Previous editorials in this series have set forth the truth that the Christian school is a demand of the covenant. The covenant of God with believers and their seed requires that those believers work together in the rearing of their covenant seed to prepare them to serve their Lord in the vocation to which he will call them. While the form of the school may vary according to time and circumstance, there must be a Christian school or the laboring together toward the establishment of a Christian school.

The position that these editorials have taken is that of the Reformed confessions and Church Order.

What doth God require in the fourth commandment?

First, that the ministry of the gospel and the schools be maintained. (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 103, in Confessions and Church Order, 128)

The consistories shall see to it that there are good Christian schools in which the parents have their children instructed according to the demands of the covenant. (Church Order 21, in Confessions and Church Order, 387)

Furthermore, the president [of classis] shall, among other things, put the following questions to the delegates of each church:

3. Are the poor and the Christian schools cared for? (Church Order 41, in Confessions and Church Order, 393)

Does the consistory see to it that the parents send their children to the Christian school? (Questions for church visitation. Questions to the full consistory, no. 18)

The position that these editorials have taken in harmony with the Reformed confessions and Church Order is founded on the word of God.

4. Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:

5. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

6. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

7. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

8. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

9. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. (Deut. 6:4–9)

4. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.

5. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children:

6. That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children:

7. That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:

8. And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God. (Ps. 78:4–8)

In the statement “The Christian school is a demand of the covenant,” the most important word and concept is “covenant.” The most important word is not “demand.” The foundation and necessity of the school is not the demand but the covenant itself. Therefore, in this editorial I take up the glorious truth of God’s covenant, for in this truth the foundation of the Christian school is laid.

The Covenant

The covenant is God’s gracious relationship of friendship and fellowship that he establishes with his elect people in Jesus Christ, in which God gives himself to his people as their God and takes his people to himself as his own.

The essence of the covenant is the fellowship between God and his people in Christ. The covenant is a relationship. It is not the cold contract of a business deal, but it is the warm dwelling together of a family. Throughout scripture God uses a certain covenant formula that expresses this relationship. The formula is, “I will be your God, and you shall be my people.”

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)

But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jer. 31:33)

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. (Rev. 21:3)

That covenant formula is love language. It is the language of warm fellowship. It is the language of a husband to his wife: “I am your husband, and you are my wife; I am yours, and you are mine.” This is the covenant love language of God to his people, with whom he dwells: “I am your God, and you are my people; I am yours, and you are mine.”

The Head and Mediator of the Covenant

God establishes his covenant with his people in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is both the head and the mediator of the covenant. That Christ is the head of the covenant means that God establishes his covenant with Jesus Christ personally as the first and chief member of the covenant. God’s promise to establish his covenant with Abraham was a promise to establish that covenant with Abraham’s seed—“to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee” (Gen. 17:7). The seed in that promise is Jesus Christ. “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ” (Gal. 3:16).

All the other members of the covenant are included in God’s covenant through the covenant head. Without Christ one is not a member of God’s covenant. Whoever belongs to Christ is a member of God’s covenant. “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29).

That Christ is the mediator of the covenant means that Christ brings his people into covenant fellowship with God. By nature God’s people have no right to God’s fellowship and no access unto God to live with him. By our original sin in Adam and by our actual sin we have rebelled against God, committed treachery against him, and polluted ourselves. In light of this treachery, how shall we ascend into the hill of the Lord?

3. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?

4. He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. (Ps. 24:3–4)

Our Lord Jesus Christ alone has clean hands and a pure heart. He alone has not lifted up his soul unto vanity nor sworn deceitfully. He is Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the man in the psalm who may ascend into the hill of Jehovah and who may stand in God’s holy place. As the mediator of the covenant, our Lord takes us with himself into God’s presence. He covers our iniquity with his blood and gives us all his own righteousness and his own holy works to be counted as ours. Through Jesus and his work, we have fellowship with God.

We believe that we have no access unto God but alone through the only Mediator and Advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous, who therefore became man, having united in one person the divine and human natures, that we men might have access to the divine Majesty, which access would otherwise be barred against us. (Belgic Confession 26, in Confessions and Church Order, 56)

 

Election Determines the Covenant

God establishes his covenant with his people according to his eternal decree of election. Election determines the covenant. Election determines everything about the covenant. There is room for development in our understanding of the relationship between election and the covenant. In this relationship between election and the covenant, there is an old battle and there is a new battle, and we must fight in both.

The old battle was the question of “Who?” The question was, “Who determines who is a member of the covenant?” The Liberated churches in the 1940s and 1950s, following Klaas Schilder, answered that election does not determine covenant membership. According to their theology, the covenant promise is given at baptism to every child head for head, elect and reprobate alike; and the covenant promise is realized when the child comes to the years of discretion and fulfills the covenant conditions of faith and obedience. In essence, the Liberated answer to the question, “Who determines who is a member of the covenant?” was, “Man, by man’s doing.”

The Protestant Reformed Churches, on the other hand, answered that election determines covenant membership. According to their theology, the covenant promise is only made to the elect and never to the reprobate. Because Christ is the head of the covenant, only those who are in him—which is only the elect—are members of the covenant. In essence the Protestant Reformed answer to the question, “Who determines who is a member of the covenant?” was, “God, by God’s election.”

That old battle must be fought yet today against the heirs of the Liberated churches: the Canadian Reformed Churches, the American Reformed Churches, and the Free Reformed Churches of Australia. This battle is a dead letter in the Protestant Reformed Churches today. They may yet have their doctrine on paper, and they may yet pay it lip service. But the Protestant Reformed Churches are not fighting that battle anymore, as evidenced by their dabbling in the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC), which includes the Canadian Reformed Churches as a prominent member. It remains to the Reformed Protestant Churches as the spiritual heirs and continuation of the old Protestant Reformed heritage to continue this battle. That old battle must also be fought today against the federal vision, which agrees with and builds upon the Liberated doctrine that man and man’s doing determines covenant membership and that God and his election do not determine covenant membership.

That is the old battle, which continues unabated. There is also a new battle with regard to the relationship of election and the covenant. Whereas the old battle was the question of “Who?,” the new battle is the question of “What?” The question is, “Who determines what a covenant member enjoys in the covenant?” The Protestant Reformed Churches of late have been teaching, tolerating, and defending the doctrine that man’s experience and enjoyment of God’s covenant fellowship is due to man’s keeping God’s covenant laws. That teaching is not hard to find today, being rampant and blatant in Protestant Reformed sermons and writings. The ministers teach:

In the keeping of this covenant law is great joy. In fact, the more faithful the saints are to God’s law in the grace of Jesus Christ, the more they prosper in the great blessings of the covenant. They prosper in their marriages, in their family life, and in their church life. Above all, they prosper in the enjoyment of God’s covenant fellowship. “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord” (Ps. 119:1).¹

Hearing and reading this, the destroyed sheep go home believing “justification in the way of obedience.”² In essence, the Protestant Reformed answer to the question, “Who determines what a covenant member enjoys in the covenant?” is, “Man, by man’s doing.”

Over against this, the Reformed Protestant Churches teach that election determines everything about the covenant, including the experience of every blessing of the covenant. In his decree of election, God not only decreed whom he would save, but he decreed what he would save them unto. The blessings of the covenant are part and parcel of God’s decree of election. The fellowship and communion with God that are the essence of the covenant were decreed by him. Man does not bring himself into the enjoyment of communion and fellowship with God by his obedience. Rather, God sovereignly brings man into the enjoyment of God’s communion and fellowship as he has decreed. Our being gathered together in one in Christ is according to God’s “good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself” (Eph. 1:9–10) and not according to man or man’s doing.

The doctrine that God and not man accounts for man’s enjoyment of covenant fellowship is the doctrine of the Canons of Dordt. Canons 1.7 is an especially important article, perhaps the most important article in the entire confession. Canons 1.7 is Dordt’s definition of election, which is the doctrine upon which the entire confession rests. Just as all of salvation must be traced back to the fountainhead of election, so the doctrine of all five heads of the Canons must be traced back to the fountainhead of the first head and its doctrine of election. Dordt defines election not only according to the “Who?” but also according to the “What?” The Reformed doctrine of election is not only who is saved—“God…hath…chosen…a certain number of persons.” The Reformed doctrine of election is also what they are saved unto—“God…hath…chosen…a certain number of persons to redemption in Christ.”

Strikingly and beautifully, Canons 1.7 includes in the “What?” of election the communion and fellowship of the covenant.

This elect number, though by nature neither better nor more deserving than others, but with them involved in one common misery, God hath decreed to give to Christ, to be saved by Him, and effectually to call and draw them to His communion by His Word and Spirit, to bestow upon them true faith, justification, and sanctification; and having powerfully preserved them in the fellowship of His Son, finally to glorify them for the demonstration of His mercy and for the praise of his glorious grace; as it is written: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love; having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved (Eph. 1:4–6). And elsewhere: Whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified (Rom. 8:30). (Confessions and Church Order, 156)

In essence, the Reformed Protestant answer to the question, “Who determines what a covenant member enjoys in the covenant?” is, “God, by God’s election.”

It goes even further than that, of course. Not only what a covenant member enjoys in the covenant, but even what a covenant member does in the covenant are according to God’s decree of election. All of the covenant member’s obedience to God and service of God are according to God’s election. This means that the covenant member’s obedience is inevitable. He will obey. God has decreed it. What a relief for the covenant member to know that God’s election determines the covenant and that God’s election determines everything about the covenant.

It is in the doctrine of election that the utter graciousness and absolute unconditionality of the covenant have their place. Man did not unite himself to God in the covenant. God united himself to man. In this there is no room for conditions but only for grace.

It is in this matter of the relationship of election to the covenant that there is room to develop. It is here also that there are exciting battles to fight. Man’s covenant theology always drifts further and further into the current of man, because man is always furiously paddling his theology further and further toward the current of man. Man is incorrigibly proud and has eyes only for himself. He is the hero of all his own stories. Show him salvation, and all he can see is his own glittering self and what he is and what he does. He is a braggart, full of vain and preposterous boasting. Above all, man must have room in his theology for man. He disguises his proud theology by calling it “balanced theology.” He is not fixated on God and what God has done, you see, but he also does justice to man and what man must do. He uses the likely illustration of two train tracks to describe his theology. Every train needs two tracks to go on, after all, and the engine of man’s theology rumbles along on the two parallel tracks of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. This way everyone gets his due in the covenant. God gets his due for sovereignly establishing the covenant, and man gets his due for responsibly enjoying the covenant.

But all of man’s proud theology comes to rack and ruin on the doctrine of election. Election is the sovereign decree of God without regard for the will or responsibility of man. Election is the fountainhead of all salvation and the fountainhead of the covenant. Election theology is single-track theology, its single track being God’s absolute sovereignty. Election theology is one-sided and without any semblance of any balance with man whatsoever. You can never balance the train of man’s theology on the single track of election theology. On the single track of election theology, man’s theology is a train wreck. But the gospel that salvation is of the Lord cruises nicely and miraculously along.

How exciting that God be everything and that man be nothing!

And how exciting, and what a privilege, to be armed with the gospel truth of election to do battle against man and to make him nothing.

Next time: how this doctrine of the covenant is the foundation and necessity of the Christian school.