Jared Longshore's Blog, page 29

Child Communion: Examine Yourself, Indeed

 Scripture plainly teaches that a man ought to examine himself and so eat of this bread and drink of this cup (1 Corinthians 11:28). On the basis of such a text, some people object to the practice of covenant children communing with the Lord and the saints at the Lord’s Table. Can these little ones truly examine themselves? My short answer to that question is, “Why, yes, they can . . . and as John the Baptist, they can even be filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb (Luke 1:15). While we are on this subject, we really should consider the context of that command to examine oneself. That context involved people grabbing their own bread while others went hungry (1 Corinthians 11:21). It involved people despising the church of God (1 Corinthians 11:22), causing divisions (1 Corinthians 11:18), and not discerning the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:29).
 
Interestingly, this is the very error the disciples fell into when they prohibited children from coming to Christ. Jesus said, “Forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14). If the disciples had discerned that the little ones were of the kingdom of heaven, then they would not have been in need of the rebuke. In prohibiting the children to come to the Lord, what were they doing? They were causing divisions. They were not discerning the body of Christ.
 
Imagine this turn of events, when the man who would prohibit children coming to the Lord’s Table discovers that the Lord Himself is discerning the body, the children also are discerning the body. But he himself has failed to discern the body. In a great attempt to examine the least of these. He has forgotten to examine himself.
 
So examine yourself, indeed. For that is the command, and it goes for the least of us to the greatest.

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Little by Little

 The temptation to go for the quick fix is nothing new. But it is certainly heightened in our day. We put a premium on rapid solutions. We have become accustomed to buying and selling with the click of a button. In such a climate, we must be aware of God’s standard pattern for growth. His normal way is little by little. He made Israel gather just enough manna for the day, any more would spoil. Christ teaches us to pray each day for daily bread. God told Israel that He would drive out the nations before them “little by little,” and this for good reason, so that the beasts of the field would not increase upon them.
 
We often want things the other way around. We would like to ask the Lord one day a year for yearly bread, or, better yet, once in a lifetime for life-long bread. We want to see the Philistines driven out in one battle. And you shouldn’t put it past us to try our hand at alchemy because turning base metals into gold seems to be easier and faster than working hard to earn the gold.
 
But Proverbs says, “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: But he that gathereth by labour shall increase” (Proverbs 13:11).
 
We have a tendency to overestimate what can be done in one year, and to underestimate what can be done in twenty. So whatever field you are currently cultivating, be sure to do so with a steady hand, with patience and resolve. Don’t cut corners. Don’t give into envy or covetousness. Don’t despair when the wheat doesn’t pop out of the ground the day after your sowed the seed. The Lord calls you to labor with Him, and you must do so being steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

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It’s Coram Deo or Bust

One of the very wise things that Moses said when he and Israel were soon to go out from Mount Sinai was, “Lord, if you will not go with us, don’t send us away from this place.” Here we are assembled before the presence of God at the Lord’s Table, and our sentiment ought to be the same as that of Moses, “Lord, we must stay right here if you will not go with us.”

Now each Christian community has its own sin. And the sin which plagues many Christian communities in our day is that they are set on turning the dominion mandate into the sedentary mandate. But, we must repent of our own sins, not the sins of others. Martha had to deal with her own heart before she was to help Mary with whatever was going on in hers. And Martha’s heart was looking to serve the Lord rather than listen to His teaching and take it to heart. 

Given the great work that is going on in our midst, it would be easy to fall into a similar temptation. As in Moses’ day, there are battles to fight and an endless number of good works out there for the taking. So learn from the meekest man on earth. He wasn’t budging if God wasn’t coming with them and going before them.

You can stay up as late as you’d like and get up before the sun rises in July. But you will accomplish nothing this year if the Lord is not with you and you Him. The One we commune with has promised to go with us, so we can and must go from this place to be fruitful. But ensure as you do that the Lord goes with you and your heart remains set on Him. It is Coram-Deo or bust. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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Feelings Make Terrible Gods

Calvin was absolutely right that man’s heart is an idol factory. And the men and women of our day seem hellbent on setting up their feelings as little deities. They offer pinches of incense to them on nearly every street corner. Even so, feelings make terrible gods. You would be far better off worshipping the gods of the Roman Pantheon. If you’re really going to turn your back on the Living God, go for Zeus, Aphrodite, or Apollo. At least then, you might have an interesting story to tell, albeit a tragic one. At least then, you could pretend to be reaching outside of yourself. All of this talk about following your heart is not only worthy of the flames of hell, it is also remarkably boring.

Your feelings are meant to be commanded. They should line up and follow you along the way. If they are being unruly, that is no worry. That is what feelings often do. Just give them a spanking and tell them to sit up straight, shut their mouths, and act right. But, says an evangelical who has joined the Philistines of our age, “What then could I write in my journal if indeed I tell my feelings to hush?” Well, you don’t have to throw the journal away. But if you are going to keep it, you should start writing Bible verses down and then use your pen to describe how you are going to trust those words more fully and obey them more diligently. As Martyn Lloyd Jones once wisely said, “Most of our problems in life come from the fact that we are listening to ourselves rather than talking to ourselves.” Control your emotions. Discipline them. This work is not too hard for you. This self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, and He has been poured out in your hearts.

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Jehovah-Jireh

After Abraham obeyed the Lord, taking his son Isaac up Mount Moriah to sacrifice him, he saw a ram caught in a thicket. This was God’s provision for the sacrifice. Abraham, who knew that the Lord was going to provide such a sacrifice when he headed up the mountain, called that place Jehovah-Jireh, saying, “In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen” (Genesis 22:14). That statement from faithful Abraham has proven true time and time again. 

Eden was a mountain, and there the Lord provided life to our father, Adam. Even after our rebellion, our Father provided a sacrifice on that mountain, clothing our first parents with garments of skin. He did the same at Mount Sinai. There the Lord’s faithfulness was seen as sacrificial blood was sprinkled upon the people and the book of the covenant. In David’s day, the LORD’s provision was seen on Mount Jerusalem as God swore an oath to give David a son who would rule, and that son Solomon came forth on that mountain. And it was on that same mountain that our Lord gave His life and instituted this Supper in which He says, “This is my body broken for you.”

This table reduces all of our sin to a singular point. That point is our doubt that on the Mount of the Lord His provision shall be seen. Our anxieties, complaining, covetousness, sour attitude, biting and devouring, you name it; all of it boils down to our disbelief in what is richly displayed before us now. We must learn to see every sin for what it is: an attempt to strip the LORD of His rightful name—Jehovah-Jireh. Likewise, we must look to whatever difficult terrain faces us in the coming year and say with Abraham, “In the Mount of the LORD it shall be seen.” And have come to that heavenly mount Zion. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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New Year Resolution: The Day of Small Things

The new year brings with it the desire to lay down fresh resolutions. With this spirit comes a variety of temptations, one of which is that of lamenting what few resources we have. You want to make advancements in knowledge, but you have little education in your background. You look to grow your business, but you do not have the financial resources of that successful entrepreneur across the room. You want to bestow wisdom upon our children, but your forefathers were Barbarians and Scythians, so you have no heritage of generational faithfulness to rely upon.

What are you to do? You must not despise the day of small things. This was the word from the prophet Zechariah in the days of Zerubbabel when Israel rebuilt a broken-down Jerusalem. It is a Word we must take to heart. While a top-tier education, a successful business, and generations of faithful forefathers are all things for which to be grateful, none of them are things to trust in. Moreover, God’s pattern is to bring salvation from unlikely and insignificant places. Salvation arrives in the little town of Bethlehem. Jesus is called a Nazarene. And can anything good come from there? Jesse’s son was so small that he wasn’t even invited to the “pick the next king” committee meeting. 

We must learn not to despise God’s blessings while at the same time not despising small beginnings. The natural man must despise one or the other. But our duty is to trust that the God who has helped us to lay the foundation of the house is the God who will see to it that we finish it, even if Sanballat is carrying on over there about how vain our efforts are. Trust God and keep swinging your hammer. The clinking and clanging will drown out his taunts.

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Learning How to Lose in Advent

Advent season brings with it a good deal of extra labor. You still have your regular work rhythms. Added to those, you have gift purchasing, party planning, meal organizing, and the sense that you should have an eye out to bless those you are able to bless. This means that advent season is a grand opportunity to learn what our Lord teaches in Luke 9:24, “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.”

This teaching is a mystery. An unbelieving man calls it crazy. “By definition,” he says, “if I lose my life then it shall indeed be lost, not saved!” But, we can see just how wrong this man is around this time of year. Those who are spending and being spent for others are somehow growing in merriment and greatness of heart, while those who are hedging their sacrifices are not. As the Puritans used to say, “The way down is the way up, to be low is to be high, to give is to receive.” Advent, then, is an opportunity to learn how to lose. In the language of Scripture, it is a time to learn how to be poured out. According to the paradox, if you lose, then you will gain. If you are poured out, you will not only be filled up, but you will find that your vessel has been enlarged and then filled up, so that you might be poured out again.

This often catches us by surprise. But it shouldn’t. Our Father gave His only Son. The Son gave His life. And He received it back, along with the salvation of the world. We must do likewise. Lose your life for Christ’s sake, and you will find life abundant.

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A House of Bread

Jesus was born in Bethlehem. And Bethlehem is a combination of two words: “Beth” and “lehem.” “Beth” means house. And “lehem” means bread, making Bethlehem a house of bread. Of course, in Naomi’s day, she had to leave the house of bread because there was no bread there. But, the exact opposite occurred over one thousand years later when Caesar Augustus declared that all the world should be taxed. The action of that Roman ruler left Mary in the house of bread, pregnant with the bread of heaven. So the bread of life visited the house of bread and this world has never been the same.

We come now to the bread of life and Jesus speaks plainly about what we must do here. He said, “Who so eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” (John 6:54-55). If this saying sounds strange, then know it sounded strange to the disciples when they heard it. They murmured about it. And Christ knew. And He didn’t step back to explain Himself in terms they found acceptable. He doubled down, asking, “Does this teaching offend you, then what’s going to happen when you see me ascend back to my Father in heaven in this resurrected bread body?”

The answer is that they would shrink back from that ascension just as much as they were shrinking back from feeding upon Christ. Why? Because they wanted to feed on their own wisdom and their own righteousness. They trusted in themselves. And Christ said, “I am your food. I am your life.” “He that eateth me, even he shall live by me” (John 6:57).

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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The Dirty Trough

One of the reasons we don’t do greater things for the Lord is because we are too
afraid of dirt. You can’t get much of anything done in the world without making a
mess. Anyone who has cooked a meal knows this. Anyone who has played a
football game knows it, too. There will be pots to clean and counters to wipe in the
first instance. In the second, there will be shoulders to pop back into sockets. This
is simply how the world works. Proverbs 14:4 says, “Where no oxen are, the crib is
clean: But much increase is by the strength of the ox.”

We are to produce fruit. So don’t be disabled by the mud, the grime, or the trouble
that comes while you’re farming. Sure, I can tell you how you can do less laundry.
Don’t let your kids do anything. No sweating, no running, no eating of any kind;
we can’t afford stains. But abundant crops come by the strength of those little oxen.
There are bumps to doing business: The deal gone bad, the troubled relationship,
the stripped-out screw that you’re now going to have to rip out of the drywall, these
are all production costs. See them for what they are and laugh at them. The man
who can only see the dirty oxen trough is worse than near-sighted; he is blind. He’s
doomed to servile fear and despair. But God has not given you a spirit of fear, but
of power, love, and sound mind.

One of the dirtiest jobs you’ll ever face up to is straightforward, unqualified
confession of sin. Why in the world would you go looking for your own muck and
then, when you find it, hold it up to the Lord with an apology? You do it because
you see beyond this particular ox trough. Get it clean so you can stand up on the
other side and produce greater fruit for the Lord.

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Covenantal Coogi and an Ice Cream Shop: Another Reply to James White

So if you’re just joining us, I wrote a piece recently making the ever-so Paedobaptist point that the Christian’s children are in the new covenant. This is run-of-the-mill Paedobaptist stuff. But, as James has detailed, it doesn’t square with the Credobaptist position. It requires that some of the theological furniture gets moved around if you have been steeped in the deep waters of Credobaptism, and that remodel will most likely end with water on the little babes so, reader beware.

James White responded to my original post here. I replied to him here. He has replied to my reply in several installments, which can be found on the Alpha and Omega Ministries YouTube channel. As James noted, and I am thankful he noted this because I was starting to sweat the proverbial bullets, it will be hard to respond at length to James since his replies tally up to more than a couple hours, and those replies are in video format, not written. But, I do think a word on my end might help to move the ball down the court a bit more. While I don’t think we will have solved the Credobaptist/Paedobaptist question, we may be clarifying a few things for some. Plus, this reply affords me the opportunity to thank my friend James White for the engagement.

At one point, James explained how unfair he was being to me given that I do not have a multicolored light shining behind me in my videos and I do not have those lovely sweaters he wears, those that would make Joseph himself forget the offenses he suffered and turn to throw James in a pit for jealousy. I agree with James entirely that if you end up siding with him in this exchange it is most certainly due to those snuggle hug coogii he wears, and not because you agree with him on the intricacies of the Greek εἰς τὸ παντελὲς (Hebrews 7:25). Very sneaky those coogii.

A brief word of gratitude here before jumping in. I am grateful for the back and forth from James on this matter, and I am particularly grateful for the manner of the engagement. James noted before that he can disagree with me and others out here in Moscow without the debate getting fleshly. That is true, a grace from God, and a model to others in an age of people getting Moscow moody. 

Boiling the Thing Down

The best I can tell, James’ replies boil down to two items: the nature of the new covenant and the nature of Christ’s mediatorial work. I am not surprised that the dialogue turns to these two doctrines as I think the Paedobaptists and Credobaptists have slightly different takes on both. Notice that word slightly. There is broad agreement on both. But there are differences. I will address the nature of the new covenant by means of the covenant of grace in this post, and I plan to do the same for Christ’s mediatorial work in a future one.

The Nature of the (New) Covenant of Grace

I provided a brief definition of the covenant of grace in my last reply to James. That definition serves as a definition of the new covenant as well. I would add accidental distinctions for a full definition of the new covenant. But again, the definition I’ve supplied for the covenant of grace suffices just fine for a general definition of the new covenant. Given that the nature of the new covenant is a sticking point, I will enlarge that definition of the covenant of grace below. This is important because James says, “from the least of them to the greatest” (Jeremiah 6:13-4; 31:34; Hebrews 8:11) necessitates that each and every member of the new covenant is regenerate. I disagree. And the definition of the covenant of grace and new covenant lurks behind our disagreement. The Credobaptist will certainly still have questions after reading what follows. But, a full description of the nature of the covenant of grace is foundational to the ongoing dialogue between Paedobaptists and Credobaptists. Now, for a full definition.

The covenant of grace is the Heavenly Father’s solemn oath to man on earth of grace, salvation, and life in and by Jesus Christ, conditioned upon obedient faith, that constitutes a legal and relational bond in blood, a community, and/or an organization over and to which God says, “I am y’all’s God and y’all are my people.” Thank you for putting up with my Southern ways. I would note the genius of the Southern folk at this juncture, given that they came up with a word for the second person plural. A most excellent achievement. 

That definition is full and it needs to be supported from Scripture, but there is a lot of text to cover. The word “covenant” appears 284 times in the Old Testament, and it appears 33 times in the New Testament. I won’t cover every appearance of course, but we will examine a few below. But first an illustration.

This covenant of grace is like an ice cream shop. Christ himself is the ice cream in this ice cream shop, “Taste and see that he is good” (Ps. 34:8). God serves ice cream in the ice cream shop. This is simply the way he has chosen to go about it. God’s banner over this ice cream shop is directed to all those inside and it reads, “I am y’all’s God and y’all are my people.” When a man calls upon the name of the Lord, he enters the ice cream shop, and his household comes with him into the ice cream shop. And yes, it is true that not every person in this ice cream shop is actually eating the ice cream.

From the time of our fall in our father Adam, our God set up this gracious ice cream shop in which he served his people Christ, the ice cream. Ice cream eating, genuine and saving communion with Christ that is, has always been by faith. At the coming of Christ in the flesh, he established a new form of this ice cream shop (the new covenant). Christ established a new ice cream shop structure over the old and the old has passed away. So there has only been one true ice cream shop throughout history, but there was a genuine change in the structure of this establishment and its administration (the new covenant). Whether it be the old model or the new, this ice cream shop has served the same ice cream (Christ), housed the same people (covenant members), and it has always been a family- friendly establishment (i.e. when a man enters to eat the ice cream, his household comes into the shop with him). 

American evangelicals by and large envision not an ice cream shop, but an ice cream stand in the street. Jesus is being preached at this ice cream stand. Christ, the ice cream, is being served up, and individuals either eat or do not eat. But, no shop. On the one hand, this ice cream stand approach is not the end of the world. You still have the ice cream (Christ). And you have individuals eating or not eating. On the other hand, in this ice cream stand arrangement, any concept of covenant gets folded into merely eating the ice cream as an individual. To be in covenant with God is simply to eat the ice cream. Covenant is only an individual matter and covenant is reduced to God’s effectual call of an individual in the order of salvation. Covenant becomes simply God getting thing A to individual B (the ice cream to an individual eater). This notion falls short of a biblical definition of the covenant of grace. 

Now, consider a few things about the definition above. 

First, I’ve made the point that it is the Heavenly Father who covenants with man on earth. That is because a divine covenant with man is executed in history. What is in view is not a platonic covenant. It is not the idea of a covenant. It is not a covenant up in the heavens. A covenant is cut. Covenants must be established or they are not divine covenants with man. You have no divine covenant with man if you don’t have a bond in blood. Blood and people are essential ingredients in the covenant of grace. So the heavenly and earthly language, as well as the blood language, is a reminder that covenants originate with God in heaven and they are executed down here on earth with man. God’s dealings with Abraham in Genesis 15 constitutes a clear example. The blood of the slain animals signals an intense and formal covenant established. 

Second, the covenant of grace involves the creation and formation of a constituted people. Theologians often use the language of administration, and that is fine language, but many can mistake such language to mean “getting thing A to individual B,” as in “I administer lotion to my daughter’s knee.” That idea does not capture what is involved in the word administration. Rather, think of how we use the word administration when we refer to the Washington or Jefferson administration. The Washington or Jefferson administration refers to an entity, a people, an organization, a corporate reality. You can be a member of such an administration or not a member of such an administration. It sounds strange to speak of being a member of a covenant if a covenant is nothing more than God’s promise to an individual. You might say that you are a believer of the covenant. But covenant membership implies that a covenant is more than a promise, it is an administration, organization, or league. Membership in an administration involves rights and responsibilities. None of that comes through when we conceive of a covenant as a mere promise from God to an individual. Now, God makes promises to individuals. I’m not disputing that he does. I’m saying that to reduce covenant to such a notion is to do injustice to the covenant idea. 

Third, the covenant of grace involves a relationship between God and his covenant people. I’ve moved out of the South, but having lived my whole life there I’ve reflected with a chuckle about how the corporate operated in speech. Growing up, if you saw some friends out and about, you’d likely ask, “How y’all doing?” And when you asked the question, you were not only thinking about the people in front of you. Your friends were in view, yes, but if they were there, their folks were in view too: parents, grandparents, kids, and grandkids. That’s a covenantal way of thinking. So the point to emphasize here is that the covenant of grace concerns man on earth, a real organization, and that organization or entity is not merely an individual, or even a collection of individuals, but one new man. We hear about this one new man in Ephesians 2:15, “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man.” Interestingly, that text employs the same language we hear when God joins a man and woman together in covenant marriage. 

Fourth, the covenant of grace maintains an eschatological orientation. It is not a static thing. It is the solemn oath of grace and life in and by Jesus Christ. But that does not mean that the covenant of grace only has in view your personal justification. Jesus came to save the world— “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17). The covenant of grace regards the promise of the Father of grace, the increase of grace, grace upon grace, grace to the ends of the earth. Now, does this definition (and the ice cream shop illustration above) hold up? 

Well, we might start by looking at a definition of the Hebrew word for covenant. One Hebrew-English lexicon defines covenant as an “alliance of friendship” and “a divine constitution or ordinance with signs and seals” between God and man.[1]  As noted before, this definition of covenant entails more than a promise. Alliance, league, and constitution are hovering right there at the heart of what a covenant is. We see something similar in the New Testament Greek word for covenant. A good Greek-English lexicon defines covenant as “last will and testament.” Covenant involves God determining what to do with what is his, “You are my people, and here is what is going to happen with you.” 

As I mentioned before, the covenant of grace is found throughout the Scriptures. And the context in which it is used sheds light on the nature of God’s covenant of grace. The friendship or relational sense comes through in Psalm 25:14, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; And he will shew them his covenant.” Here I would quibble with those who want to describe the covenant of grace in merely legal terms. The covenant of grace indeed has legal dimensions. But claiming that the covenant of grace is merely legal and not relational in any sense simply does not square with Scripture. David says that God will reveal his covenant to those who fear him like a friend shares a secret with his companion. When God covenants grace to Abraham, he promises “to be God unto thee, and thy seed after thee” (Gen. 17:7). That is relational language. 

The corporate, constitutional, and eschatological dimensions of the covenant of grace are seen in a text like Genesis 9:8-9, “And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, ‘And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you.’” God does not only make this covenant with Noah. He speaks unto Noah and to his sons with him. The covenant is corporate, involving more than the individual. Moreover, God’s covenant maintains an eschatological scope, for God will establish his covenant with Noah’s seed after him. The constitutional dimension of the covenant is seen in that God says he will establish his covenant with Noah. God is not simply making a promise to Noah. He is establishing a people to whom a promise is made. 

We see these same things in God’s covenant with Abraham. Genesis 15:18 says, “In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” Again, God’s covenant is not merely with Abram, but Abram’s seed; thus it is corporate and familial in nature. Also, the covenant involves a bond: God “made a covenant with” Abram. He was not merely delivering a promise to Abram, he was establishing a bond with Abram and his seed. Similarly, the earthly component is seen in that God made covenant with Abram in a certain day, thus the covenant was historical in nature. And it, of course, was made with Abraham on earth. 

Covenant Households and the Covenant of Grace

We now have a definition of the covenant of grace. And we already have indicators lighting up the dashboard signaling that when a man enters the covenant of grace his household comes with him into that covenant with God. I have made that assertion above. That is not a novel claim. Herman Bavinck for example has said that the covenant of grace “is never made with a solitary individual but always also with his or her descendants. It is a covenant from generations to generations. Nor does it ever encompass just the person of the believer in the abstract but that person concretely as he or she exists and lives in history, hence including everything that is his or hers. It includes him or her not just as a person but him or her also as father and mother, as parent or child, with all that is his or hers, with his or her family, money, possessions, influence, and power, with his or her office and job, intellect and heart, science and art, with his or her life in society and the state.”[2]

This claim that the covenant of grace “is never made with a solitary individual but always also with his or her descendants” makes sense given the definition of the covenant of grace above. The claim does not make sense if one reduces the covenant of grace to effectual calling or personal regeneration. In that case, Bavinck’s claim would be that your descendants are regenerated by God upon your regeneration. And the good Calvinists know that once regenerated, never unregenerated, lost, or condemned. It would follow, under the “covenant of grace equals regeneration” scheme that all natural descendants of the regenerate would be robotically, mechanically, or automatically regenerate. James mentioned this problem in one of his replies. But, again, the definition of covenant of grace detailed and supported above demonstrates that the covenant of grace cannot be reduced to simply God’s effectual call. 

A good man might still well say, “OK, I see that God’s covenant of grace is historical not ideological, corporate not strictly individual, relational not simply legal, and eschatological in that it concerns seed. But how can I be sure that God’s covenant promise concerns the children of my household such that when I enter into this covenant my children do too?” One response to this well-received question is to say that all of God’s covenantal dealings with man in the covenant of grace include their children. The chief example is Abraham. 

God covenanted the following to Abraham: “And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee” (Gen. 17:7). This covenant is not superficial, physical, or sub-salvific in nature. God covenants to be God to Abraham’s children. God immediately adds the following words to Abraham, “Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you” (Gen. 17:10-11). 

God told Abraham that he would be God to his children. And he told him to give those children the sign of that covenant. They were signed and sealed members of the covenant that God made with Abraham. And that covenant promised that God would be their shield and their great reward (Genesis 15:1), indeed that He would God to them (Genesis 17:7). Now these covenant children of Abraham would have to follow in the footsteps of their father. They must keep covenant and the covenant has always been kept by faith. But they clearly grew up as insiders and not outsiders; they were marked with the covenant sign because they were covenant members and God said to them, “I am your God and you are my people.” The same holds true for us today who are children of Abraham. The promises are to us and our children as they were to Abraham and his.

The payout of this description of God’s covenant of grace is this. As a faithful Credobaptist, James says that “from the least to the greatest” indicates that regeneration is definitional of the new covenant. But the nature of the (new) covenant of grace that I’ve detailed above is such that drawing that conclusion becomes a heavier lift because covenant children have always been included in God’s covenant of grace.

[1] Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs, En- hanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 136.

[2] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, Sin and Salvation in Christ, ed. John Bold and trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 230. 

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