Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Mar/94

Contributor - Jonathan N. Gerstner

Title - God's Message To Us And Our Covenant Children

Topic - Baptism

In our last issue we had a chance to discuss different aspects of the Reformed tradition. One aspect which deserves further development is the understanding of the covenantal worldview.

One of the remarkable insights of our Reformed tradition is that the people of God are not only adults, but their children also. Rightly understanding this insight is the key to raising our children for God, but many are the misunderstandings which surround this topic.

Reformed churches have endeavoured to live out consistently the reality that the Old and New Testaments are one Holy Scripture. The New Testament church was taught the Old Testament Scriptures before the Holy Spirit brought into being the New Testament Scriptures. The Gentile converts as well as the Jewish believers sang the Psalms and learned the Law and the Prophets. Most of the confusion in the contemporary evangelical church over baptism flows out of a failure to look at the Old Testament Scriptures seriously.

The Old Testament presents Abraham as a key father of the faithful. Already the Old Testament Scriptures themselves foreshadow that in Abraham all the nations of the world will be blessed. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3) Abraham looked forward to seeing the promised Messiah who would save His people from their sins. (John 8:56) He thus became a great example of one who demonstrated the Gospel of being right with God through faith alone. The giving of the Law through Moses must be understood as not negating, but confirming this basic truth.

So New Testament believers were taught that they were Abraham's children. Those who were not God's people have become the people of the living God. (Hosea 2:23; 1 Pet. 2:10) What significance did this have for their children? God made a special promise that He would be a God to Abraham, and his children after him. God gave Abraham a sign, circumcision, which was clearly taught-to be a picture of having one's heart converted to the living God. (Dent. 30:6) This sign was given to Abraham when he believed, but also to his children when they were eight days old. So the New Testament believers understood that the new sign of conversion and being justified by faith alone, baptism, ought also to be given to their children. Accepting infant baptism flows out of understanding the miracle of God's grace that believers out of every nation, tongue and tribe who believe in Christ are children of Abraham and heirs of the promise.

So far virtually all Reformed pastors and theologians would agree. This biblical understanding of the covenant and infant baptism is clearly taught in our Reformed confessions. It would be nice to be able to maintain a unified front on these basic insights in the face of the large number of those who deny infant baptism. Unfortunately, the interpretations of the practical implications of infant baptism are so diverse that they reveal a much deeper gap among those who baptize their children than among evangelicals who accept and reject infant baptism. Since we are all exposed to these confusing schools of understanding the biblical doctrine of covenant children, it will help to identify denominations who have traditionally defended these emphases for clarity. Do realize that this is not meant to imply that every one in these churches believes this view, or for that matter that there are not some who hold to these views in the RCA. Hopefully, this will help us understand the subtle differences between us and other reformed brothers and sisters.

I will use as the key verse for this discussion Romans 4:1 1. This verse explains the meaning of circumcision as a sign of righteousness by faith. The biblical teaching of baptism clearly presents that it too is a sign of righteousness by faith, and the two signs are clearly linked in the Scripture itself. (Col. 2:11-12). 1 Cor.. 7:14 says that children of a least one believer are not unclean, but holy, affirming the use of the covenantal sign for those set apart for Him.

A common interpretation of the holiness of covenant children is called "presupposed regeneration." Simply put, this is the view that a Christian should assume that his child is already born again from birth. The child needs to be nurtured, to learn more of the Bible, but not to be converted, for he already is born again. Despite the movement of many from this idea lately, this view has been the classical view of the Christian Reformed Church in North America for most of this century. It is generally associated with their great theologian in the Netherlands, Abraham Kuyper, whose life spanned the turn of this century. Where this line of thinking is most likely to influence people in the RCA is through the Christian School movement. For all the strengths of these schools, one needs to be aware of the view of covenant children commonly presented. Most Christian Reformed supported Christian schools treat their pupils as already born again, and simply in need of nurture.

This view is unfortunately a significant misunderstanding of the biblical teaching with regard to infant baptism. The children receive a sign of righteousness through faith. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." (Rom. 10: 17) The sign of baptism calls the child to faith and conversion, but it is not a sign of an already present state of redemption. Conversion must precede nurture for all.

A slightly less common view is that of temporary redemption. In this case the child is viewed as already saved through the covenant, until the child is old enough to break the covenant promises and then become lost. This view is often assumed by Christian parents without much reflection, but has also been quite vigorously defended theologically by the Canadian Reformed Churches and their founding theologian Klaas Schilder. (The Canadian Reformed theologians would not generally use the term "temporary redemption," but their covenantal teaching clearly amounts to this view.)

Unfortunately this view to does not hold up under Scriptural analysis. First, it presents a sphere of temporary redemption for covenant children which quite contradicts the view of persevering sovereign grace taught in Scripture. Practically, it shares the same problem as the presumptive regeneration view. Children are not called to conversion from their earliest age, and often this degenerates into never calling them to personal faith, but always assuming they are in a state of grace. If the children are not set apart for conversion, the natural tendency is to allow education to take the place of evangelism.

There are two views of covenant children which are even more dangerous than the two mentioned above, and have taken deep root in our own denomination. As hard as it is to point out subtle mistakes in sister churches, it is even more painful to be called to point out significant errors of colleagues in our own fellowship. I pray that the following sections will be used by the Holy Spirit to convict those drifting in these directions, and to keep our evangelicals rooted in Scripture.

The first mistake is the "high church" view of baptism. "High church" thinkers emphasize the power of the church via the sacraments directly to mediate God's grace, apart from faith in the individual. The Reformation broke away from the errors of the medieval church which viewed the sacraments as mystical signs which conveyed the grace they pictured. Unfortunately, this false doctrine keeps sneaking back. "High church" thinkers would see that baptism conveys the grace of being born again to the child.

In practice this view would differ little with the "presupposed regeneration" view, but theologically the entire emphasis on personal faith coming in response to the hearing of the Word of God is buried. The sign of baptism is linked to the reality in an unscriptural manner. One sees this unfortunate and clearly unevangelical element of the RCA at work in the constantly revised sacramental forms. The latest form for baptism included the phrase "through these waters we are reborn" until challenged by the delegates at General Synod. It was then revised to "in the midst of these waters, we are reborn", which still appears to link being bom again to the waters of baptism in an unbiblical way.

The final error one can find in our church, and churches which have drifted further from the Scripture, is "universalism". This is the teaching that all are saved, whether or not they believe in Christ as Lord and Saviour. This error has been lurking at the edges of our denomination for years, and works on baptism reveal this tendency clearly. For the universalist, there is no doubt that every baptized person is totally in a right relationship with God.

Rev. Greg Masts' recent pamphlet, "Christian Baptism," which is being distributed by our denominational distribution centre, gives clear evidence of these tendencies. There is virtually no mention in this pamphlet of the washing away of sin at all in the pamphlet (thus it is not primarily a high church baptismal regeneration view), but the whole emphasis is that all baptized are totally accepted by God. The work at least implies that all baptized are already and forever saved, and one would naturally assume the basis for such an unusual view to be the belief that indeed all people are already accepted by God apart from faith or conversion. If, as is by no means clear, the author has maintained the Scriptural teaching that some, indeed many are eternally lost, (Matt. 7:13-14), to be consistent with his view, the lost must be unbaptized. All baptized are automatically told from heaven, as was our Lord Jesus, that they are God's child, His beloved. There is thus no more potential for the baptized to be lost, than God's Son Himself. Acceptance of this type of theology is the death of the Gospel of justification by faith alone, for faith in Christ as Lord and Saviour is totally unnecessary for one being in a right relationship with God. Therefore, the erroneous view of baptism which is presented in this pamphlet, when consistently worked out, actual repudiates the key doctrine (righteousness by faith) which baptism itself symbolizes.

Having circled the common errors surrounding the understanding of infant baptism, where do we stand? The Scripture is quite clear, children of believers receive a sign of righteousness by faith.

Faith comes by hearing. By the sign we are called to remember that we are not born innocent, but need to be brought to a saving relationship with Christ as soon as possible. From the earliest stage we must call them to personal conversion. If and when they believe, the sign will clearly teach them that God acted first. If they do not, they will be judged for rejecting the Gospel God presented to them in a visible way at the very beginning of their life. Parents are called by the sign to do all they can to bring their children to the living faith in Christ as Lord and Saviour through which the children can become right with God.

Raising covenant children as those who need to come to know Christ personally is the best way to work for renewal and to vitalize the church. So much false teaching and false practice comes Out of the church. A key reason is that many in the church are not converted. A view which lets the unconverted in the church, young or old, assume that they are already children of God helps destroy our children as well as our churches. Although we disagree with the baptist's view of baptism, clearly part of the reason they as a whole have been able to remain so evangelical and avoid much of the apostasy which has plagued churches who believe in infant baptism is the realization that they have a responsibility to try to lead their children to conversion. May we return to a healthy reformed emphasis on the conversion of covenant children that they may come to know God personally and that our congregations and denomination be renewed and restored to the consistent evangelical witness God calls us to be. Lest we forget that call to personal conversion, in baptism He gives us a visible sign to constantly remind us.

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