Children and the Covenant
Steve Wilkins
What is the Covenant?
The foundation of all of God’s dealings with man is the covenant. It is the basis of all that God has done, is doing, and will do in time and on earth. Nothing can be understood rightly apart from an understanding of God’s covenant.
Yet, the truth is, very few Christians have seriously considered the covenant and its implications for their lives and the lives of their children. Even those churches that profess to believe in "covenant theology seem to have little understanding of the covenant as it is revealed to us in the scriptures. This has contributed a great deal to the weakness and ineffectiveness of the Church in this century. If we are to be what God commands us to be, we must understand and rejoice in the covenant God has established with His people.
It is not easy to describe the covenant, simply because it is so pervasive. It’s a little like describing the atmosphere. It is all around us, it is essential to our existence, but it is so pervasive as to be almost unnoticeable. So it is in regard to the covenant in Scripture.
God doesn’t always mention the covenant specifically -- it is like the steel structure of a building. It’s there, it is essential to the existence of the building for there would be no building without it, but it is not always noticeable. But, the closer you look, the more pervasive you notice the covenant to be.
For example: Jesus is our Savior because He is the Mediator of the Covenant. The gospel promises are invitations to enter and enjoy a covenant relationship with God. Faith is nothing more than embracing the covenant. The Christian life is in its essence, the sinner enjoying covenant communion with His Savior.
The Church is the community of the covenant, the preaching of the word, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the fellowship and mutual care and encouragements are all signs, seals, tokens, expressions, and instruments of the covenant, through which God grants covenant mercies to His people. The hope of glory is the ultimate realization of the covenant relationship.
The Bible is the Book of the covenant and the record of history is the story of the outworking of God's covenant purpose. Nothing is understood rightly apart from an understanding of the covenant (see J. I. Packer’s "Introduction: On Covenant Theology," in Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man).
The pervasive centrality of the covenant and the present confusion of the Church in our day has motivated me to do that which I truly detest, write. You hold in your hands a series of studies on the Covenant -- focusing especially upon the place our children have in this blessed relationship God has established between Himself and His people.
I begin by giving an introduction the covenant itself so that we may have it more clearly defined in our minds. What is the covenant?
The Nature of the Covenant.
In general: The covenant is the means by which man has communion with God. It is a living bond between God and man wherein God pledges to be our God and claims us to be His people. The common formula by which God describes this relationship is, "I will be your God and you will be My people."
When God comes to Abraham, He declares this very thing (Genesis 17:7-9: "And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. And God said to Abraham: As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations").
Right away we are able to see a number of things:
1) This relationship is a real relationship, binding God and those with whom He enters into covenant. Those who are in covenant with God are set apart from the world to belong to Him -- they are marked as His own possession.
2) The relationship is a blessed relationship (God pledges to be our God, to do all that is necessary for us to have life before Him).
3) The relationship binds us to holy obligation to be His people (faithfulness to Him who has graciously entered into covenant with us is absolutely necessary). Palmer Robertson observes, "In its most essential aspect, a covenant is that which binds people together. Nothing lies closer to the heart of the biblical concept of the covenant than the imagery of a bond inviolable." (O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, p. 4)
The covenant is a binding relationship between God and men. It can be broken by man's rebellion, but until it is, those with whom God enters into covenant belong to Him and are His.
This is the general nature of the covenant, but what are its specific characteristics?
In particular:
1. The covenant is a relationship that is sovereignly administered.
That is, God freely and graciously condescends to enter into covenant with man. It is a relationship that must be initiated by God if it is to exist. The Westminster Confession of Faith (chap. 7) notes that "the distance between God and the Creator is so great" that no man can have a relationship with God apart from God’s voluntary condescension. Not even Adam in his unfallen state, was qualified to initiate a relationship with God as if he was an equal. If man is to have a relationship with God, God must graciously and initiate it. This is exactly what God did. He came to man and entered into covenant with him.
But not only is the relationship itself sovereignly initiated by God, but the terms which govern this relationship are sovereignly determined by God. God and man do not negotiate terms, as might occur in a covenant between equals. God says what man may and may not do. "No such thing as bargaining, bartering, or contracting characterizes the divine covenants of Scripture. The sovereign Lord of heaven and earth dictates the terms of his covenant." (O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, p. 15) God’s word is the law that governs the covenant relationship.
You see this in the covenant made with Adam before the Fall. God tells Adam what he is to do and what he is to avoid and promises blessing upon his faithful response or cursing upon his rebellion.
After the Fall, God comes again sovereignly and freely and restores the covenant -- again declaring the rules of man's life.
Each time the covenant is renewed this is repeated. This is most prominent when God enters into covenant with the nation of Israel at Sinai. God declares who He is and how they will live (Exodus 20:1-2: "And God spoke all these words, saying: I {am} the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage"). So it always is, the covenant is always sovereignly administered.
2. The covenant is a relationship which is signified and sealed by sacraments.
To confirm the reality of this relationship, God gives signs and seals which serve to mark out His people and to be means by which they receive His grace. The sacraments may be categorized as: 1) Those that signify and seal covenant reconciliation (as circumcision and baptism) and 2) those that signify and seal covenant communion (as Passover and the Lord’s Supper).
There have always been sacraments to signify and seal the relationship between God and man. Prior to the Fall, there was no need to distinguish God’s people from the world (since both Adam and Eve were sinless), so there was only the sacrament of covenant communion -- the Tree of Life.
After the Fall, with the entrance of sin, it was necessary to distinguish covenant keepers from covenant breakers. God instituted circumcision and the mark of covenant reconciliation and later Passover as the sacrament of covenant communion. Both of these Old Covenant sacraments were provisional and caused men to look forward to that day when the Mediator of the Covenant would actually accomplish His work and there would be no more need for the shedding of blood.
After the coming of Messiah and the completion of His work, the sacraments are changed again and replaced with Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
With these signs and seals, the covenant serves to identify God’s people and distinguish them from the world. We cannot know God’s decrees. We do not know the number and names of His elect and cannot see men’s hearts. How then do we know those who belong to Him? We know them by their membership in the covenant community. The sacraments become the objective basis for identifying God's people in the world and the basis for God’s people recognizing one another.
This doesn’t mean that everyone who is baptized is a Christian, nor does it mean that baptism is necessary for salvation. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper serve to identify God’s people and distinguish them from the world.
3. The covenant is a relationship which defines life for man.
The covenant governs and defines all of life. It defines who man is and why he is here. It explains the purpose of man’s existence -- that he is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Man has no meaning apart from his Creator. It is impossible for man to know or to understand himself except in terms of his relationship with the One who made him. Man cannot know himself apart from God's covenant nor does he know life.
Even as God gives man life originally (by creating him), so He lays out the boundaries of life by revealing Himself and His purposes to man. Man can only find fulfillment in being what God created him to be. Then and only then is he fully human and truly living. In the covenant, God graciously reveals Himself to man and in so doing tells man who he is to be and what he is to do. Man, as God’s image-bearer is given a three-fold definition:
He is first and foremost man the worshiper. He first purpose is to glorify the One who created Him by returning to Him suitable thanksgiving and praise. He will never be what he was intended to be unless he is willing to recognize his Creator as God, and refuse all temptation to view himself as god. If man is not a worshiper, he is not truly a man.
Secondly, the covenant defines man as man the covenant head. As God’s representative in creation, man is to exercise headship under God. In this role, man is given a wife to love and to lead and with which to multiply and increase by the blessing of God. It is not good that man be alone. He is not complete of himself and thus must have a covenant helper. Thus, man is defined not only as man the worshiper, but also as man the husband.
Thirdly, the covenant defines man as man the covenant king. As God’s vice-regent, man is entrusted with God’s creation to subdue it and take dominion over it in God’s name and according to His word. He is therefore man the laborer.
This three-fold definition lays out the covenant structure of life. This is how man is to glorify God and enjoy Him -- By worship, marriage, and work. This is life. The one who rebels against this covenantal structure is thus, by definition, dead. He has no true life, since he rebelled against the covenant purpose of God. Outside the covenant there is only death.
This is exactly what happened at the Fall. God had said that in the very day Adam rebelled he would die. How are we to explain Adam’s death in light of the fact that he didn’t drop dead? As we look at the Fall from the perspective of the covenant, we understand these words. Adam in his rebellion was rebelling against covenant life at every point and embracing death.
Adam rebelled against his role as worshiper. By following the word of Satan, he denied the sovereign rule of God and in fact, the very Godhood of God. He, in effect, pulled God down from His position as the sovereign Judge who determined "good and evil" and installed himself in that exalted position. Adam, by virtue of his rebellion, became the first to declare the divinity of Man. When man rejects the worship of God, he begins to worship himself, and dies. Losing his gravitational center, his life breaks apart.
Adam rebelled against his role as husband and covenant head. This he did first by allowing Eve to be deceived contrary to God’s command. He then was willing to have her destroyed for his sin by refusing to take responsibility for his sin. His marriage was dead.
Adam rebelled against his role as laborer and covenant king of creation. He, by his sin, disabled himself from taking dominion over the creation for the glory of God and so destroyed his ability to work. He died to his calling.
As a consequence of his fall, Adam lost access to the sacrament of the covenant of creation -- the Tree of Life. God shut him out of the garden not because he might gain life by means of the tree but so that he might not seek life by means of the old covenant any more.
Adam, by his sin, forfeited a holy and happy posterity. All mankind descending from Adam by "ordinary generation," would come into the world not upright but covenantally dead in sin, enemies of the covenant and thus enemies of life.
Sin fragments the beautiful covenant unity of life. It destroys meaning and purpose and thus, man is destroyed. Man loses himself in a universe which is incomprehensible apart from the covenant.
This would be the sad legacy of man if God were not gracious. But God did not leave all mankind to perish in the misery of sin -- He comes to man and restores the covenant. The story is found in Genesis 3:8-19:
God again initiates the relationship (v. 9). Adam and Eve ran from Him in fear and hatred. God seeks them out in sovereign grace.
He changes their natures and status before Him and restores them as worshipers again. "I will put enmity between you and the woman" (v. 15). God will graciously and sovereignly change the heart of Eve so that the one she now loves (Satan) will be hated and the One she now hates (God) will be loved.
God restores their marriage -- reordering it according to His will and promising a posterity (v. 16). Eve will submit to her husband and bear children. Adam will again be the covenant husband.
God restores their work (vv. 17-19) -- Adam will again be the covenant king as God promises to bless His work.
Covenant life consists of worship, marriage, and work. This covenant structure of all of life was ingrained in the faithful saints of Israel. An ancient Jewish prayer (in fact, traditionally the first prayer made for the children born to a family in Israel) was that "as he had been joined to the covenant so it might also be to him in regard to the Torah (the covenant law, that he might become a faithful lover of God), to the Chuppah (the covenant of marriage, that he might become a faithful husband and father), and to good works (that he might be a faithful laborer)." [Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. I, p. 227].
4. The covenant is an organic relationship.
God created Adam to be the fountainhead of all mankind. He will not create men from the dust of the earth any more. Rather, Adam will be given a wife and God will enable them to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. There is an organic unity to mankind. We all descended from mothers and fathers, who were descended from other mothers and fathers, who descended from the first mother and father.
The covenant recognizes this unity and operates in terms of it. God blesses and curses in family lines. Normally, salvation is granted in family lines. The ordinary way in which God’s purposes of salvation are brought to pass is by fathers teaching their children. One generation shall teach the next (Psalm 78:1-7 -- note that here four generations are mentioned).
The covenant does not sever the natural bond that binds parents to children. You do not view your children as strangers and aliens because they are not! You don’t require them to give you their name, rank, and serial number before you acknowledge them as your own. They are God’s heritage to you, His special reward (Psalm 127). You therefore give them your family name. They enjoy the privileges which come with being in your family and are viewed naturally as members of the family. This order is God-ordained and holy.
How strange it would be for God to cause His covenant to operate in such a way that parents have to divorce themselves from their children at this most important issue of whom they are to worship and serve! How can we give them our names, our food, a room in our homes, and then view them as aliens and strangers when it comes to our covenant? We will without thinking acknowledge their right to all these lessor things (and, in fact, would be appalled if someone suggested that we refuse these things to our children) yet refuse to acknowledge that they share in our covenant relationship with Jehovah!
God does not operate His covenant contrary to His created order. Therefore, Abraham’s children were to be given the sign of Abraham’s God. God’s covenant promise includes the children and they are to be cared for precisely because they belong to Him. The children of a covenant marriage are children of God by virtue of His covenant. Note Psalm 128:1-3 -- the children are like "olive shoots" they bear a clear relation to their faithful father who is like an "olive tree" (Psalm 52:8).
For this reason, the charge against Israel brought by the prophet Ezekiel is most pointed: "Moreover you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. {Were} your {acts} of harlotry a small matter, that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through {the fire}?" (Ezekiel 16:20-21).
Is God opposed to destroying His enemies? No, He isn’t. In fact, he often destroyed the children of His enemies (Egypt’s firstborn, the children of the Canaanites, etc). But He is opposed to destroying those who belong to Him by virtue of His covenant. Thus, Jesus corrects and rebukes His disciples when they seek to prevent mothers from bringing children to Him because, He says, "of such is the kingdom." (Matthew 19:31-14)
The covenant is organic in that it recognizes the created order. The sin which disrupted the created order would have made all children enemies and aliens to their parents. But God, by His gracious covenant restores the created order. The covenant does not sever the bond that God ordained between you and your children, it consecrates it.
God’s creational orderings for marriage and the family have continuing significance in the purposes of redemption. The propagation of the race through the institution of marriage indicates a primary means by which God’s purposes in redemption find realization. Not by a method contrary to the structures of creation, but by a method in conformity with creation, God accomplishes his purposes of redemption. (Robertson, op. cit., p. 79).
God in mercy, does not work in redemption contrary to His original created order (which was perfect remember) but rather, He restores the created order by His grace that it may function as He originally intended it. "Redemption has the effect of restoring the order of creation, and the solidarity of the family is one of the greatest of creation’s ordinances. The genealogical character of redemption's activity underscores the intention of God to work in accord rather than in discord with this creational ordering." (Robertson, op. cit., p. 41).
We must see the mercy of God in all this. The covenant emphasizes the grace and love of God. How could God treat men as He did and does? Only because His Son would keep the covenant in the place of His people. His Son would obey faithfully when we did not. His son would take the curse upon Himself and so purchase our blessing.
Are you truly living? If you cannot worship, if your marriage is a mess, if your labor is meaningless, here is the cause. You have broken covenant with God. Repent and come to Christ that you may live.
Are you responding to God’s covenant lovingkindness faithfully? The one who is baptized but ignoring the Savior is flirting with terrible condemnation. Those who ignore the significance of the sacraments, despise His covenant. This is why God sought to kill Moses (Exodus 4:24). His refusal to give his children the sign of the covenant showed he was ignoring of God’s grace. Do not despise the grace of God. Repent and rejoice in the life He gives freely in His covenant by His Son.