W W W W  World Wide Web Witness Inc. Home Page  Contents Page for this Volume What is New

CHAPTER 6

NOW ARE THEY HOLY

On Children and the New Covenant

A Matter of GRACE

I Corinthians 7:14

THE BACKGROUND, FOREGROUND AND THE GROUND

The concept of the covenant child is one of the chief features of the New Covenant. There is no new God, the LORD is not different, His immutability has not been waived, as in some kind of mutation, He has not grown, as if He had been made by some engineer of life, whose work had to mature. He is none of these things. In Him is, as James 1 declares, no shadow of turning; there is no variation. It is man who grows up, and in maturing in this Age, frequently conforms to idiotic cultural constraints which would have him become superman, although he appears more as super-bug maker, become master of the Age, although he appears as internationally distrait and incompetent.

It is not God. He has always been the same, always will be, has no constituted basis for maturing, has indeed nothing which has been constituted. In all the flurry and the cultural worries and scurryings of our Age, the Distraught Fort of Mankind, duly acquiring those 'hearts failing them for fear' of which Jesus spoke, as recorded millenia ago, in Luke 21 and predicted for that end of the Age to which we are now coming (Answers to Questions Ch. 5), what do we now find ?

It is that there is a disinclination on the part of many to realise that anything could be greater than man. Hence, since we start as babies, the inordinate folly of imagining that everything has to start in that way, has an amazing currency.

It does not seem, often, to occur to those afflicted with this avid over-generalisation, that to make such a being as man, one before whom all designs must flee as non-existent (including those which he makes) if MAN HIMSELF IS NOT ONE, for then the definition could not apply to the most, and so certainly not to the least, or even to the lesser: there has to be a start.

With this, goes the correlative proposition. To BE MADE as such a being as man, or for ANYTHING to be actually made, there has to be a STARTER. You do not get figs from thistles, logic from disorder or purpose from chaos. That is merely a contradiction in terms, not a good way to start any exercise involving reason; and if you disengage from reason, why then you cannot argue. You surrender in advance. You admit invalidity before you speak. That is the fate of folly.

What then is to start you ? If you want something that starts this, and something that starts that particular starter, and then Starter Mark 111 to start that, and so on, in an infinite regress, why this is merely time-serving in both senses of the term. You will ALWAYS need something to start the system of starters, so that there can be a sequence within it. Endless procrastination of logical necessity does not remove it. It is like having a debt, and referring it to your uncle, who refers it to your aunt, who puts it on the shoulders of your grandfather, who ascribes it to one long deceased and so on. It will never expunge the debt. Necessity is not met by temporising, but by finding the base of its requirements, and finding it adequate. Otherwise, it is that glorious inconsequential object, alogism, a disjunction from reason itself, to which a psychological kink has been added in this instance!

There is the NON-STARTED, non-delimited, therefore, and another name is the ETERNAL, a translation for the Lord used by Moffat; and although this is slightly avant-garde, yet it has an element of the truth in this, that it puts forth the point that HE IS what HE IS. He is BECAUSE He is. There is an ultimate, beyond all temporising and all sequence (which has to be founded into a sequence, being limited); there is what requires no accounting because its nature is to be eternal. Causality itself requires a source (cf. Causes, SMR Chs. 3, 5, 10).  Language itself requires causal denomination, in order to define, for characteristics figure for differentiation of one thing from another, and these are operative features, relating structure and nature to behaviour and hence definability.

Back of the ordered, ordained, or compelled, the constrained and the determined, there is its cause.

It cannot have such features, without itself requiring its own cause, and infinite regress provides no logical answer.

This ultimate is therefore not delimited, it is not compelled, it is free, basic, and the necessity of reason. It is called God. Whatever He is, He is; and nothing makes Him so. When nothing or eternity with capacity come into being, for thought therefore, as the ultimate, and the qualified and delimited or the eternal in character, then there is no logical choice. Nothing produces nothing; we are not nothing; and God as eternal is the only way to us. We are here.

Time is delimited, qualified, imposed on, a setting in a sequence. God is not in time, though as with His other creations, He contains it s one might a book. He made all such qualified and limited, such constrained and impelled things, which have no option because their nature has been so impelled that it has to be what it is, whether it works this way or that.

God does not have to be what He is. Who or what would so compel Him on whom all depends, that it might so much as exist ? If it were something of the same nature, its cause is required. The ultimate is not and cannot be so.

He is what He is. There is NOTHING beyond to impel, constrain. Without that, you do not have anything; because of it you have you and me, and a few others: we are here,  all  of  us,   is it not so ? Yes there are more and more nearly 7 billion of us. Designs with legs, thoughts and hearts, ready to be foolish or called to be wise. It is better to be wise; for folly has its own reward.

With God there is no universe to impel Him; He made it. There is no news to learn, He made time which alone suffers such things; it is His baby. He constructed it. He knows its start and finish. He knows and He is; there is nothing to gain or to learn. He is complete (cf. SMR Ch. 1, Sparkling Life ... Ch. 4). . He does not evolve, for that concept, which merely dynamises the power of God into a non-existent principle which does not work, is an imagination. It would require some cause to have implanted the potential and the capacity to realise it within Him so defining and delimiting Him as a result, and so not the ultimate.

As to His creation, in life, there is much interest.

Things vary about a norm; we make some things like that, but not nearly as good. They operate on switches and have diverse functionalities with variation inbuilt, dependent on what switches are turned, as the operator acts. God made us with many inbuilt variation provisions; but they are part of the design. We remain never different, always human, always with the same spectrum of capacities, more in this or that, less in the other, but recognisably one.

Sin has made other variation provisions, within KIND, including the curse of God on our world; and these things act, but they do not create.

Variation including disrepair and degeneration occurs. Information is not now flowing to create (cf. Chapter 5, above *1A), however. Things can be exchanged, as by certain bacteria; but the information of design, it does not flow. It cannot be found.

God, eternal, made kinds. Man is humankind. His is an ultimate access, since he has capacity to think and survey and aspire and enquire, and reason and surge into the realms of logic, seek into the domain of truth, ponder results, verify or non-verify things, move to the ultimate and in the end, find the affirmation, verifications and validations of God (SMR, TMR). This power is normally referred to in terms of the word 'spirit', this complete discursive, willing, wandering or applied power, with options in disposing the will, accepting or rejecting guilt, perversely or contentedly treating various necessities, lying or telling truth, equipped with power to rove in logic, or to defile it subtly and wilfully (cf. It Bubbles ... Ch. 9, Little Things Ch. 5, SMR Ch. 1, and pp. 348ff.; Licence for Liberty).

That, spirit, it is one of the main features of man, and involves not a structural, but a functional difference which can make of him something suggesting the angelic, or the diabolical, the orderly and the gracious, or the grating and the self-seeking, oblivious to truth, and concerned only with gain, whether psychological or substantive, social or mental.

It is into this factual, as distinct from romanticised and airy reality, that we move. Man is a KIND, and GOD does not change. He knows us, we may know Him (though most either opt not to, or adopt what kills the case); and in the Old Covenant, He gave a certain position to children of our KIND by which we may continue as a kind (unless and until He causes this kind to cease); and  as to His covenant, He has insisted on it rigorously.

You see that in Exodus 4, where Moses, friend and servant of God on a most intimate basis though he was, was threatened with death if he did not circumcise his child. It was an IMPERATIVE NECESSITY, as deep as life. It was NOT (Jeremiah 9:22) anything to do with 'saving' the child, as an act. It was merely an obedience to a divine claim that what is belonging to God on the part of this KIND, mankind, starting with the very young, when it is a question of family members of those who belong as His own, MUST have a differentiation. If the heart has such a fealty, in what in this world is a virtual spiritual war zone, in view of the ways of the spirit of man, and the entire situation in which he is placed, then in children it had so to be shown. That was the Old Covenant, by which God introduced by many means, the preliminary, the prelude, for the New Covenant, which completes what was introduced, and finishes what was proposed for man, in his relationship to God.

This differentiation, in terms of the infant recipient,  is NOT at first one requiring reason or evincing assent. The infant is too young for that. There is no question about that! It is however one in which the parent (now in parallel to Moses in Exodus 4, though not in the same case, just the same kind of situation) is to portray by a covenantal model, the kind of thing which is applicable to man - and hence to child. This applies if there is to be a solemn and suitable, a grand and given relationship with Himself on the part of the parent. There is a differentiation on all sides. The vagaries and vagrancies of the human spirit are objective testimony to the entirety of man's different designs, their amazing vastness, like mountain and chasm, and it is far from surprising that this differentiation, where God is received on His own testimony, duly verified, MUST be made.

It is a STAMP, or a SIGNAL or a SIGN, an outward demonstration of where the family belongs. It is part of bringing a child up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. It does not save him; but it does put him under the scope of the provisions of the covenant, doing what the parent may, in advance of any movement in the child himself or herself. Similarly, of course, the parent must make on his or her own part, a differentiation, not only on what is part of the family, but personally. This one finds in Romans 10:9, as in Luke 9:26. Fences delimit properties; they are not made for seats.

The basic considerations remain from Age to Age.

God does not change. If He grew up and understood a bit more, that would be a contradiction in terms. If man changed, and became superman, the opposite of observation, and of the Bible, who has him a fallen creation needing redemption (Ephesians 2 and 4), then the Lord could, if He would, despite the fact that this is contrary to reality, institute new things for a new KIND.

But without being unkind, there is nothing new about us. The same old sins and the same old cultural conflict with truth and righteousness, the same old dishonesties of thought and society, the same misuses of power, abuses of other members of the human race, these continue apace, in many instances of great moment, as though humankind on the whole, were setting themselves to become a pack of desperados. Intellects of the highest calibre have been freely sprinkled from centuries and millenia BC, to the present. As knowledge is enabled to increase, through some diminution of corruption and corrosion for a period, then the given minds of men are able to advance, and when thresholds are past, advance can be considerable, provided some utter calamity like the flood, does not intervene. The state of mind, however, it can be as strong in Chrysostom as in any modern thinker or writer, in Socrates as in the mighty, in Plato as in the scions of academia.

The same may occur with wealth. But the man behind, he does not alter his configurations, and he does not achieve more than any of the past. Many are now buildings, often on foolish foundations (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 4 as marked, TMR Ch. 1), and this distresses our race socially, militarily and culturally, leading to wars and devastations on a scale all but inconceivable, but the end is not yet. It comes (Matthew 24:12). Man has been always dependent on God, first to be created, and then to be delivered from his free-wheeling follies.

When therefore the NEW COVENANT came (as in Matthew 26), the one not in the blood of animals but in the blood of Christ, the 'Lamb of God' (as in John 1:29), there is no change of principle from the formulation and principle in the OLD COVENANT. The 'shadows' as Hebrews 8-10 puts it, become 'substance' and the symbols come to be fulfilled. The bud becomes the bloom; but the plant does not change: it is humankind as in Romans 5, as in Romans 11.

What God changes, then, changes, when it is fulfilled (as in Matthew 5:17ff.); as the preludes were in the Principal, Christ (Hebrews 3); and God and His principles continue, more sure and steadfast to an infinite degree, than the rocks of the earth, than granite.

Thus the promise in Acts 2:38-39 is not only to those hearing, but to their children and to those who are "afar off", down the generations of our kind. These are to go on - as the quotation by Peter of the prophecy of Joel shows, till the end of the Age, which is now racing upon us (Answers to Questions Ch. 5), prophecy as ever, thus being fulfilled - and then ?

Then, there are to be "wonders in heaven above," such as found in the visit to the moon, and the floating radioactive debris littering space, the space stations and stratospheric flight, space probes to this or that star and so on, occurring NOW; and there are to be, as now,  "signs in the earth beneath".

These are to be found in the predicted plethora of serious earthquakes (cf. SMR Ch. 8), floods, roaring waves and coastal devastation (as in Luke 21's reference to Christ's forecast), the hearts of men failing them for fear. This is, in many cases, at least understandable,  as vicious dictators and lustrous luminaries tamper with the basic energies of matter and damage the earth, slaughter its inhabitants and leave open huge questions of what happens when adult children, as they would appear to be by their lack of wisdom, get at some of the controls of this so carefully adjusted planet!  False prophets are to multiply, and an obsession with killing (as in Revelation 6 in detail) is to become rife. So it was to be; and so manifestly it is, so that after World War I, the cry of disillusion and prudence was this: ENOUGH! The poets like Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, cried enough, and painted for us, why this is so.

Then World War II disagreed; as did World War III, the 'Cold' one, as does the preparation for IV, which moves apace, as if to threaten any record of international sanity, with profanity, false religion, fraudulent motivation and the insensate furies of misconception. There are SIGNS enough to sink all the major capital ships, and indeed sinkings aplenty are one of the prophecies for the coming of the final crises (Revelation 8:9). When an individual reaches insanity, it is dangerous; when a nation, it is appalling; but when the nations move steadfastly into this state, the end is near.

This pattern of events is here; it is happening.

This movement, as in Acts 2's prophecy, taken in turn from that ancient word from the prophet Joel, centuries earlier than Peter, is to the End of the Age, when Christ is to return (as in Acts 3:19-21, Matthew 24, I Thessalonians 4, II Thessalonians 1, for His own on the one hand, and with them in judgment on the other).

That then is the biblical scope of the thing. God is the same (Psalm 102, Malachi 3:6, James 1, Hebrews 13:8), the word of His mouth binds, is not subject to error correction (cf. Isaiah 59:21, Matthew 5:17ff.); and it is to be done. The Author has not lost the power to write, and has written, and it stays written in the Bible, and eventuation stays put, coming as if in salvos, as each stage and phase is reached, whether in the coming of the Messiah, and Calvary, or the rejection of the same by Israel, or the culmination scenes just traced.

Salvation is by grace alone (Romans 3:23ff. Ephesians 2), and the ways of it, the procedures within it, they are as given. You do not change the manual for an electronic contraption if you buy it, unless you know more than the manufacturer, considerably more; since he has made a KIND of thing, and you need to know beyond his creative power itself, to change it in any basic manner! Many think they have such knowledge; but their blather and the splatterings do nothing to suggest it, nor does their venture into unreason confirm it, nor does the illusion persist beyond the most elementary investigation of evidence.

There is only one way, one recourse for reason, and one for the spirit of man; and this involves repentance of sin, reception of the Christ and His atonement, of His power and of His Spirit, while the adoption papers thus come, and the life in the presence of God comes like Spring.

Thus, we may revert to families, having reminded ourselves, or informed, on the nature of the scene, the setting, the scenario in which all are placed on this earth, where all flesh is, moving this way or that, to God or from, as aliens, aliens confirmed, or faithful, receiving pardon and power from the Prince of Life (Acts 3), as is fitting for those in our domain.

God, then,  wants the signal on the young, not to ensure their salvation, which has a nobler and higher domain, but to exhibit that all are in His way, whether adult Christian, or infant child. It is the same whether the infant child of the Christian parent be too young to know it, so that they merely flow with it at that level, or whether old enough to divorce, if they will, from what was being offered, and indeed being lived in as an environment, in an external fashion at least, in earlier years of life.

God has not directed a recession. There is no new rescension. The promise is to you and to your children and to as many as are called. It is the one committed in Isaiah, in Jeremiah, in the Psalms, in Ezekiel, in Zechariah, in Hosea, yes and in the protevangelion, in Genesis 3:15^*1. It was offered, predicted, and the preludes were erected, the early stations made; and then it came, and fulfilling all, has completed its atoning provision.

Thus, when you are baptised, you are ipso facto circumcised (Colossians 2:11-12); and thus it is the HOUSEHOLD of the Philippians gaoler which is 'saved' when he comes to Christ, since this provision for children make a sanctified house, a saved house^*2, where the particulars proceed under parental control until the new occupants of maturity go their own way (Acts 16).

We have reviewed such things in various ways before^*3, but for our present purpose, this is sufficient introduction, adapted to our aim, as we look at the ways of GRACE for the covenant child!

ELEMENTS OF GRACE FOR THE COVENANT CHILD

Since, then, there is not anything of the nature of personal, eternal salvation conferred by a simply external ceremony, on the child, nor as in the case of Isaac's own two children, Jacob and Esau, cleft from the same paternal rock, but of diverse destinies, is there any certainty regarding children of a man of God, per se^*4, as to their eternal destination: what then is there to be received from the covenantal application as in circumcision or baptism ?

It is most clear that it glorifies God, shows that it is HE who in ALL the house, is sovereign and ruler, that there is no other way but that of the Cross for any, and without pre-empting parentally the eventual destiny of the children, there is here a household given to God. This is so; but what more is to be found in this covenantal application to the infant, and indeed, in the covenantal family connection thereafter ?

At once, we notice that there is a special sanctity, and quality, authority to submit to God and not to those who would impel to what is contrary to His requirements, whether for adult or child.

Thus there is NOT a household where a child psychologist outside Christ, or a sociologist who does not believe, or a government up in the stars, but without God: it is not one where any such thing can operate. It is GIVEN to GOD in all spiritual things.

If any seeks to rustle the children,

	physically (as in the Sudan),
	emotionally (as in electronic wiles of predators),
	mentally (as in thousands of illicit and gross class-room misinstruction) or
	spiritually (as in the fraudulent prophets who invent words God has not given, as in Jeremiah 23, a phenomenon predicted to 'flower' its evil blooms as the Age ends, as it does, some predators with atomic bombs to boot):

then of course the parents will seek the Lord and intercede, and as able, intervene.

This godly household, covenantally conveyed to Him, it is not for grabs. It is given to God. Hence education will be most carefully watched, and the Lord sought to enable the parents to avoid the follies which shed their darkness, like so many perverse suns, which, forgetting their office of light, deploy shadowy obscurity with strength, instead.

What however IS such a household, and how does covenantal blessing, with the covenantal badge, actually work; or better, what are some of the aspects in which it blesses in the way ordained, that we can readily see or find ?

A) There is COVENANTAL DIFFERENTIATION

In Exodus 4:24, we see that there HAS to be a DIFFERENCE, between the household situation of Moses and Zipporah, and child, as sent and in service with the Lord, and those not so. God INSISTS on the flag, and it is a household flag to cover not only pots and pans, but plaits and pants, children and all. It MUST be in terms which are vital, crucial and revealed, with nothing merely verbal  about it, as if it could in any way be a fashioned or free thing. The SYMBOL, like the Gospel, is explicit, and is not subject to individual recasting. In that era, it was circumcision, to indicate that at the very procreation level, the sub-generative issuance, there was sin, as David put it: In iniquity did my mother conceive me. It is inherent in the race.

In this setting, there is an objective cleavage, standard, sure, God-given and uniform.

Thus the family is set apart, the adults by faith, all by symbol, the entirety in terms which alone are binding, making of them, infant or otherwise, a holy unit.

You see the concept of holiness by apartness, separation, differentiation in the priestly code similarly, in Leviticus 12:1-6, where the event of circumcision is in view, accompanied by a sacrifice in the entire mother-child episode, a point which required a change of form when Christ ended ALL redemptive sacrifice, all blood provision, once and for all (Hebrews 9).

In this movement to baptism as the demanded initial rite, the basis was assumed (since now it was FULFILLED - cf. Matthew 5:17ff.), so that without rupture of the covenant of God, the simple aspect of washing could be symbolised, and that, not by entire immersion, ludicrous in view of the norms of sacrificial sprinkling (cf. Hebrews 9-12, where 'baptism' includes as a specialty, sprinkling), but of course by sprinkling. This is exactly as in the predictive procedure with WATER for Israel, when they return to the Lord, and inherit the royal Prince as their own (Ezekiel 36:25-26, 37:21-23). Sprinkle with water, is the fact of life for the New Covenant, now operative and to remain (Ephesians 1:10), its procedures in force till the Lord comes and we who are His, go to be with Him direct (I Corinthians 13, 15).

Whether then in theocratic separation, or ecclesiastical, in New or Old Testament, one changeless God with one CORRECT perspective and one unmitigated insistence has children, even infants, thus treated; and it is in this state that they grow, in an entirely covenantally appraised household, in the provisions from God, as changeless in essence as the wind.

Always, it is not what the parents or the children think, which makes up the basic character of the covenant, which remains in every application, preliminary in impact, or else, after Christ has come, quintessential, of the relationship. It  is no more changeable in its realm and function than is the Gospel to which it pointed on the one hand, and in which it acts, in the domain of the New Testament, which was presented at large for so long before Christ came, and which was the depiction from the first, of what the symbols would at the outset of the law, indicate with ceremonies significant.

When the Christ came, this was explicated, and what had been implied, and was despatched direct, right up to the Cross and the resurrection. With it came the new covenantal entry symbol, because of the inapplicability of the Old, now that the blood once for all shed, eliminated at once anything of this kind.

Not only the underlying and eventually paid-up Gospel, was changeless (cf. *1 below); but the very families themselves remain after their kind. What then was the purpose of children from the first on this earth, and to the last ?

B) There is COVENANTAL EXAMPLE

Children were made for a purpose. You must remember that God is a SPIRIT and in the end, the point is spiritual; and indeed into man has He poured forth spirit, that man might relate and have the incomparable delight and joy and communing with God, the Father of spirits and of eternity (cf. I Thessalonians 5:23).

Children may be ruined as may other phases of human life, but they have potential often realised to represent certain aspects.

They indicate as in Matthew 18:2-5 and 19:14, the humble, the receptive, the trusting, the non-arrogant, non-self-demonstrative, the simple minded realism of relationship with one above from whom in this or that sense they even come. Initially, they relate in some such way to the parent, providing in this way a fitting and seemly basis for such bond or tie above their now initiated existence. This is no accident; it is no mere incident. It is illustrative in a permanent and continuing way of what the race must never become too old to realise, and indeed, in the direction of God, on the part of those mature, to apply!

EXCEPT, said Christ, you become as little children, you CERTAINLY CANNOT enter the kingdom. The Greek is most emphatic.

Illusion is not a basis for belief, but actuality. Do it like a child, or do not bother. Receive the authority of God with trust, or ignore the matter. You cannot invent God, or His will or His ways. To be sure, you can reason that He must be there, eternal in character and impregnable in power (Romans 1:17); but to know Him, you need more, to illustrate the point, than to realise that He lives in the house on the hill. You have to visit there, Him in His domain, as a CHILD.

He invites those who so come, and welcomes them (cf. Matthew 19:14, where the illustration continues). The poor in spirit inherit the kingdom.

The willing love and loving willingness of children, trust gleaming in their eyes, abandon by faith in their legs, expectation with relish in their souls: this is the way to come to the living God. Here is a social relationship which implies and points to a spiritual one!

While God is the only One who CALLS, and many are called, few chosen, and while sin dims the wit and will, yet in His overwhelming knowledge and foreknowledge, the Lord sees beyond pathology to where the heart lies, and yearning for all (Luke 19:42ff., Colossians 1:19ff.), can see beyond the merely superficial lordship of sin, into what matters, whether love is or is not received.

God made children, then, for a purpose. He could have had them arrive in some other way; what He did is highly specific and specialised, and ensures that there will be YEARS when this attitude may be seen, a standing invitation to adults to reciprocate to the LORD like that, in the way their children may seek to relate to them!

The covenantal symbol mixed with this child-like character becomes not only a pledge on the part of the parents, therefore, a testimony to one and all, a singular, standardised, Gospel-oriented declaration of where the family QUA FAMILY, stands. It becomes also a walking witness. How often would the Lord have brought the generation of Jerusalem to whom He was sent (cf. Matthew 23:37 with SMR Appendix B), to Himself! Yet like chicks unwilling to come at the call, while still responsible, they fluttered and failed.

This was that very generation who refused Him (as in Matthew 13, shutting their eyes lest they should see). It is NOT for the young children to have the sins of the parents visited on them (Ezekiel 18); and with the phrase often used for the current generation (cf. Psalm 149:4), here used by Christ, the 'children' of Jerusalem were indeed the culpable generation, the adults themselves, requiring confrontation, rejecting information and opportunity alike  This is as it was in the day of Jeremiah 3-4, where the adults are specifically called 'silly children', and again, in Jeremiah 5:7, where Jerusalem is told that her children have forsaken the Lord, that very generation who as a result, were to be the butt of history! It is simple personification, Jerusalem being told, as if an addressee, that her children had forsaken the Lord!

Indeed, it was assuredly not the case that the immature children were inheriting the sin of parents. The adults themselves, then, to whom Christ spoke, rebellious continually, these were that generation of Jerusalem's children, who refused Him quite categorically, in the national thrust. It is only when unbelief FOLLOWS on that the sin continues on (Exodus 20), yes to the third and fourth generation of those who HATE Him! Here was Jerusalem's current crop, her children of that generation, and to them was the lament given for their pride and their folly, their recalcitrance and their blindness.

In fact, they were NOT at all like children. They were as night to day, in this respect, to children.

Therefore, not coming in that way, AS children, not humbling themselves, but rather shaking and tossing the head, then they could not come at all. You will BY NO MEANS enter if you do not come like that! said Jesus.

So they were destroyed. Jerusalem fell in just one generation. The heights met the depths, and refusing to be like the little child whom Christ took in Matthew 18's record, they were not to be taken at all. If the Shepherd did not please, then did they not realise, the wolf would take hungrily enough, for himself.

C) There is COVENANTAL DISCIPLINE

That was a case where the badges of beauty, the symbols of covenant, instead of being an index to the Lord, were an atrocity.

Alas,  if the symbol speaks, and the heart is silent, if the word of life is given form, but the power of God is ignored, then there is the near lip and the far heart as in Isaiah 29:13. And that ? Unhappily, it spells hypocrisy, invites devastation and so far from being a pledge of life in acceptable terms, is an effrontery by signing what does not signify. In such a case, it is making a 'holy' household to mean a mere form, where what is so precious is misrepresented, and the thing is trivialised, trumped up and torn.

As a particular illustration from the past, we find the children of Eli, the priest, noted in I Samuel 3:13, appeared licentious and lawless, to the point of outrage. They did not heed their father, or follow the prescriptions of purity and integrity in their lives. Eli suffered for this.

This reminds us that it is not enough to SAY what it is to be done. Where power is present, action should follow. That is only one reason why the present fad of being afraid to discipline lest the children later sue you (one lady actually declared this to be a fear!), or lest they cease to regard you as a large friend (which reminds one of a girl who told her mother that she wished she WOULD discipline her, have authority!), is one so vain. Christian household have to have the backbone to breach this folly; and no less, the hearts to be gentle in discipline, not raucous or ill-tempered. It is to remind, not force; it is to instruct, not numb; it is to help, not dragoon. Yet it must occur, or else it soon becomes like hatred, leading to follies spreading like mould in bread left in a damp corner.

Eventually, Eli suffered a fatal fall, and a gross loss, having first severely rebuked by the Lord for his lack of discipline in the children. They were now grown men, but still would be liable in this case,  to action by their father in his authority in their mutual priestly realm of action.

Hebrews 12 is the specialty on discipline; and it is a fatherly matter, not fatuous in insipidity, nor fierce in vaporous furies. It is to speak in another way, not without love, but rather actuated by it, mixed with wisdom; and of course, out of sight of mere willowy yielding. We all tend to respect those who insist on trying, with courtesy and persistence, to rectify errors in which we may be involved. Even if passion is offended, sanity beckons.

A sharp word or strong action may be the mot juste, the fait parfait for the case.

Such is part of the covenantal atmosphere.

D) There is COVENANTAL CHARACTER

Because God has chosen to have children who last as such for some years, actually rather a staggeringly vast time, compared with the whole of life, there is much time given to the covenantal child to realise the meaning of that in which he is imbued, to find the feeling, the appreciate the atmosphere, to sense the derivation of the household holiness from the Father of lights. When you live in a milieu, you can appreciate something of its kind and character, and if it is good, it may tend to imbue you, not to the point of subjection, but a more willing inspection at least!

In Ephesians 6:4, where instruction to instruct and bring up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, in the holy and faithful respect for Him which does not hedge its bets by indulging in sin enough to be socially acceptable, but seeks truth in the heart: there is to be seen the path, the covenantal path for such growth.

It will never as such convert, for when Peter was converted, as seen in Matthew 16:17, it was the Father who did it, and inspiration which showed it. This covenantal background will however give to the child a glorious opportunity to taste and see - in the midst of the milieus of spiritual example, in prayers, in observation of their answers, in kindnesses seen, in love shown, in pity appreciated - what it is all about.

There will of course be some effect on character, even if in the case of some, an adversative desire directs them. As one told me, it was not anything wrong with the Church which led him from it, when a young man, and he was deeply drawn to Christ. Rather was it the simple fact that it was not CONVENIENT to be a Christian, which stopped him in his tracks. He became excessively rich; but when he passes on, how will that help!

For all that, even in that case, certain diligence, hard work, care and prudence, application and resolve have rubbed off, despite the awful fact that the heart did not accompany the lead. It would be all but inconceivable that so many qualities, in themselves good, would have arrived, had not the basis been there; which to be sure, makes it all the sadder that the heart did not follow, being captured by desire.

Yet, sad as this is, man is not made to be mechanised, but to move as in the image of God. Spoiled in natural man it may be, and assuredly it, but it is not defunct. Man is still man.

If he falls, if his end is where his heart went, if the Lord does not invade because love has restraint, if in the divine foreknowledge, here is one finally resolved in the very face of the divine love, to the contrary: so be it. How vast were the opportunities, even if in the day of his visitation, he did not realise it! (as Christ stated to be the case for Jerusalem, when it did not realise the opportunities which the Messiah, Himself present with them, in person, made available).  

Such are the ways of God in all ages.

E) There is COVENANTAL CONFORMITY

Thus Colossians 2:11-12 makes it clear that if you are baptised, ipso facto, you are circumcised. In other words, the connotations are such that baptism is inclusive of all that circumcision meant. The perspective is the same, the relevance is the same, the relationship to the parties involved is the same, the configuration of application is the same. You participate in His burial, in His resurrection, and as in Romans 6, as also in His crucifixion, though of course this is not a ritual ceremonial usage, and is NOT in His blood!

It is not intended that we should excise the MAIN RECIPIENTS in this equivalence, as to applicability; nor that we should disregard the children who were the normal recipients of the covenant entry symbolism. Nor is it  that we should decide that God has suddenly decided, without saying so, that the symbolic aspects had better be cleaned up a bit, as if it were never such a good idea after all to THREATEN MOSES WITH DEATH, when given a little more thought, he could have been spared that embarrassment.

It never ceases to amaze this author how many people will believe how many things without considering their implications; apparently because they simply want to, or find it expedient (just as the gentleman mentioned above, who left the house of God, did not find it 'convenient' to stay).

Thus right through the two covenants, there is this sense of the holy: and so also,  as in the title, from I Corinthians 7:14, the presence of one believing parent in the family means for the children, that "now are they holy".

It is not intended that some special prayer or conduct be observed; for this is a generalisation without limitation in any form or manner whatsoever.

With one believing parent in the household, the children are holy.

There is the sense of the holy, of the awesome nearness of God, through the parents, in the very atmosphere if the home, in its public testimony (for baptism is normally a public thing). One gentleman in Israel once asked me if it would be all right in my view, were he NOT to have a public baptism, since it might offend the family. That of course is the precise OPPOSITE of the point that this is planting a flag, not on the moon, but over the household, publicly flapping, the baptism of the infant merely being ONE of MANY illustrations of the OBJECTIVE and invariable nature of the covenant. It is by the Gospel, and it is to be made plain for all, as must a helicopter over the freezing bodies of those in rough seas, when their boat has capsized.

It is one way in which there are made to appear to man, the salvation itself prefigured in symbol, the commands of the everlasting and unchanging God and His ways;  and a sermon with it would do so all the more, the one attesting, the other providing explicit meaning. Thus, whether circumcision or baptism, each is positively required at entry, and the latter incorporates the former,  as the word of God proceeds from bud to bloom, from Old Covenant pre-figuring Christ, to New Covenant, centrally focussing Him.

This continuity, this emphatic approach to what is consistently in Old and New Covenants, the "household", a term used even in a metaphorical sense as well, is one of the many features which indicate the unremitting intensity of the Lord of creation, in having His people make a difference, and diverge completely from cultural worldliness. This, as we saw in the last Chapter, is given the most emphatic focus by James, Do not love the world, he asseverates: for the friendship with the world is enmity with God!

Part of this world is the emphatic DE-EMPHASIS of the household as a unit, and the increasing insistence that each one, young or old, is UNDER under the State. The UN is quite explicit on tis point (cf. Mystery of Iniquity), teaching a virtual humanist religion of its own, with all empty and sonorous authority.

Now in China, now in the Sudan, now in Arab lands, it is all CONTROLLED by the State, whether in the explicit name of religion or not, whether in having religious parties rule the government on this point, or having it done direct as in the USSR in the time of its bearish brutality on households, moving many to Siberia, to make the death toll in the millions.

God is INSISTENT that households are to be HOLY, and that there is no mitigation, no qualification and no attenuation of the covenantal surge and public testimony. By ALL means offend the relatives if a public baptism is going to do that: be gracious in speaking to them, but strong in testifying. How better challenge them than in a baptism replete with the preaching of what it MEANS in its symbols, and how imperative it is for all, whether growing up or adult, to find the Lord of which it speaks. How courageous one must be to feed, to meet the need of many lost to truth, and without God, both in word and in example, in obedience as in grace. How effective the courage, when it is clear, as with Joshua, whose word was this:

CHOOSE this day whom you will serve: but as for ME and MY HOUSE,
we will serve the Lord!

F) There is COVENANTAL PARTICIPATION

Thus there comes a certain measure of solidarity, strength, testimony and objective proclamation in the household! In this way, many may participate, before there  is conversion on  their own part.

We have already considered this aspect in passing, in Covenantal Character. However it deserves a separate mention. The infant in its mother's arms, the young child in the father's study hearing stories, in the cluster at table, of devotions and prayers, in the involvement in providing matters for prayer when these are asked for, in the kindergarten and young people's activities in the Church: all these things and more, like Youth Camp and youth outings from the church, they show participation of the young-growing-maturing soul.

Hearing conversations between adult Christians, watching the Lord act in children of similar or older age in neighbourhood families in the same church, seeing the solicitude and watching the help: these are all forms of participation in the covenantal assembly, covenantal atmosphere, kindliness, and they are forging a strength not only in character - whether it be at last rejected or not - which may remain in some of its aspects; or if salvation comes, it has helped to prepare seed bed for rapid growth.

All of this is not in some vague, find your own religion, attitude, some idea: you find yours, this is mine!

Far from this, it is specific in the COVENANTAL FORM and FORMULA. These words are not for the ear only, but for the heart. If the superficial formalism so common as a substitute for outright rebellion, and sometimes a hypocritical fence sitting (not helpful when you have to climb the mountain on the far side! Philippians 3): if this is a horror, yet the means of grace are a joy. If misuse, like doing 'wheelies' on the part of torrid youth, ruining motor cars and peace, is foul;
yet the due use of the automobile, of the covenant is delightful.

We do not omit the beautiful in order to indulge the ugly.

We do not avoid good, because evil may be made of it; but we perform it that good may accumulate, despite the evil.

G) There is COVENANTAL AURA

This is a character in the proceedings, identical neither with the covenantal character nor the covenantal participation, but intimately related to both.  It is actually a combination of a number of things, as is the rainbow, with its many colours, intimately and softly blended (part of its character), more or less consistently displayed, and capable of more or less branding beauty in its showing. A lesser rainbow is always suggestive of the maximum from memory, even when the sky on some one occasion, gives merely a hint of the colour.

There is the sense of the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, the grace of Christ, the love for the lost, the outgoing efforts to reach them, the solicitude for those troubled, the power available to faith for the opening of doors for deliverance from evil, for opportunities that the Gospel be fully preached, for enrichment in understanding and in mutual faithfulness.

There is the sense of the actual POWER and PEACE of God, in close proximity, over the people who seek Him, and of the willingness to forego what He forbids (as Paul was prepared to be FORBIDDEN to go to some places, and COMMANDED to go to others, in his missionary journey, seen in Acts 16:6-10).

This is to be viewed at its height, as at the top of the archway of the rainbow, in Christ's Gethsemane (cf. Hebrews 5:7 for its intensity), when the most pure Son of the living God had to accept the most despicable.

In saving some, He had to become the mockery of many, drab denizens of hideous darkness, lauding it over Him as He suffered with their sardonic wit, His perseverance the answer, as despite their unbelief, in bearing sin, He conquered it on behalf of all who would use His victory, and so He made the sacrifice perfect! By one act, He instituted the New Covenant, available for all, adequate for all, adapted to all, but applied to some only, since those who insisted on dying in their sins, through unbelief, retained the title deeds to them. Those who whom as sacrifice, therefore, He was actually delivered up, as in Romans 8:32, these are assured of heaven! all things are provided ...

Abuse of life was the riot act for use of death, and for all He met it, absorbing its dynamic with His deity, providing life for as many as took it from Him, whose supply of mercy was thus enough for all. The ways of the Lord do not change, His love does not shrink, and His restraint does not alter; His hatred of and contempt for hypocrisy does not yield, and His exuberant liberality never decreases.

These things are governing the conscience, inspiring the intellect, illuminating the mind, savoured in spirit, and they bring the inspiration which engenders, to the hearts of His people.

Again, there is the sense of courage and industry, as work for the Lord is undertaken, and moves are made to institute and complete it.

Above all, in this covenantal atmosphere, there is an awareness of the spirit of praise, as in Psalm 70:

"Let those who love Your salvation say continually, 'The Lord be magnified!' "

You may say that you cannot magnify what is already infinite; but this is an operational dictum. What CAN be magnified is the understanding that many have of the Lord: this could be magnified in many cases, a thousandfold, and still be wholly inadequate! When however this facility is present, in sober hearts and courageous spirits, it is a blessing to behold it.

H) There is the COVENANTAL CHILD HIMSELF OR HERSELF

So much is happening around the covenantal child. Possibilities need watching.

Neither does one look or hope for ARROGANCE, as if the mere proximity to so much grace in the body of Christ conferred some superiority, some lack of need for humility, faith and salvation on the young. One recalls a young seminarian who had a child, to whom this author was seeking to show the salvation of God. So strong was his father's conception of sovereign grace (which is true, but does not involve human inaction, since the sovereign can act to and through whom He will), that he withdrew the child from this presentation, somewhat abruptly one seems to recall. He then showed him a picture of a lamb in the Shepherd's arms, and said to him, as if that removed all need ever to act:

"That's where you are!"

In parallel with this, one has heard of one teacher speaking of one 'Christian' school of this super-reformed character, where the spoilt and presumptuous behaviour of many of the children made them perhaps worse than average, at least in her experience. Thus the idea of place without faith can become a menace; and a outright prohibition can occur in some schools, on bringing the matter of salvation to the point of perception, with disastrous results in would-be saved children. Unchallenged, they may be found actually basking in fortified unbelief, inoculated by theological wasteland products, and becoming resistant to the Gospel. The whole counsel of God must be followed, and not some philosophically attractive single aspect, or selection of bits! (cf. Acts 20:24-27).

No, it is not to this, for any minimisation of the counsel of God that one would point, or for this that one would look: for it readily becomes an entire distortion of biblical thrust to salvation. To be sure parroted repetition of formulae can precipitate superficial response; but there is no need to imitate the parrot, when you fly.

The depth and meaning of salvation can be shown in many ways, including some excellent courses in biblical characters, history and events as a background for stability and understanding. It is not necessary to avoid the truth by phrases repeated; but it is necessary to expose it in as many ways and perspectives, stories and illustrations as the Lord may lay on one. Thus in Hosea 12:10, God Himself makes it clear that through MANY likenesses, parables, forms of expression, He has presented His will and way and goodness to Israel. The message is continuous, immutable; the means of presenting it are multitudinous. Like this, one tends to become to a friend, who is heading for great trouble, and seems to shrug at calamities, led by perilous casualness.

If then, the covenant child, through a distortion of the spiritual meteorology, a disturbance in the peace of truth and its discipline, is not to be moved or aided to become arrogant, as if proximity were a suitable substitute for salvation, and presumption were the anodyne to the pain of humility before the Lord; yet there is the opposite error to avoid. Equally, it is no less true that there should be no needless sense of apartness, as if these wonderful nearnesses to the Lord which come before the child, were not a glorious introduction to life!

Participation without presumption, recognition without assumption: this points the way. If in all of this, some care is needed, in what that matters is it not!

The covenant child thus can become an expression of some beauty, of the ways of the Lord, as the time for seeking Him comes, even if it goes in deficit spending without spiritual capital. There is some beauty even in hope; even in a nearness not consummated. There is indeed a certain poignancy if he goes from these things;  but a certain beauty grows like a cloud filling the skies, if he comes. Moreover, with it all, there is a certain illustration of the dividing of the ways, which the covenant in the first place, and to the last, indicates, insists on and delivers.

In this sense, Christ declared that He did not come to bring peace on earth, but division (Matthew 10:34-35). In the END, it is indeed His mission to bring a peace that does not end to His people (Isaiah 9:7), for He brings a peace without end; but until the final purge, there is no peace for the wicked, and this world lies in wickedness.

The very purity which is impelled however, is a lesson to all, and the covenant child is a testimony to many.

THE PROFUSION

OF GRACE AND PEACE,

WITH HEART AND COURAGE,

CLEANSING AND DYNAMIC

There is, then, a peculiar grace which is available in this field, as in other Christian regions. It can be spoiled by negligence, hurt by misconception to be sure; but when there is a godly disposition of things according to the scriptural requirements and provisions, and Christ is indeed magnified, not subjected to the grip of some philosophy, as if it were simply a name, and the product of some new christ were the real result; when He is presented and followed in all of this,  as He is, in His own majesty and present authority through His Spirit, in strict conformity to His word: it is then grace abounds.

The pageantry of child-birth, baptism, households of faith, simplicity of obedience even when assailed by false State or other claims over one’s children, participation in a godly church with suitable schooling, of peace in the home and holiness in the character leads to a peculiar beauty of which Hosea 14, met in some detail earlier in this volume, speaks!

It is the beauty of holiness, and this, it is a thing of gracefulness also: nothing tepid, nothing rash, nothing fearful, is his, but it has a spirit of reverence and a pre-eminence for the risen Christ. It is not bent, is not interested in toying with this or that theological philosophy, but in learning ever from the living Lord according to His so wonderful word. It grows like a tree; and where the work is in good soil, it is like the oak, stout in heart, beautiful in grace, wonderful in peace, not too tall, as if needlessly exposed, but majestic in proportion, as if undisturbed by being what it is.

All of this, however, it has the sap of the Spirit, and it is this which gives power and vitality, illumination just as the word gives specific instructions from which the foolish turn, as if voluntarily having their roots chopped.

This divine surge into humanity, where the covenant applies, where the truth is received, it is like that of Ezekiel 47, where the streams from the altar come, changing much and leading to fishing from the banks where it goes; while also gripping the feet and rising to the waist, until one learns not to resist the Lord, but to flow where He goes. Meanwhile, alas, there are marshy places where despite much nurture, the foulness is never cleansed: yet these are peripheral to the flow. They are muddy areas; but the river moves on, majestic in office, sound in deployment, satisfying to thirst, speedy in application, with rills and currents aplenty, individualizing the power of God to the different characters with whom He deals.

Praise the Lord!

NOTES

*1

See The Christian Pilgrimage... Ch. 9., The Defining Drama...  Ch. 9, Barbs... 17,  TMR Ch. 3.

*2

In the case of Acts 16, and the household of the Philippian gaoler, we learn from 16:33 that all his family were immediately baptised; from 16:34, that he believed with all his household, and from 16:29-30, that he was moved to seek salvation with intensity of passion.

The immediate provision of the required entry symbol, here baptism, is universal practice in the covenantal provisions of God for the household from Abraham on. It is en bloc. Someone conceivably might refuse, and might not remain in the household, if a servant. No doubt there was mutual accommodation; but the household was at first more than a mere matter of employes, but something of a unit.

In the case of the Philippians gaoler, the believing of all his household is not to be assumed theoretically before the evidence arrive; that is an empirical matter. Some might have declined to believe; but this was not to be the case.

It would presumably include all who were lodged in the house, as permanent, and could be quite a number. In such a case, it would then be otiose to assume that all were in the years of discretion. When you assert some feature of some body, it naturally allows for the diversification of which such a body is capable. If a team is in a house with little children, and it is narrated that all in the household believed, this by no means indicates that those incapable of it, did so. That is common sense; we exclude by reason, that to which in all reason, there is no applicability. We know that worms do not fly, and that infants cannot reason, not knowing their right hand from their left.

Such a general statement of necessity says nothing about the ages of the family members. All we know of them as such, is  that each one of them was immediately baptised.

*3

See:

Chapter 3, *4 above,

Of the Earth, Earthy ... Ch.   12,

The Desire of the Nations Ch.   4,

What is the Chaff to the Wheat ... Ch.   1

News 51,

Questions and Answers 11;

Initial Survey QAA 9;

The Pitter-Patter ... Ch. 5, *1;

"Comfort Ye, My People" Ch.  11;

Deserts and Desserts, Delicacies and Desiccations Ch. 4 (and Romans 6).
 

*4

While there is nothing integral to the covenant to ensure that the children of a Christian are to become Christians, there is nothing to prevent what the Lord may propel, and the parent may seek in actual faith, where so does the Lord work.

From memory, for my own part, I felt  most strongly that there was no way that I wanted to add to the devil's powers, victories and personnel, and sought the Lord that by no means would any child of mine be in that position, but rather in His kingdom.

There is a parallel here. Some have the gift of healing as in I Cor. 12, 14. Some do not. EVEN however for those who do NOT have this gift, there is the encouragement found in James, that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. In this way, such a non-gifted person (in this domain) MAY on occasion be enabled to gain a healing by miraculous power; indeed there is no doubt of it, for this writer on a number of occasions, no litany, but inclusive of crucial elements, has been so helped, and has been shown such mercy in answer to prayer, whether personal or of the elder. It is a generic possibility, and should not be discounted.

So in the matter of one's children. There is no assurance, as if one had a special provision or dispensation, in general terms, that one's children will all be Christians, because one is a Christian. There is however no exclusion of seeking for just this, by faith. Faith is not something you can harry about, any more than is holiness. It is something which may be sought in a given connection, and may be granted. It is a matter of the Lord's will. Christ was seeking that if it were possible, in the mission of His Father, to avoid the death to come, He might do so; but He added, NOT MY WILL by THY WILL BE DONE.

Sometimes an event or episode, in the infinite wisdom of God, must be done. In such a case, the prayer of faith is simply not provided. One can rehearse the reasons for the desired miracle (and conversion is a miracle of divine operation if ever there was one - as with Peter in Matthew 16, as in Titus 2-3, John 3); but only God can give to the heart the prevailing faith that it be done. This may indeed occur on multiplied occasions; but it must occur. The prayer of faith in such instances, where it is not per se obvious that the answer must be yes, may come. It is a matter of the divine discretion. He is wiser than we, and knows what is the best outcome, by no means one of any pleasure or fulfilment for the individual, but assuredly one of great benefit for His kingdom.

When thus praying for my children, and memory must serve here, but probably before they came, there was the conviction that they would be HIS. It seemed intolerable that there should be any other outcome, and it seems that that conviction in that case also, was from the Lord. Hence the prayer, and hence the assurance on that point.

This is the open option, submitted to the Lord, but open to conviction and the prayer of faith.

The covenant is far from excluding this, but it does not apply automatically.