Introduction

The burden of these editorials has been that the Christian school is a demand of the covenant. God’s covenant of grace with believers and their seed not only requires that the covenant seed be reared in the fear of the Lord but also that believing parents in Christ cooperate in the rearing of their covenant seed in a Christian school. The form of the Christian school may vary according to time and place and circumstance, but the essence of the Christian school is the cooperation of covenant parents in rearing their covenant seed. God uses this means to prepare the covenant seed to serve him as citizens in his kingdom in whatever vocations in this life he has determined for them.

The position that these editorials have set forth is the position of the Reformed confessions and Church Order, which express the teaching of the scriptures on this matter. Perhaps the clearest and most concise statement, and the article from which these editorials have taken their title, is article 21 of the Church Order: “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” (Confessions and Church Order, 387).

The position that these editorials have set forth has been lost in the Reformed denominations that gave birth to the Reformed Protestant Churches. Our mother (the Protestant Reformed Churches), our grandmother (the Christian Reformed Church), and our great-grandmother (the Reformed Church in America) have all, to one degree or another, severed the vital connection between God’s covenant of grace with believers and their seed, on the one hand, and the Christian school, on the other hand. They have done this by their denial that the Christian school is a demand of the covenant. The result has been and will be the erosion of the Christian school and, in many cases, the loss of the Christian school in the generations of these denominations.

Therefore, these editorials have contended to the readership of Sword and Shield that the Christian school is not merely a wise idea of man but that the Christian school is due to the covenant itself and that it remains the demand of our gracious covenant God. In this final editorial in this series, let us examine the vital connection between God’s covenant of grace and the Christian school.

 

A Vital Connection

There is a vital connection between the covenant of God with believers and their seed, on the one hand, and the Christian school, on the other hand. The Christian school and God’s covenant are not two disconnected things in the life of God’s covenant people. Rather, the Christian school arises out of and is founded upon God’s covenant with believers and their seed. Without the covenant there is no such thing as the Christian school. Sever the connection between the covenant and the Christian school, and the Christian school will die. The connection between God’s covenant of grace and the Christian school is vital for the school.

What is the connection between God’s covenant of grace and the Christian school? These editorials have been describing that connection using the word demand. The title of these editorials has been “The Christian School as Demand of the Covenant.” In that title the word demand expresses the connection. On the one hand, you have the Christian school. On the other hand, you have the covenant. The Christian school is connected to the covenant as a demand of the covenant.

In using the language of demand to express the connection, these editorials have followed the language especially of article 21 of the Church Order: “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” (Confessions and Church Order, 387). The language of demand is the language of obligation, of requirement. It is the language that parents shall “have their children instructed” in the good Christian schools and that “the consistories shall see to it.”

The language of demand is characteristic in the Reformed confessions and Church Order when they speak of the Christian school. Article 41 of the Church Order puts this question to every church in the classis: “Are the poor and the Christian schools cared for?” (Confessions and Church Order, 393). That question is not merely an item of interest to the classis, but the question expresses the demand of the covenant that the Christian schools be cared for. If a church would not care for the Christian schools, the classis would require an explanation and would likely issue an admonition to that church to care for the Christian schools.

So also the Heidelberg Catechism’s explanation of the fourth commandment uses the language of obligation and demand. It asks what God requires in the fourth commandment to keep the sabbath day holy and answers that one requirement is that “the schools be maintained” (Q&A 103, in Confessions and Church Order, 128).

So also the questions for church visitation use the language of obligation and demand. “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). If a church would inform the classis through the church visitors that they did not see to it that the parents sent their children to the Christian school, the church visitors would ask for an explanation and would admonish the consistory, on the basis of scripture and the confessions, that from now on they must see to it.

The Reformed confessions and Church Order speak of the connection between God’s covenant and the Christian school in terms of a demand because this is how scripture speaks of it. To all Israel God says regarding his words, “Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children” (Deut. 6:7).

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. (Ps. 78:5–6)

All of this language of demand and obligation and requirement expresses the vital connection between God’s covenant of grace with believers and their seed and the Christian school. The Christian school has its whole existence and power from God’s covenant of grace. Where the Christian school is acknowledged to be a demand of God’s covenant, there a Christian school can exist as a Christian school. Where it is denied that the Christian school is a demand of the covenant, there the vital connection is severed, and the Christian school cannot long exist as a Christian school.

 

The Claim of the Covenant

More can be said about the vital connection between God’s covenant of grace with believers and their seed and the Christian school. It is true that the Christian school is vitally connected to God’s covenant as a demand of God’s covenant. But why does God’s covenant demand the Christian school? What is it about the covenant that makes the Christian school an obligation?

In order to answer this, we must examine a specific aspect of the covenant that is perhaps underdeveloped in our doctrine of the covenant and in our understanding of the covenant. We could call this specific aspect of the covenant the claim of the covenant.

The claim of the covenant has to do with ownership and possession. The claim of the covenant means that when God establishes his covenant between himself and his elect people in Christ, he makes a claim upon those people. In the establishment of his covenant with them, he declares his ownership of them. He binds his chosen people to himself as his own people, who belong to him. One who is God’s covenant friend belongs to God. He is God’s friend. He is God’s son. He is God’s possession. He is God’s servant. In the covenant he is God’s.

By the claim of the covenant, God also separates his people from the wicked world of sin and darkness. The world has no claim upon God’s people, for they are God’s people. The devil has no claim upon God’s people, for they are God’s people. Sin and guilt have no claim upon God’s people, for they are God’s people. Death and the grave have no claim upon God’s people, for they are God’s people. Thus the claim of the covenant is a tremendous comfort for God’s people. In their constant battle with the world, the false church, the devil, sin, and death, they rest secure in the comfortable knowledge that God has claimed them as his own and that no man shall pluck them out of God’s hand.

The claim of the covenant is taught prominently in scripture in all of those passages in which God speaks his covenant promise in its well-known covenant formula. The covenant promise is this: “I will be your God, and you shall be my people.” In that promise God claims his people as his own (“you shall be my people”), even as he graciously gives himself to be the God of his people (“I will be your God”). God often repeats his covenant promise in scripture from the beginning (Gen. 17:7, for example) to the end (Rev. 21:3, for example). Jeremiah 31:33 is representative of this promise as it is found throughout Holy Writ: “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.” There in that promise is the claim of the covenant: “They shall be my people!”

The claim of the covenant is also confessional. The Heidelberg Catechism opens with the claim of the covenant. “What is thy only comfort in life and death? That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ” (Q&A 1, in Confessions and Church Order, 83). God’s claim upon his people in his covenant means that they confess, “I belong unto Jesus Christ!”

The Form for the Administration of Baptism teaches that the doctrine of holy baptism is this: God the Father “doth make an eternal covenant of grace with us, and adopts us for His children and heirs” (Confessions and Church Order, 258). God’s claim upon his people in the covenant means that they are his children and his heirs.

The truth of God’s claim upon his people in the covenant is in perfect harmony with the other great truths of God’s covenant of grace.

First, the essence of the covenant is the relationship of friendship and fellowship that God establishes between himself and his people in Christ. The covenant is fellowship. The claim of the covenant is that in this fellowship God’s covenant friends belong to him as his covenant people. God’s covenant friends are also God’s covenant servants. As Herman Hoeksema would often say, we are God’s friend-servants.

Second, the source of the covenant is God’s eternal and unconditional election of his people according to his sovereign good pleasure. The elect and only the elect are members of God’s everlasting covenant of grace. God’s decree of election is also the claim of the covenant. By his eternal decree he asserted his claim upon his people. This means that in the unfolding of God’s counsel in time, God only makes his covenant claim upon the elect. Right along with election and reprobation, the claim of the covenant cuts through the lines of continued generations. Not every baby baptized and not every child of believing parents are claimed by God as his own but those only whom he has eternally chosen according to his eternal purpose and good pleasure.

Third, the ground of the covenant is the blood of the covenant head and mediator, Jesus Christ. By his blood the Lord atoned for the sins of all of God’s people. According to the Canons of Dordt, the blood of the cross “confirmed the new covenant.” Also according to the Canons, that same blood of the cross effectually redeemed “out of every people, tribe, nation, and language all those, and those only, who were from eternity chosen to salvation and given to Him by the Father” (Canons 2.8, in Confessions and Church Order, 163). The claim of the covenant is also grounded in that cross. Christ’s blood purchased God’s elect people as his own, so that he is now their Lord.

Fourth, the covenant is a covenant of grace. It is unconditional, unilateral, and eternal. The covenant is not established, maintained, or perfected by the will or obedience of man but solely by the gracious will and good pleasure of God. The believer’s experience of covenant fellowship is also unconditional. There are no prerequisites unto the believer’s enjoyment of God’s fellowship, whether the prerequisite be conceived of as the activity of faith, or repentance, or some other aspect of keeping God’s law. The truth of the claim of the covenant underscores the graciousness of the covenant in all respects. God operates in the covenant as the sovereign God who forms his own covenant people and who claims them as his own, as a father begets and claims his children as his own.

Fifth, the calling of the covenant is that God’s covenant people serve him in all things as their covenant God. God’s people have their part in the covenant, which part is not a condition or a prerequisite but is their grateful service of the God who has graciously brought them into his own family and fellowship. The claim of the covenant underscores the calling of the covenant. When God claims his covenant people as his own, their eternal obligation is to serve him in love and thanksgiving through a life of good works in obedience to God’s law.

The above is the lightest and faintest pencil sketch of the truth of the claim of the covenant. It is here in the claim of the covenant that we find the vital connection between the Christian school and God’s everlasting covenant of grace.

 

The Claim of the Covenant and the Demand of the Covenant

God establishes his covenant with believers and their seed. Not only the parents but also the children of the parents are God’s covenant friends. This means that God in his covenant has also established his claim upon those children, even as many as he has called. Those children belong to God by virtue of his election of them from all eternity. Those children belong to God on the basis of the blood of the everlasting covenant, which redeemed them from their bondage in sin and death and purchased them to be the children of their heavenly Father. The claim of the covenant applies to the covenant seed as well as to the covenant parents.

God’s claim upon the elect infants of believers means that those children belong to him. The children are not first of all children of their parents. Although God has given the children to those particular parents in order that those parents may serve God in rearing his covenant seed, the children are God’s children. Neither are the children first of all children of the church. Although God has given the children to a particular church in which they may be fed with the gospel and in which they may worship him, the children are God’s children. “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward” (Ps. 127:3). The believing parent confesses that his children are “the children which God hath graciously given” him (Gen. 33:5).

Because the children of the covenant belong to God, their calling is to serve God as God’s covenant friends. They are called to love him with all of their heart, mind, soul, and strength. They are called to embrace the stations and vocations that God has given them in life and to serve him in those stations and callings. Whether that station be that of a servant or a freedman, an employee or an employer; whether that station be that of a mother or father or childless couple or single person; whether that station be that of rich or poor; whether that station be that of special officebearer or office of believer; whether that station be strong or weak; whether that station be in this industry or that office building—in whatever stations and vocations God has placed them, they are to serve their covenant God. “As God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all churches” (1 Cor. 7:17). “That so every one may attend to and perform the duties of his station and calling as willingly and faithfully as the angels do in heaven” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 124, in Confessions and Church Order, 138).

The realm in which the covenant children will serve God is the creation. The creation includes all of the creatures which God has made: heaven and earth, sea and dry land, plants and animals and man, food and drink. The creation includes all of the powers that God has made: number and order, tides and seasons, light and darkness, sight and hearing, labor and rest, electricity and atomic power, waves and particles. The creation includes all of the society of man, who is the king of the creation: nations and kingdoms, communication and decisions, friendship and enmity, language and understanding, art and invention, work and play. The creation is a vast and wonderful realm of unending variety. In this tremendous realm of the creation, the child of God serves his God. “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches” (Ps. 104:24).

God’s covenant children will serve God in the realm of the creation as God’s covenant friends and servants. They do not live in the creation as worldly men do, who know not God and who set themselves against Jehovah and against his anointed. Men who use the creation in the service of sin and corruption. Men who rebel against their stations and callings and use those callings as they suit them. Rather, God’s covenant children enter into their stations and vocations in all the manifold realm of creation in order to serve God consciously in those places. Everything that God has given becomes the tools of the child of God with which he may serve his heavenly Father. Numbers and letters, equations and words, his job at the factory or the farm or the office or the home, his house and his car, his family and his friends, his vacation and his play, his diligence and his sleep—all are his instruments of thanksgiving and service to God. He adds one to one and blesses God as the God of order. He reads his book and blesses God, who has given language and understanding. He works his shift and thanks God for his daily bread. God has claimed him, and his life in the creation is grateful service to his covenant friend and sovereign. “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it” (Ps. 90:17).

In all of this creation, the covenant child of God will serve God as one whose eternal home is not this earth but the new heavens and the new earth. Though he has much wealth on earth or is very poor, he counts none of his wealth to be his treasure. Though he live many days or few, he counts his time upon this earth to be that of a stranger who sojourns in a foreign land. His home and his treasure are in heaven with Jesus Christ, who has translated him into God’s heavenly kingdom of righteousness. He labors and lives in this world with the constant prayer, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

4. To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,

5. Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Pet. 1:3–5)

The covenant child of believing parents, who is claimed by God and who will live his life in the vocation that God gives him in the realm of the creation, must be reared and trained for that life. Here is the vital connection between the covenant of God with believers and their seed and the Christian school. The Christian school can do justice to the wide range of instruction that the covenant children must have in order to live as God’s friend-servants in this life. More importantly, in the Christian school the parents and other believers can labor together to see to it that all of the covenant children of God are properly reared and prepared for their stations and callings. God has claimed our covenant children as his own, to serve him as his covenant friends. In the Christian school we labor together to see to it that our covenant children are trained for their glorious calling of gratitude.

This ends this series of editorials on the Christian school as demand of the covenant. May the Lord again impress upon us the confession of our fathers: “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.”