including their heirs) that has a nature consonant with this world (and administrations thereof) will continue into the world to come. Such is the visible/invisible distinction. And we submit to the wisdom and goodness of God on this point.

And yes, I do believe there is a correlation between those believing parents who believe God's promise and consequently use his ordained means (believing is for living), and a godly seed, elect children--the same God who elected them to life also gave them godly nurture as that means. Why would this be unexpected? Would this not rather be expected? If you couldn't expect it, what meaning would the promise have? Unbelievers--of everything, or of this or that promise--do not benefit from promises they reject or ignore.

When you see (as I see in churches all around) precious few young people or rising generation of the faithful, shouldn't we conclude that this indicates a massive failure on the part of the church and parents to use ordained means, rather than on an "ineffective" promise?

At the end of the day, all we have is the promise of God. That's it.
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved--you, and your house."

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


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But God says that He will be a God to us and our children, not that He will be a God to us and anything of ours that is predestined to life. Below you mentioned the passage from Acts where God says that if we believe, we will be saved along with our household. It doesn't say "and whoever in your household happens to be predestined to life." This reminds me also of Zaccheus, and how salvation had come to his household. These are the kinds of verses that have troubled me for some time now as a Reformed believer because they do not seem to fit my paradigm. I find myself having to qualify what I read every few verses because of a system I transport from the outside.

Did Abraham have a similar problem? Did he understand there was something implied in those words? Something about those children needing a share of his faith? And did he not know, or have some inkling that not all of them would, despite the sweeping surface declaration of the promise?

I think that if you and I are left with the impression that Abraham could have been asking the same question's we are, then perhaps we are in the right place. Sort of like Romans 9 in reverse.

Can you elaborate on these two things as you understand them?

What is your paradigm?

What is the system you transport from the outside?

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Paul Woods
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My paradigm is that every person is responsible for his own relationship with God. Individuals are are brought into some kind of external relationship toward Him through the faith of their parents and through baptism, but are not "saved" by baptism (see Peter) or saved because of the household into which they are born. Paul says in Romans that we are saved if we believe with our hearts and confess with our mouths that Jesus is lord, and that God raised him from the dead. In Acts we hear "believe and you will be saved along with your household." As I understand it, there must either be an equivocation of the word "saved," or we must say, for the second passage, that it's not really all of our household that will be saved, or we have to say that the children of believers have some kind of real participation in the benefits of God's covenant by nature of their birth.

*****

As an aside, are there any believers, not one of whose children have continued in the faith? What ramifications does this have on the promise?

David,
In your last line there, do you mean by "real" a "spiritual" participation in the saving benefits of God's covenant? But this would violate the visible/invisible distinction, would it not?

Did you read my #7 ?

I would agree with the latter per 1Cor. 7:14.

Yes, I do understand that it would violate the visible/invisible distinction, hence my frustration with the appearance of such texts. What do you do when a verse appears to violate a system you've formed from other places? Which principle has to give?

I read #7, and I understand that Abraham was informed that Ishmael was not the son through whom the promise would be fulfilled. I guess this is what I'm thinking: Abraham was told that God would be a God to him and his seed. At first Abraham may have thought this meant all his physical offspring, but the seed was Christ. Why, then, should we apply that promise to any of our children? Isn't it a little redundant to say that God will be the God of our children if we only mean that He'll be the God of our elect children? It seems like that conclusion would follow from the general premise of the way salvation works to begin with. What good is it to say that God is the God of them all, if not all of them are His children?

In the sense that Bruce fleshed it out above? A "real" and "spiritual" participation?

David,
But the promise in Christ is not the ONLY fact being stated to Abraham. It isn't until Gen 22:18 that the explicit singular is used. The rest of the time, and of particular interest is Gen 17, the sense is plainly plural. So clearly there is a broad application to his descendants. Furthermore, why only consider Ishmael and Isaac. Abraham's sons include many nations, genetically as well as his spiritual nation. Saul and David are both his sons too.

Abraham had to live with this tension, the seen and the unseen. If we have to as well, why would this be too much for us?

As for redundancy (did you mean this word?), how are we supposed to operate in this world? Does God typically give us the identities of the elect or non-elect? No, he only promises "in my covenant, I will be God to you, and to your children after you." And there is an outward, visible manifestation of that covenant, which is imperfect, but which is still to be acknowledged and followed in this fallen world. And there is the eternal, spiritual aspect, the perfect. And the two do not perfectly coincide.

Some who experience outward tasting of blessing later apostatize. Like rebellious Israel ate manna, and were filled--but whose bodies littered the desert for their persistent unbelief. Eating and drinking condemnation to themselves. That is not the language of "real, spiritual participation in the saving benefits of God's covenant."

Yes, I would say in a "real" and "spiritual" sense. Would you say that the author in Heb. 6: 4-8, is speaking of those who have some kind of "real" or "spiritual" participation in the economy of God's covenant.

There is a certain irony here that we only tend to have these kind of conversations when it comes to election and the nature of our children.

Everybody intuitively understands that a child's behavior and education are directly correlated to the parenting received. It's becoming popular today to dissect our children into a collection of genes and use the DSM-IV to give excuse as to why Johnny tortures kittens or prefers boys over girls but this is the province of fools to think in such ways. When I see a child out of control in the grocery store, I don't think to myself: "I wonder what it is about his ontology that is causing that behavior."

There is something that we all intuitively understand about the solidarity that exists within a family. Even Baptists recognize that their children have no choice but to be brought up in the faith just as a Muslim child is going to go to school every day and learn how to hate Jews and Americans. If election were completely indeterminate then we would expect just as many Christians spontaneously generating in Saudi Arabia as in a Baptist Church but it is no surprise to me that nearly every child that grows up in a Baptist Church is baptized by the time they are 18.

I have repeatedly enjoined that we ought to stick to the things revealed David. As Bruce noted, God doesn't give us the identities of the elect. Once we get that firmly fixed in our minds some of these questions disappear.

Abraham was never told that Ishmael was not elect. Isaac was never told Esau was not elect. These are the kinds of things that God knows. We are commanded to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Full stop. No information concerning election of each child - just duty and hope.

Hence, the promise to a covenant child is not ontological (we're not Roman Catholics). There is a generic promise to the world at large but that is only known by special revelation. A child in Saudi Arabia knows nothing of the Promise for how can they believe in Him unless a preacher is sent?

Yet, the blessing of a Covenant child (and the curse if they repudiate it) is they are placed in the visible assembly where the Good News is heralded every week. He is discipled in these things, prays to this God, learns all about how this God will save those who have faith and the judgment that awaits those who reject the Son. Read Romans 10 again if you think that "...but what if they're not elect?" is an appropriate excuse to give for denying responsibility to respond to that News.

Hence, in asking the question on the plane of human activity (What is the blessing of a Covenant Child?), the answer can never be ontic or speak definitively of election. On the one hand, salvation is not an ontic thing but it is an ethical restoration. On the other hand, our responsibilities don't rest on our knowledge of the election of any man or woman or child but upon what God commands in His revealed Word. Just remember, you have no more information about the election of your future bride than you do about the election of your future children but you have duty to both. That duty will be within the Covenant of Grace that you are blessed to be a part of as are your future bride and children. That duty never comes with the qualifier: "If your wife is elect..." or "If your child is elect...."

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Rich
Northern VA
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To clarify this issue, I'd like to post a section of David Engelsma's, The Covenant of God and the Children of Believers. This online version is slightly abridged, and they will send the full text (in pamphlet) to those who email them. The final section (not posted in this post) is titled, "The Call to Believers' Children to be Converted". I think it remarkable for its clarity and simplicity.

The Inclusion of the Children of Believers in the Covenant

The children of believers are included in the covenant as children, that is, already at conception and birth. They receive forgiveness of sins through the blood of Jesus the Holy Spirit of sanctification, and church membership -- as children. For they have God as their God, and are His people -- as children. Therefore, they have full right to baptism. Parents must present them for baptism. And the church that would maintain pure administration of the sacraments as instituted by Christ must see to it.

This is an important feature of the central doctrine of the covenant. It is important to children. Are they God's children or the devil's? It is important to the parents. We love our children and regard the rearing of our children as one of the most important tasks in our lives. May we regard them as children of God? Or are we compelled to regard them as Satan's "little vipers," as must all those who deny that children are included in the covenant and as certain Calvinistic theologians, e.g. Jonathan Edwards. Inclusion of the children in the covenant is important to the church. The church asks, "Are they members of the church or do they stand outside?" Does the church have a calling to them too, to feed and protect them as lambs of the flock of Christ, or are they nothing but heathens, little heathens to be sure, but heathens nevertheless, like all other ungodly people, whom the church at most should evangelize?

But above all, the place of the children in the covenant is important to God. He said at the beginning of the history of the covenant with Abraham, "I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations... to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." (Genesis 17:7). He inspired the apostle, on the very day that the covenant became new, to proclaim as the gospel, "the promise is unto you, and to your children... even as many as the Lord our God shall call."(Acts 2:39). Rebuking His unfaithful wife in Judah, in Ezekiel 16:20,21, God exclaims like an aggrieved Husband and Father, "Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou hast slain My children..." In Malachi 2:15 God condemns the divorcing that was prevalent in Judah, because divorce jeopardizes the "godly seed." (And still today the unchangeable God hates divorce in the covenant community because it is destructive of the children who, as covenant children, are His children.)

How important our children's inclusion in the covenant is to God is shown in the New Testament (Covenant) by Christ's command, "Suffer little children (infants) to come unto Me...for of such (infants of believers) is the kingdom of God (made up)." (Luke 18:15ff.). "Children, obey your parents in the Lord...and, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

In light of our confession of the inclusion of the children of believers in the covenant (about which fact there is no dispute among Reformed people or churches), we must now answer the question, what exactly do Scripture and the Reformed confessions mean when they say that our children are included in the covenant?

The Reformed creeds are clear and emphatic about children's being included in the covenant of God. The Heidelberg Catechism teaches that infants must be baptized "since they, as well as the adult, are included in the covenant and church of God; and since redemption from sin by the blood of Christ, and the Holy Ghost, the author of faith, is promised to them no less than to the adult..." (Question & Answer 74).

Our question (what this means) is occasioned by the incontestable face that not all children of believers are saved. Both parents and church experience the hard, painful fact that some of our children grow up ungodly, unbelieving, and disobedient, and perish. God is not their God; and they are not His people. Scripture prepares us for this bitterest of all parental and ecclesiastical sorrows. Abraham had a grandson, Esau, who was a profane reprobate. (Cf. Genesis 25:19-34; Hebrews 12:16 and 17; Romans 9:6-13). Deuteronomy 21:18ff. prescribed the procedure by which the Israelite parents of gluttonous, drunken, rebellious, and stubborn sons were to bring these children to the elders to be excommunicated and stoned. Hebrews 10:29 speaks of the baptized son of believers in the time of the new covenant who treads under foot the Son of God, counts the blood of the covenant, with which he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and insults the Spirit of grace.

We cannot presume that all our children are regenerated and elect. To presume this is contrary to the Scripture and experience. Nor may we parents be bitter about this. For it is pure mercy that any of our children are saved.

But what then does the Reformed faith mean by the inclusion of the children of believers in the covenant of God?

Although all our children are in the sphere of the covenant and therefore receive the sign of the covenant and are reared as covenant members, the covenant of God, the relationship of friendship in Jesus Christ, is established with the elect children only. The promise of the covenant is for the elect children only. The promise does not depend upon the faith of the child, but the promise itself works the faith by which the child receives the grace of the covenant in every child to whom God makes the promise. It is the elect children among our physical offspring who constitute our true children, even as the seed of Abraham was not all his physical descendants, but only Christ and those who are Christ's according to election. (Cf. Galatians 3:7,16,29).

Our grounds for this explanation of the inclusion of children in the covenant are the following.

First, only this view harmonizes with the rule of faith in Scripture. God's saving, covenant mercy is particular, i.e., for the elect alone. (Romans 9:15). Predestination makes distinction not only between the visible church and the world but also within the visible church itself (Romans 9:10-13). God's salvation never depends upon the will or action of the sinner (Romans 9:16). Christ's death is efficacious (Romans 5:6 to 11). The promise of God is sure to all the seed. (Romans 4:16).

Second, Scripture itself gives exactly this explanation of the precise matter under discussion. It does this in Romans 9:1ff. The concern of Paul is that so many physical children of Abraham perish in light of God's promise to Abraham to establish His covenant with Abraham's seed (vss. 1-5). The chief difficulty of the apostle is