Children and the Church

"Do Not Hinder Them"

William den Hollander, Gerhard Visscher

• Publisher: Lucerna: CRTS Publications
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780995065963
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

What position should the children of believers have in the church today?And how should this affect the ways in which we nurture them? The authors of this volume defend infant baptism as they share the conviction that children of believers belong to God, and thus ought to be baptized and treated as members of the church, wherein they are called to faith and obedience along with the adults.The contributions in this volume substantiate this foundational conviction through investigations in Scripture and history, and make it clear that the matter of children in the church remains a pressing concern, worthy of our continued attention and energy.

Let the Children Receive the Sign of the Covenant

Jason Van Vliet

Already in the days of Abraham, children had an integral place in God’s covenant. They belonged to one of the parties of the covenant. The Lord said to Abraham, “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you” (Gen 17:7). The Lord also made children part of the promise of the covenant when he spoke to our spiritual forefather: “Look toward heaven, and number the stars . . . . So shall your offspring be” (Gen 15:5). Finally, male children received the sign of the covenant, that is, circumcision, already when they were just eight days old (Gen 17:12).

So whether we are reading about the parties or the promises or the sign of the covenant, children are consistently in focus. With this in mind, shouldn’t the whole matter be rather straightforward? If children are included in the covenant, then they should also receive the sign of that covenant. Case closed, wouldn’t you say?

Historically speaking, this has been clear, at least to the Reformed mind. For example, take some of the well-known words of the Heidelberg Catechism in Q&A 74:

Should infants, too, be baptized? Yes. Infants as well as adults belong to God’s covenant and congregation. Through Christ’s blood the redemption from sin and the Holy Spirit, who works faith, are promised to them no less than to adults. Therefore, by baptism, as sign of the covenant, they must be incorporated into the Christian church and distinguished from the children of unbelievers. This was done in the old covenant by circumcision, in place of which baptism was instituted in the new covenant.^[1]

To the Baptist mind, though, this answer from the Catechism is objectionable for at least three reasons. In the first place, even though some Baptists have embraced covenant theology, they would still question whether we can draw such a straight line from circumcision in the Old Testament to baptism in the New.^[2] Ultimately, then, this becomes a question of hermeneutics and how we interpret the New in light of the Old. Secondly, they would ask whether infants belong to God’s congregation in the same way that adults do because they hold to the idea of a pure church consisting of only the regenerate.^[3] This is a matter of ecclesiology or the doctrine of the church. Thirdly, Baptists refuse to administer baptism to children because many of them have a different view of both the purpose and the direction of God’s covenant sign. This involves the doctrine of the sacraments, and it is the specific topic we will concentrate on in this chapter.

According to the Reformed confessions the purpose of the sacraments is to focus us on God’s promises.^[4] In this way God uses his sacraments to declare and seal something to us. In other words, the direction is downwards—heaven to earth, God to us (↓). The Belgic Confession sums up both aspects very succinctly when it says that the sacraments “seal [God’s] promises to us” (Art. 33).

This is markedly different from the common Baptist position, in which the sacrament or ordinance, as some prefer to call it,^[5] predominantly testifies to the believer’s faith in God. For instance, a common statement of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message (2000) explains that baptism is an “act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead” (Art. 7).^[6] This could be represented by an upward arrow, as our faith reaches up and rests in him who is enthroned above the heavens (↑).

To make matters more perplexing, though, a Reformed catechism, the New City Catechism (2012), includes both directions when speaking of baptism. In Q&A 44 we read, “It signifies and seals our adoption into Christ (↓), our cleansing from sin (↓), and our commitment to belong to the Lord (↑) and to his church (↔).”^[7]

So, what is it now? Does the sacramental sign of baptism point to God’s redemptive promises to us, or to the believer’s faith in God, or . . . to both? Clearly, the last option holds out the attractive potential that it might bridge the historic gap between Baptists and the Reformed. But the question must be decided on the basis of Scripture and not, in the first place, on the potential benefits it may have for ecumenical discussions. Our goal, then, will be to survey the Old and New Testaments on this topic and then to integrate those findings into a doctrinal synopsis that pays particular attention to how children do belong to God’s covenant and therefore should also receive the sign of his covenant.

The Old Testament and the Sign of the Covenant

As a complete phrase, “the sign of the covenant” (ʾôt bryt), only occurs four times in the Old Testament. Three times the Lord designates the rainbow as the sign of his covenant with Noah and every living creature (Gen 9:12, 13, 17), and once he uses it to describe circumcision (Gen 17:11). Looking more broadly, Moses and the prophets spoke about the sign of the Sabbath within the conceptual framework of the covenant in Exodus 31:13 and Ezekiel 20:12, 20.^[8] To uncover the full significance of this relatively infrequent but nonetheless important phrase,^[9] we will look at each kind of occurrence in turn; however, to begin with, a few general observations will help set this matter in its broader OT context.

Observations from the OT about Signs in General

Many astonishing signs (ʾōtōt) appear on the pages of the OT. Here is a representative, but incomplete, list: turning a staff into a serpent and a healthy hand into a leprous one (Exod 4:8, 9, 17, 28, 30), the ten plagues (Exod 7:3; 8:19; 10:1–2), the miracles performed during the wilderness wanderings (Num 14:11, 22), fire springing from a rock to consume the food that Gideon brought out (Judg 6:17), and the prophecy of a virgin who will conceive and bear a son (Isa 7:10, 14). Each one of these signs is performed directly by the Lord himself or by one of the Lord’s servants, such as Moses, acting on his behalf.^[10] This also means that the people of Israel themselves do not perform signs, with the exception of observing the Sabbath (Exod 31:13), which will be explained below.

Another noteworthy feature of these signs is that, generally speaking, the Lord gives them to help people overcome doubt. The people questioned if Moses had indeed been sent by the Lord. Pharaoh procrastinated as long as he could before fully submitting to the Lord’s command to let his people go. On various occasions Israel became skeptical that the Lord would actually take them into the promised land. Every time the key issue was the same: a failure to fully trust that God will follow through on his word. To deal with this hesitation God puts striking, visible signs before human eyes to assure all involved that if he says it, he will do it.

However, the signs themselves do not always or automatically accomplish what they are intended to do. The first nine signs did not fully persuade Pharaoh to let God’s people go. The tenth one finally did. More to the point, in Numbers 14:11 the Lord says to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all thesigns that I have done among them?”

All of this substantiates one central theme: God, or one of his appointed servants, performs signs to call people “to take his words seriously,”^[11] either in saving faith (e.g., Israel) or at least in submission to his will (e.g., Pharaoh). The direction in which the sign functions, though, is clear: from God to people (↓).

Rainbow: The Sign of God’s Covenant in the Days of Noah

Turning more specifically to the signs of the covenant, we begin in the time of Noah. Because the wickedness of humanity had become so great, the Lord “blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground . . . . Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark” (Gen 7:23; emphasis added). Devastation on such a massive scale must have left Noah feeling anxious, despite the fact that he and his loved ones were floating safely in the ark. When the waters subsided and Noah stepped out onto dry ground again, the Lord promised that he would never again destroy all living creatures with a flood (Gen 8:21). This promise applied both to the present and to the future, both to Noah’s family and to all future generations (Gen 9:9, 12). To solemnize and re...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• "Do Not Hinder Them": Children in the Gospels
• Reading with Ancient Eyes: Children, Households, and Baptism in the First-Century World
• Peter, Paul, and the Promises of God to the Children of Believers
• Growing Up into Christ: Renewing the Pathway to Maturity in the Church
• Children, Passover, and Lord's Supper
• Let the Children Receive the Sign of the Covenant
• Pearls, Gifts, and Beggars: Infant Baptism in the Early Church
• “Whoever Is of God Has the Spirit of God”: Children in the Reformation Documents, with Particular Reference to Heinrich Bullinger and Guido de Brès
• “Sanctified in Christ”
• Mature in Christ: The Practice of Covenant Nurture in American Presbyterianism