Keeping God's Covenant

The triune God remembers His covenant: “He hath remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations” ( Ps. 105:8 ). But how few are imitators of God in this?

Jehovah commands us to remember His covenant: “Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations” ( I Chron. 16:15 ). How quickly we forget!

Remembering God’s covenant involves keeping it by obeying His Word out of gratitude for His salvation of us in Jesus Christ: “But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children; to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them” ( Ps. 103:17-18 ).

God’s saints everywhere who seek sound, practical, biblical instruction as to keeping God’s covenant will welcome the publication of this helpful book. After the first chapter’s explanation of the nature of the covenant that we are called to keep, the five succeeding chapters explain what it is to keep God’s covenant in the church, in marriage, in the home, in parental discipline of children and in an antithetical life. The six chapters of this book were originally the six main addresses at the 2004 British Reformed Fellowship (BRF) Biennial Family Conference at High Leigh, Hertfordshire, England. The members of the BRF rightly decided that these speeches deserved further circulation in book form. As you read on, I trust that you will have cause to thank our heavenly Father for providing you with this edifying book.

The two authors, David Engelsma and Herman Hanko of the Protestant Reformed Churches in America, are members, husbands, fathers, pastors, and professors in Reformed and, therefore, covenantal churches. Both have kept, preached, and written about God’s covenant of friendship in Jesus Christ for many years. Works on this grand theme are included amongst their many books. Prof. Hanko has penned God’s Everlasting Covenant of Grace (1988) and We and Our Children (revised edition 2004). Prof. Engelsma has contributed The Covenant of God and the Children of Believers (2005); and his Trinity and Covenant: God As Holy Family will soon be published (DV).1 Keeping God’s Covenant is a worthy addition to their books on the covenant, especially from its practical perspective.

I commend this book to you with the prayer that it may be used to increase the church’s covenant consciousness leading to more faithful covenant keeping to the honour of the triune God.

Rev. Angus Stewart

BRF Chairman

Chapter 1

The Covenant We are Called to Keep

P r o f. David J. Engelsma

Scripture: Genesis 17:1-22

Introduction

For some, the truth of the covenant is familiar; for some, it may be controversial; for others, it may be virtually unknown. All should be convinced of the importance of the covenant. This cannot be taken for granted today on either side of the Atlantic. There is a loss of covenant consciousness among Christians. This is true even of Reformed and Presbyterian Christians among whom consciousness of the covenant once was lively.

Where today do professing Christians think of their salvation as a matter of God’s making His covenant with them? Rather, salvation is commonly thought of as their making a decision for Christ.

Where today do Christians practice the Christian life of holiness as a matter of keeping the covenant? Rather, they devote their life to Jesus, or imitate the life of Christ, or obey certain rules laid down in the Bible.

The covenant is of the greatest importance according to Scripture. When God began to work out the salvation of His people in the nation of Israel in the Old Testament—a work that would culminate in the coming of Jesus the Messiah and His redemption of the people of God—God began that work by making His covenant with Abraham and his seed ( Gen. 12 ). The history of the Old Testament from this point on is covenant history. Since this history has Jesus Christ as its goal, Jesus Christ came into the world to fulfil the covenant and on behalf of the covenant. This is how Zacharias explained the birth of Jesus in Luke 1:72 , 73: “to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he sware to our father Abraham."

The entire saving work of Jesus Christ is making the covenant—the new covenant—with the elect church and each member in particular. This is the teaching of Hebrews 8:6-13 . By Jesus Christ, the high priest, God makes a new covenant with His people as He promised in Jeremiah 31:31-34 . By His atoning death, Jesus earned the right for God’s people to receive the covenant. By His Spirit and Word, Jesus actually makes the covenant with each of God’s people personally. Therefore, Hebrews 8:6 gives Jesus the title, the mediator of the covenant.

Such is the importance of the covenant that it is salvation for a person. That God made His covenant with Abraham was Abraham’s salvation. The various blessings Abraham received from God were covenant blessings, particularly, justification ( Gen. 15:6 ). Galatians 3:6ff . instructs us New Testament Christians that the covenant is our salvation and that we receive and enjoy salvation only in the covenant. Indeed, the passage teaches that the covenant God made with Abraham is our salvation. Verse 8 describes the promise God made to Abraham in Genesis 17 and other places as God’s preaching of the gospel to Abraham, particularly, the gospel that God would justify the heathen through faith. Verse 13 teaches that Christ’s redemptive death was the fulfillment of the covenant with Abraham. The entire passage teaches us Gentile believers that our justification by faith, our receiving the Holy Spirit, and our inheriting eternal life are blessings that come to us in the covenant made with Abraham and his seed.

It is necessary that we know this. It is necessary that we know that all the blessings we have from God are covenant blessings. What husband would be pleased that his wife received all his love, care, and gifts while remaining oblivious to the marriage in which and on account of which he lavished his love upon her? God’s love, salvation, and care come to His people in and on behalf of the covenant, which is the real marriage.

As will become plain when we see what the covenant is, God already revealed the covenant in the very first promise of the gospel, in Genesis 3:15 : “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

This importance of the covenant lends urgency to our calling to keep the covenant. No duty we may possibly have outstrips the duty to keep the covenant. Indeed, for the believer and the child of believers all duties, whether earthly or heavenly, are, in reality, the duty to keep the covenant.

What is the covenant? What is this truth that looms so large in the Bible—announced in Paradise, established with Abraham, and perfected by Jesus Christ?

The Nature of the Covenant

There is much ignorance and confusion among professing Christians concerning the covenant. Even though I do not intend to refute all kinds of erroneous teachings about the covenant, I warn that there are serious errors on the doctrine of the covenant, not only in the evangelical churches, but also in Presbyterian and Reformed churches. In recent developments in North America in reputedly conservative Presbyterian and Reformed churches, it has become plain that these errors concerning the covenant fatally compromise the gospel of salvation by the grace of God in Jesus Christ alone. Particularly, the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith alone is corrupted and denied.

My purpose, however, is to teach the truth of the covenant positively, demonstrating from Scripture that it is the truth.

The covenant of God with His people is a unique relationship of intimate fellowship in mutual love. That was the covenant announced to Adam and Eve in the garden immediately after the fall. That was the covenant established with Abraham. That was the covenant as administered to Israel, even though the covenant with Israel was burdened with the law. This is the nature of the perfect form of the covenant with believers and our children in the present, gospel age.

We must not think of the covenant as comparable to a bargain struck by two businessmen, dependent upon stipulated conditions, for the purpose of the advantage of them both. But we must think of the covenant of God with men and women as a delightful marriage, or as a warm friendship. It should be evident at once that it makes a world of difference regarding our keeping of the covenant, whether we think of the covenant between God and ourselves as comparable to a cold, business-like, conditional bargain, or as comparable to a marriage, or a friendship. A wife and a friend behave differently than a businessman, especially with regard to the motives of the heart.

Scripture on the Covenant

We must learn the nature of the covenant from Scripture. We do not learn what the covenant is from extra-biblical sources, specifically, the treaties that heathen nations made with each other in ancient times. Scripture teaches the covenant, and Scripture reveals what the covenant is. At stake here are the truth that Scripture interprets Scripture, the truth of the sufficiency of Scripture, and the truth that every believer can understand Scripture in its fundamental doctrines.

Scripture describes the covenant as a loving relationship of close communion between God and us. Scripture teaches this clearly, so that there is no excuse for the errors, the confusion, and the ignorance concerning the covenant on the part of many Christians and churches. First, in virtually every passage where the covenant is on the foreground, especially, where there is a new, progressive development of the covenant, the same words occur. They are the words, “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” By these words, God reveals to us what the covenant is, the nature of the covenant. They are found in Genesis 17:7 , where God establishes the covenant with Abraham; in the preface to the ten commandments, by which God established the covenant with Israel as a nation, in Exodus 20:2 ; in Jeremiah 31:33 , where God promised the new covenant with Israel and Judah; and in Revelation 21:3, where John saw the new creation and the glorified church in the day of Christ.

These words are the “covenant formula.” They describe the covenant as a bond of love. They are similar to a man’s saying to a woman, “I will be your husband, and you will be my wife.” They are like the words of a man to a boy, “I will be your father, and you will be my son.” Running throughout the entire Bible, they show the unity of the covenant.

That the covenant is a relationship of fellowship is proved, secondly, in that the two earthly realities to which Scripture compares the covenant are both close, indeed, the closest, relation-ships of love. They are the father/son relationship and marriage ( Ex. 4:23 ; Ezek. 16:8 ).

Third, Scripture finds the essence of the covenant, and the enjoyment of the life of the covenant, in the tabernacle and temple. The tabernacle was the place where God dwelt with His people and where they, therefore, could draw near to their God, to live with Him in His presence, glorify Him, and enjoy Him. In one word, the tabernacle, or temple, which was at the centre of Israel, was fellowship. It was not a stock exchange, or a lawyer’s office, where spiritual deals were made, but it was home.

In this connection, I remind us that the incarnation of Jesus, according to the Greek text of John 1:14 , was the Word’s “tabernacling” with us (the AV has “dwelt among us”). Also, the New Testament teaches that the church is the temple of God (I P et. 2:5) and the house of God ( I Tim. 3:15 ); the children of God (II Cor. 6:18); and the bride of Christ ( Eph. 5:22-33 ). All of these descriptions of the church express close communion between God and His people. According to Revelation 21 , heaven will be this, that the tabernacle of God will be with men, that is, the fullest enjoyment of the covenant.

Fourth, in light of Scripture’s teaching that the covenant is God’s fellowship with us, and our communion with Him, we can see the announcement of the covenant in Genesis 3:15 . God put enmity—hatred and hostility—between His chosen people and the devil, implying that He restores friendship between some of the fallen human race and Himself. By the fall, all the human race became hostile to God and friendly to the old serpent. By the promise of the gospel of Genesis 3:15 , God delivered some from their friendship with Satan and created friendship with Himself. Enmity between the seed of the woman and Satan means friendship between the seed of the woman and God.

Fifth, with regard to Abraham personally, God’s covenant with him makes Abraham “the friend of God” ( James 2:23 ). God and Abraham expressed and enjoyed their friendship. On one occasion, God came down from heaven to have a meal with Abraham. God told Abraham the secrets of His plan concerning Sodom. Abraham freely spoke with God about his hopes and fears. Abraham and God walked together “as good friends do, and true” ( Gen. 18 ).

Likewise, God has His meal with us in the Lord’s Supper. He tells us all His heart in the preaching of the gospel. We unburden our hearts to God in prayer and song. We walk with Him, consciously living in His presence, as He is with us by the Spirit of Christ in our hearts.

The Highest Good

Fellowship with God, which is the covenant, is the greatest good, the highest privilege, and the supreme bliss for humans. Fellowship is the most delightful pleasure in everyday, earthly life: friend with friend, family life, and especially the sharing of life in marriage. Even though the early church may not have used the word “covenant” in describing the highest good for Christians, it taught the truth of the covenant when it proposed the “beatific vision”—the sight of God—as the high point of salvation and as the supreme bliss of heaven. Heaven will be home, because Father dwells there, and we will live with Him.

As fellowship with God, the covenant is not a temporal means to a higher, better, eternal end, or goal. The covenant is the end, or goal, itself. The Bible teaches that the covenant is everlasting: “I will establish my covenant,” God promised to Abraham, “for an everlasting covenant” ( Gen. 17:7 ). Hebrews 13:20 speaks of the blood of our Lord Jesus as “the blood of the everlasting covenant.”

As communion with God, the communion of children with their heavenly Father, the covenant reflects God’s own blessed life. God does not merely exist, like a lonely hermit. He lives in a communion of persons. His rich life is triune life: the fellowship of love of the Father and the Son in the Holy Ghost. John 1:18 teaches that the Son lies eternally in the bosom of the Father. The life of God is the original family life. This is why family is basic in creation and in the church. In grace, the triune God reveals His own life, which is fellowship, in His covenant with us. Indeed, He lets us share, in a creaturely way, in His life.

Established in Christ

Jesus Christ laid the basis of the covenant in His death, obtaining for God’s people the right to become friends of God ( Heb. 8, 9). Now, as risen, Jesus creates the living bond between each of God’s people and God by His gospel and Holy Spirit. The realization of the covenant was Jesus’ prayer in John 17 : “that they also may be one in us” (v. 21). This prayer God would answer the next day by the redemption of the cross. Therefore, Jesus is called the mediator of the covenant ( Heb. 9:15 ).

Since Jesus is the mediator of the covenant, the only way into the covenant, and the only experience of the covenant, is faith in Jesus Christ. We come to the Father only by faith in Jesus Christ ( John 14:6 ).

But there is another sense in which God has established the covenant in Christ. God has made the covenant with Jesus Christ personally. The covenant is not made with the elect directly. It is made directly with Jesus Christ. The covenant is made with us only because and inasmuch as we belong to Jesus Christ. According to Genesis 17:7 , God made His covenant with Abraham’s “seed.” Commonly, we think of Isaac, or perhaps of all Abraham’s physical children. This is a mistake.

That “seed” was Christ. This is the explicit teaching of Galatians 3:16: “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.” God made the promise of the covenant to Christ. Thus, He established His covenant with Christ as head of the covenant. As head, Christ is the legal representative of all God’s people. Just as the covenant of creation in Paradise was made with Adam as head of the race, so the covenant of grace was made with Christ as head of the new human race of the elect out of all nations. Romans 5:12ff . compares Adam and Christ as two heads of the covenants in history.

This implies that God makes His covenant with those whom He has elected in Christ unto salvation. God does not establish His covenant with all men without exception. He does not establish it with all the natural children of Abraham. He does not establish it with all the physical children of believers. Galatians 3:29 makes this application of the truth of Christ’s headship in the covenant. Galatians 3:16 has stated that God established the covenant with Christ, as the “seed” of Abraham. Verse 29 teaches, “if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” The promise, the covenant, and the inheritance are for those who are Christ’s.

A Gracious Covenant

Established in Christ, the covenant is gracious. It is truly the “covenant of grace,” as Scripture and the Reformed confessions name it. It is not a covenant of human works, of human will, or of human worth.

God decreed the covenant in His eternal counsel, out of grace alone. God confirmed the covenant in the cross of Christ, out of grace alone. God establishes the covenant in the hearts of elect believers and the genuine children of believers—the “children of the promise” ( Rom. 9:8 ) —by the regenerating Spirit, out of grace alone. God maintains the covenant and perfects it with all those who are Christ’s, preserving His covenant friends, out of grace alone.

The covenant is unconditional: it does not depend upon the sinner. The teaching that the covenant is conditional is a form of the denial of salvation by grace alone. This doctrine makes salvation in the covenant a matter of man’s willing and running, which Romans 9:16 rejects: “it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth.” I note in passing that the grievous contemporary heresy in the reputedly conservative Reformed churches in North America that denies justification by faith alone bases itself on, and arises from, the doctrine of a conditional covenant.

In light of what the covenant is, namely, fellowship between God and His people, fellowship established in Christ, and fellowship that is gracious, we can understand rightly what Scripture means when it admonishes us to keep the covenant.

The Idea of Keeping the Covenant

Those with whom God makes His covenant are called by God to keep the covenant. After God promised His covenant to Abraham in Genesis 17:7 , He commanded Abraham, “Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations” (v. 9).

The ten commandments were God’s demand to Israel, to keep His covenant. Exodus 34:28 calls the ten commandments “the words of the covenant.” Still today, the ten commandments are binding upon the church as the rule for the church’s life with God in the covenant. In the ten commandments, God demands that believers and their children keep His covenant.

Christians are called to keep the covenant in the sense of observing the covenant, doing what God requires of His covenant friends, living the kind of life that is fitting for the covenant. Christians are to keep the covenant as a wife’s submission to her husband keeps, or properly observes, the marriage, and as a child’s honoring his parents is fitting for family life.

Keeping the covenant is not a work of man upon which the covenant depends, or that cooperates with God’s work, to make the covenant promise effectual, or to bring the covenant to perfection. If this were the case, the covenant and salvation in the covenant would not be by grace, but by works. Such a doctrine of covenant keeping is a denial of the gospel of grace.

The conclusive evidence that keeping the covenant is not a work of man upon which the covenant depends is the plain teaching of the Bible that our keeping of the covenant is itself the gracious gift of God to us and in us. All our obedience and good works are part of the covenant itself. The prophet promised the new covenant with the church in these words: “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” ( Jer. 31:33 ). Love for God in the heart and obedience to all the commandments are not a work of the sinner upon which the covenant depends. Rather, they are the gift of God to the elect church and her members in His great work of making His covenant with them. Obedience to the law is not a condition unto the covenant, but a privilege and blessing of the covenant.

Similar is the teaching of Genesis 18:19 . Jehovah said to Abraham, with whom He had established His covenant, “I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.” As is also true for us parents in the new covenant, it was necessary that Abraham keep the covenant by commanding his children to “keep the way of the LORD.” But Abraham’s commanding of his children was the fruit of Jehovah’s knowing Abraham. The word “that” in the phrase, “I know him, that he will command his children” is the conjunction of purpose in the Hebrew, “in order that”: “I know him [Abraham], in order that he [Abraham] will command his children.” Abraham’s commanding his children to keep the way of the Lord is the fruit of the Lord’s own mighty covenant love. It is the fruit of election. It is as if Jehovah said, “I will cause Abraham to command his children.”

Our sanctification (and this is what our keeping the covenant is) is not our work upon which our salvation depends, or our work cooperating with God’s work. Away with this notion, once and for all, from the thinking and teaching of Christians! Nor does this notion stimulate lazy Christians to work harder. Rather, it terrifies the people of God, makes others proud Pharisees, and causes others to work for God as slaves. God works in us all our willing and doing (Phil. 2:13).

The Necessity of Keeping the Covenant

Although not a work of man upon which the covenant depends, keeping the covenant is important, indeed, necessary. It is necessary, because God demands it, because it is the way in which we are saved, and know we are saved, and because it glorifies God, which is the chief end of the covenant.

But covenant keeping is necessary also in view of the fact that the covenant is a relationship of fellowship between God and us. We have a part in the covenant, just as God also has a part. In an earthly relationship, both of those who are related to each other must do their duty. The husband loves his wife and cares for her, and the wife submits to her husband and helps him. Parents rear their children in love, and the children honor their father and mother. So in the spiritual relationship of the covenant, God in Christ loves and saves His friends and children, according to His own free promise. His people love, reverence, serve, and obey Him, which is His demand of us, and our calling.

Even though God works in us to do our part in the covenant, He works in such a way that we keep the covenant freely, willingly, cheerfully, and carefully. And this pleases God, pleases God immensely, as it pleases a husband that his wife loves him and willingly is a help. It displeases God, displeases Him greatly, that we fail to keep the covenant. Therefore, He chastens His children for disobedience, sometimes severely.

In addition, so important to God is our covenant keeping that He tries, or tests, our commitment to Him. Such was the trial (not “temptation,” as the AV has in Genesis 22:1 ) of Abraham in the matter of offering Isaac to God as a sacrifice. When we pass the test, as Abraham did, although only by the grace of God, which is mighty in us, as it was in Abraham, God is pleased with us, as He was with Abraham: “now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me” (Gen. 22:12).

It is not possible that one with whom God has established His covenant can, by failing to keep the covenant, break the covenant in the sense of cutting off the relationship and nullifying both God’s gracious covenant purpose and God’s gracious covenant work. God preserves His covenant saints (Canons of Dordt, V). Having begun a good work of covenant grace in one, God will “perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

Scripture does warn against the great sin of breaking the covenant. Genesis 17:14 threatens that the uncircumcised man-child “shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant” (a warning all Baptist parents should heed). The grave warnings in Hebrews 6:4-8 and Hebrews 10:26-31 are the same. Covenant breakers violate and transgress the covenant, which, although not made with them personally, is revealed to them. In the sphere of this covenant they live. The life of this covenant is their duty. Refusing to keep the covenant, they render themselves guilty of despising the covenant. They bring down on themselves the curse of the covenant. These are the men, women, and young people described by the apostle in Romans 9:6 as being “of Israel,” in distinction from the elect covenant keepers, who are “Israel.”

The nature of the covenant as fellowship with God and the truth of covenant keeping as living rightly with God in this bond of love determine the manner of our keeping the covenant.

The Manner of Keeping the Covenant

Here we take note of certain basic characteristics of our life as covenant keepers. These characteristics apply to every aspect of our life: worship, marriage, family, citizenship, and work.

First, keeping the covenant consists of obeying God’s commandments. Psalm 103:17, 18 affirms God’s covenant faithfulness “to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.” The Hebrew parallelism of the psalms teaches here that keeping the covenant consists of remembering God’s commandments, to do them. Covenant keeping is simply this: obedience to God’s commandments in holy Scripture. Ignoring the commandments of God, whether by a church or an individual, is covenant breaking, even though the church or individual ignores the commandments on behalf of a better worship of God (“progressive worship”), or of a service of God that is more acceptable to contemporary society (women in church office and the denial of the headship of the husband in marriage), or of sympathetic love for the neighbor (permission of unbiblical divorce and remarriage). The great principle of covenant life was stated by the prophet Samuel in the Old Testament: “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams” ( I Sam. 15:22 ).

Second, we keep the covenant by loving God as our heavenly father, our husband in Jesus Christ, our redeemer from sin and death, and our dear friend. We keep the covenant by love for God in our heart. Love is the demand of the husband from his wife and of the parents from their children. Love is the demand of God from us. This love, which is the essence of covenant keeping, is grateful love. It is love that is, and must be, greater than love for anything or anyone else, so that all else is given up, if need be, in love for God. This love proves itself genuine by right worship of the triune God alone.

In order to love Him, we must know Him, and the more we know Him, the more we will want to know Him. Love for God shows itself in study of the Word, attendance at sound sermons, and the reading of solid theological books and magazines.

Third, the manner of covenant keeping is drawing near to God, as Hebrews 10:22 exhorts: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” It is a troubled marriage in which the wife keeps her distance from her husband. We draw near to God in prayer. We draw near to God by seeking Him where He is to be found: in the true church; in the preaching of the gospel; in the sacraments, particularly, the sacrament of the Supper.

Fourth, it belongs to the manner of keeping the covenant that we keep the covenant unconditionally. God’s covenant is unconditional on His part. This is comfort for us. But the covenant is likewise unconditional on our part. This is often suffering for us. Covenant keeping means loss, sacrifice, self-denial, suffering, and even death. Scripture describes all of this as the “cross” (Mark 8:34). Parents have given up the friendship of their children; wives have lost a husband; men have denied themselves sexually; all the members of the covenant suffer reproach; many have paid the price of their life.

Covenant keeping is not only for the time when it is convenient and easy, but also for times when keeping the covenant sails against the wind. This is what the apostate churches and false prophets of the twenty-first century deny, and what the people gladly ignore.

The command in the covenant is, “Unconditionally, be faithful to your husband or wife!” “Unconditionally, confess the truth!” “Unconditionally, bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Jesus Christ!” “Unconditionally, see to it that you join a true church, and remain a lively member of it!”

Fifth, we keep the covenant in our generations. The covenant is always with Christ and His chosen people in such a way that the covenant and its salvation run in the lines of believers and their children. This was true in the Old Testament: “… between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations” (Gen. 17:7). This is true in the New Testament: “the promise is unto you, and to your children” ( Acts 2:39 ). The believer does not only keep the covenant himself personally, but he also keeps it with regard to his children and grandchildren. He has children, when God blesses his marriage with conception and birth; he presents his children for baptism in a true church; he teaches his children the truth; he rears them in love; he disciplines them. He does not live individualistically and for the moment, but thinks and acts covenantally for the welfare of his descendants for years to come.

Last, we keep the covenant in the hope of future, everlasting blessedness, which will be a gracious reward of our covenant keeping. Abraham had this hope. He looked for a heavenly country ( Heb. 11:16 ).

What is this future blessedness?

This, that the tabernacle of God will be with men, and God will dwell with us. We will be His people, and God Himself will be our God. God will then wipe away all tears from our eyes, and there will be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying. Neither will there be any more pain, because God will make all things new ( Rev. 21:3-5 ).

Communion with God!

The consummation of the covenant of grace!

Chapter 2

Keeping God's Covenant in the Church

P r o f. Herman Hanko

There is, according to the Scriptures, the closest possible relationship between the truth of the covenant and the doctrine of the church. Or, to put it more concretely and practically, there is the closest possible relationship between God’s establishment and maintenance of His covenant with His elect and His establishment and preservation of the church in the midst of the world. And there is the closest relationship between our responsibility to be keepers of God’s covenant and our responsibilities to the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. So close is that relationship that I am convinced that we do not exaggerate if we say that the covenant of grace that God establishes with His people in Christ could never come to realization in history without the church. God establishes and maintains His covenant through the church of Christ, particularly as that church comes to manifestation in the midst of the world in the church institute.

God chose to Himself a church in Christ. When Paul begins his epistle to the Ephesians, he calls the church to join with him in a doxology of praise to Him who has chosen us in Christ from before the foundation of the world ( Eph. 1:4 ). Christ and the church are so much one that it is impossible to speak of Christ without speaking at the same time of the church. There is no Christ apart from the church. There is no church apart from Christ. They are one, together the elect of God.

When the Scriptures emphasize that the church is one in Christ, that is covenantal language. We are His body, Scripture tells us. We are joined to Him by a true faith. He is our Head. We are nothing apart from Him. All our life comes from Him. We are His and He is ours.

The unity of Christ and His people in the church is also the realization of God’s covenant with His people.

This identity of the covenant and the church was prefigured already in the old dispensation. The nation of Israel in the old dispensation was the church, as Stephen in his speech before the Sanhedrin calls it: “the church in the wilderness” ( Acts 7:38 ). The very centre of the life of that church of the old dispensation was the temple. In that temple God dwelt in the midst of His people. Israel constituted the church because the temple had been established there; that is, because God had taken up His abode in Zion and called His people to dwell with Him in the temple. God and His people dwelling together was the heart and centre of all of Israel’s life as the church.

In God’s marvelous ways of working, the temple in the old dispensation was a picture, a figure, and a type of God’s covenant relationship with His people in which He dwells with them and calls them into fellowship with Himself. But because the temple was a figure of the covenant, the temple itself was not and could not be the perfection of the covenant. It was only a figure because God dwelt in the Most Holy Place, in the innermost sanctuary, and the nation of Israel could not enter the temple beyond the outer court. That meant that, from one point of view, God and His people dwelt together in covenant fellowship because they dwelt together under one roof. They lived together in the same house.

But at the same time, because it was figurative and because the fulfillment had not yet come in Jesus Christ, God and His people could not come very close together. It was almost as if a young man married a young woman and, though they were united in marriage, and though now that they lived together in one house under the same roof in the fellowship of marriage, nevertheless, the wife lived in the one end of the house and the husband lived in the other end of the house. They could not come together. The distance of the intervening rooms separated them from each other.

That was the way it was in the old dispensation. God was in the pillar of cloud that filled the Most Holy Place (the same pillar of cloud, by the way, that had led Israel through the wilderness for forty years, and the same cloud that took our Lord Jesus Christ to heaven at the time of His ascension). That symbol of God’s presence was in the Most Holy Place. Israel was in the outer court. Between God and His people a heavy veil, the altar of incense, the table of shewbread, the candlestick, the whole Levitical priesthood and, above all, the altar of burnt offering separated the two. The blood of atonement had not yet been shed. It was prefigured in the sacrifices, but Israel could not come near to God, as near as it is possible to come, until atonement had actually been made.

That was the typical covenant fellowship in which God dwelt with His church. The church, the existence of the church, depended upon that temple. When the temple was destroyed, that was the end of Israel as a church to all intents and purposes, and the nation was scattered among the heathen.

At the very beginning of our Lord’s ministry a very interesting and important incident took place, recorded for us in John 2 . I am referring to the cleansing of the temple by our Lord Jesus Christ at the time of the Passover. On two different occasions Christ cleansed the temple of the buyers and sellers who had made the house of God a house of merchandise. Our Lord cleansed the temple at the beginning of His ministry and at the end—almost as if it were His inaugural sermon and His farewell sermon.

That cleansing of the temple infuriated the Jewish religious leaders. It infuriated them, I suspect, because they were embarrassed. They had been made to look like fools in the eyes of the Jews. But it was above all a challenge to their authority in the nation. So they came to the Lord with a question: “Who gave you the authority to do this? Who are the ones whom God has appointed to be responsible for what takes place in the temple? If you chase us out, you must claim an authority that is higher than ours. We would like to know what that authority is that is superior to ours and that gives you the right to determine what should take place in this temple and what should not.”

To that question, the Lord gave a very striking answer, which at first glance seems almost to be evasive. Christ said to the Jews, “This is the authority by which I cleanse the temple: Destroy this temple and in three days I will build it up.” Now, you understand that the Jews pretended that they did not perceive what Jesus meant. They mocked. “Oh,” they said, “are you going to build this temple in three days? This temple has been in building for forty-six years and it is still not completed. Who do you think you are that you can build the temple in three days?” But, although they mocked, they were very uneasy. Those words of Christ stung so badly that they never forgot them. Even when the Lord was finally hanging on the cross, they still remembered those words that He had spoken at the beginning of His ministry, and they called out to Him: “Oh, temple destroyer! Save thyself.” They understood, maybe not entirely what the Lord meant, but well enough to be frightened.

John explains the meaning of Jesus’ words: “he spake of the temple of his body” (John 2:21 ).

There is the idea of the covenant. That old temple was a symbol of God dwelling with His people under one roof. But it could not be the reality. God and His people were too far apart from each other to enjoy the full intimacy and the richness of the fellowship of marriage. The blood of atonement had not yet been shed.

Our Lord claims for Himself true authority over the temple: “I have authority over this old temple because My body is the true temple, and that old temple is but a figure of My body. That old temple is Mine because it is a shadow cast by Me over the whole of the old dispensation. I have the right to do with it what I will because I own it. This body, the true temple, is Mine. I will do with it as I please. And I please to do the will of My heavenly Father. So you Jews, who will hate me enough to kill Me, will yourselves destroy this temple. But following your act of destroying this temple, when I raise it up in the resurrection, the true temple of God will be built.”

The cleansing of the temple was an amazing event in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. That it stands at the very beginning of His earthly ministry is intended to impress upon us the fact that our Lord, in the entire earthly ministry in which He was engaged, culminating in His cross and resurrection from the dead, was building the temple of God, the true temple, where God would dwell in covenant fellowship with His people. Christ is the temple of God. The perfect sacrifice for sin has been made. The blood of bulls and goats need no longer be shed. The veil of the old temple was ripped from top to bottom. Christ entered into the Most Holy Place, and He took us along. Not the typical Most Holy Place of the earthly temple in Jerusalem, but the inner tabernacle of heaven itself where God dwells.

In Christ, that perfect fellowship of the covenant is attained. Paul tells us in his epistle to the Colossians, as he describes the great glory of Christ the head of the church, that in Christ “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” ( Col. 2:9 ). Every word in that text is important. In Christ dwells the fullness of the Godhead: the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the fullness of His divine life and glory is in Christ, revealed in Him and through Him, dwelling in Him. But, says Paul, the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily. It dwells in the body of Christ.

Who is the body of Christ? The church! All of Scripture testifies of that. Christ is the one, therefore, in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells with the church, so that Christ is the one in whom God and His church come as close together as it is possible to come; so close, in fact, that Peter, in a statement that never ceases to astound me, says in II Peter 1:4 that we are “partakers of the divine nature.” I have never dared to preach on that text. I confess that I do not know what that means, except for the fact that it illustrates in an astounding way how close God and His people come together in our Lord Jesus Christ, so that they dwell together in the true temple of God in covenant fellowship: the church in covenant fellowship with God in Christ.

Christ, in order to realize the covenant of God, establishes the church in the midst of the world. The church is a covenant community. I thought long and hard about that word “community.” (I am not fond of the word. It has connotations in our modern ecclesiastical parlance that are distasteful to me. But I cannot think of a better word, so we will use it.) The church constitutes God’s covenant people. The church is an organization, an institution of God’s covenant people. That does not only mean that the church is established for purposes of showing that God establishes His covenant with His people. The church, the institute of the church, the church in her organization, the church with a constitution, the church with a membership roll, the church with officebearers—that church as an institution is the means by which God realizes His covenant.

In the worship of the church, God’s people enter into covenant fellowship with God. God comes to dwell with His people. He speaks to them and they to Him in the holy conversation of covenant fellowship. He tells them His secrets ( Ps. 25:14 ) and they respond in praise.

The church is the mother of God’s covenant people. The figure emphasizes that the church is the instrument by which God brings forth His covenant people. That is, He makes them His covenant people. He regenerates them. He makes them, through the work of regeneration, His sons and His daughters. He takes them into His family. He begets them again by a second birth so that they are children of God and He is their Father. It is through the Word of the gospel that the people of God are quickened unto new life, the power of regeneration within them is made to grow, and faith is worked within them, which unites them to Christ their Savior. Therefore, the church is necessary for the establishment and realization of God’s covenant in the world.

In Lord’s Day 21 of the Heidelberg Catechism, Question and Answer 54, the doctrine of the church is discussed and defined with reference to an article in the Apostles’ Creed, “What believest thou concerning the ‘holy, catholic church’ of Christ?” The answer to that question, in part, is this: “That the Son of God ... gathers, defends, and preserves to Himself by His Spirit and Word ... a church chosen unto everlasting life...” He gathers that church. He defends that church. He preserves that church by His Word and Spirit. And, as the Catechism makes clear, and as is taught throughout the Scriptures, the Word is the Word of the everlasting gospel, the power of the new life, the power whereby God’s family is brought into existence, the Word that almighty God speaks through the gospel to call out of darkness into light His elect church and to call them into fellowship with Himself in Jesus Christ. That is the work that He gives to the church.

But not only is the establishment of the covenant dependent on the church, but also its maintenance. Our subject is: Keeping God’s Covenant. Keeping God’s covenant is our calling and responsibility. I want to underscore at the very outset the fact that all of our calling is possible because of the church.

God is pleased to establish His covenant in the line of generations. “I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee” ( Gen. 17:7 ) is God’s Word to Abraham. The church, therefore, is the gathering of believers and their seed. That means that the elect children of believers are members of the church, that is, of the church institute, of the church in her organizational form and not only of the church as the body of Christ.

One does not bring his child to baptism to have that child inducted into the church. Or, if I may put it differently, a child of believers does not become a member of the church through baptism. An elect child of believers does not become a member of the church when that child comes of age and makes confession of his or her faith. We may not say, “Oh, so-and-so has now made confession of faith and has joined the church.” That is unbiblical language. When our Heidelberg Catechism discusses the reason why we must baptize infants, it says, “Of course they have to be baptized, because they, as well as adults, are members of God’s covenant and of the church of Jesus Christ” (cf. Q & A 74). We baptize them not to make them members of the church. We baptize them because they are members of the church, because God establishes His covenant, saves His church, in the line of generations.

Having said that, I do not merely mean that the children of believers have their names on the membership rolls of the church. That may be true. And a consistory that keeps good records of the membership of the congregation includes in the records the name of every child of believers. That is true. But that is not the meaning. It is not a reference to the mere fact that somewhere in the archives of the elders appears the name of this child. An elect child born into the church institute is a member of the body of Christ; incorporated into the family of God. Of that child you may say what God says: “I am your God and you are my child.”

That truth does not negate the mission calling of the church, because God gathers His church from all the nations of the church in the new dispensation. It is as if the Spirit, poured out on Pentecost, burst the bonds that bound the church to the nation of Israel, so that the work of the Spirit is now a work that He accomplishes in every nation and tribe and tongue.

But always when the Spirit goes forth to gather that church catholic, the Spirit gathers not individuals here and there. The Spirit gathers believers and their seed, generations, children. Paul could say to the Philippian jailor when the Philippian jailor, with a heart-rending cry, said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” ( Acts 16:30-31 ).

Baptists argue, “We don’t know whether there were any children in the jailor’s house.” I suppose we do not. But it does not make any difference. That is not the point. The point is simply this: How could Paul say to the Philippian jailor, “Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is salvation for you and your house”? How could he say that when he had not met anybody in the house, when Paul himself did not know whether there were children in the house? It did not make any difference to Paul because Paul understood that salvation is in the line of generations. Believers and their seed constitute the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. Children in the church belong to God’s covenant. They are regenerated sons and daughters in the family of God.

Covenant keeping, therefore, in the church (and I turn to that subject now) involves taking care of the children. It seems as if the modern church in America, as well as here in the British Isles, has no conception of that whatsoever. In many churches in America where children are still brought to church, there is the silly and altogether sinful practice of the minister calling all the children to the front of church before the service. He then sets all the children on the floor in front of him and he sits on the steps. He says to those children some empty, meaningless, nonsensical words. Then he says to the children, “Now you must go.” So some adult arises from the congregation and leads the children out of the church. That is wrong! That is not leading the children to Christ. That is leading the children away from Christ.

There is a beautiful incident recorded for us in the last chapter of the gospel according to John. You recall how Peter had denied his Lord. The sin of denying his Lord was such a great sin that Peter had made it impossible for him to function any longer as a disciple or later on as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. He had, by his sin of denying the Lord, cut himself off from the Lord. In a very moving scene, the Lord restores Peter to his office of apostle. And among the instructions He gives to Peter, the apostle who is now restored to office, is this: “Feed my lambs” (John 21:15). That is a command given to the apostles. And because it is given to the apostles, it is given to the church built on the foundation of the apostles. The words of Christ still ring down the centuries of time to the church of Jesus Christ today: “Feed my lambs.”

If you want to speak, as you must, of keeping covenant in the church, begin there. Feed Christ’s lambs. Christ wills it, Christ commands it. Christ makes a special point of it when He gives His orders to the church of the new dispensation through the apostles.

What a horrible thing it is, therefore, to refuse to feed the lambs of Christ. Why feed them? Because they are lambs. Because they belong to the sheepfold, they as well as adults. It reminds us of Isaiah 40:11 : “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.”

Such care begins with baptism. Baptism feeds the lambs. Baptism is the sign of the covenant. Baptism is a sign of the fact, therefore, that God is pleased to establish His covenant with believers and their seed. It is a marvellous sign that has taken the place of circumcision. It is a sign that demonstrates to us in a vivid way that our children are washed in the blood of Christ even as we are. They are incorporated by the blood of Christ into God’s everlasting covenant of grace.

I am not prepared to say with any kind of certainty whether a child at the moment it is being baptized is already receptive in some small measure to the means of grace that God has provided for the church in the sacraments. But I do know this, that in the heart of that child is the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ unites that child to Christ. That Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ has powers that are beyond any earthly imagining. Any pastor who is faithful in his visitation of the sick and of the dying knows with certainty that the evidence of spiritual life can be present in a sick person when all evidences of natural life are gone except for a shallow breathing. The Spirit can do what we cannot. So it can be with a baby. A child is influenced by being in church, by the singing of the Psalms, by the word of the minister, by the fellowship of the people of God. Keeping covenant means to feed Christ’s lambs.

But the church has other responsibilities.

Any mother knows that her baby needs the healthiest of foods. No mother is going to be satisfied with watery gruel to feed that baby, but she wants the best and richest milk. No mother is going to feed that baby a bottle that is laced with arsenic. A mother is careful to give her baby that which will nourish that child. Can covenant parents be satisfied with anything less, for the children of the covenant, than the true food that feeds the soul?

In the baptism form that is used in our churches, this question is put to parents before the sacrament of baptism is administered: “Whether you acknowledge the doctrine which is contained in the Old and New Testament, and in the articles of the Christian faith, and which is taught here in this Christian Church, to be the true and perfect doctrine of salvation?” To put it in the figure in which the Bible itself puts it, parents are asked, “Do you promise to feed this child with the only food that will nourish that child’s soul?” A doctor would not send a baby home with its mother if the doctor had any suspicion whatever that that mother was going to starve the child. The church has the same interest in her children and insists that parents promise and vow before God, “We will see that this child is fed with the only food that can feed and nourish the soul of that child unto everlasting life.”

That vow they may not break. The church is responsible for feeding that child. The church is responsible for the religious, spiritual edification of the children. Children must be brought to church and must be kept in the sanctuary. We often underestimate the ability of a child to understand the sermon. Sometimes children, little children, pre-school children, amaze me with what they heard in a sermon and what they understood. Parents have an obligation to bring their children to church and teach them to listen to the sermon.

In a congregation I once served, mothers took their babies to church the moment they were able to come to church themselves. Sometimes there were four or five babies in the auditorium. There was nowhere for the mothers to go if the baby started to cry, so they stayed in the auditorium. They asked me once, “Does it bother you when you have two or three squalling babies in church?” Well, I suppose maybe it does. I don’t know, I don’t recall exactly. One can block it out. But I’d much rather have them be there than that mothers keep them home until parents think they can sit still in church at six or seven or eight years old.

This does not just mean that you take your child to church and park it on a chair and let it sit there and hope it goes to sleep so that it will not disturb the rest of the congregation. You teach that child what it means to listen. You teach that child what the minister is preaching on before the service. You teach that child what he has to listen for. You teach that child that this is the Word of God. You teach that child to know as much as it possibly can of what the minister is saying. The results will surprise you. It is my conviction and my experience that parents underestimate the spiritual abilities of children to understand.

Nevertheless, the church is aware that little children cannot understand the full doctrines that are being proclaimed from the pulpit as the minister preaches the whole counsel of God. And so the church prepares catechetical instruction for the children. The church does this. Sunday School is not enough. I do not want to leave the wrong impression. I have no objection to Sunday School in itself. But the church has a responsibility, the church established by Christ has a calling in the covenant to feed the lambs, as part of its official ministry.

Catechetical instruction has fallen on bad times. In most churches it has disappeared altogether. And where catechetical instruction is still practiced, it is often begun at twelve or thirteen years old, when the best seven or eight years of a child’s life have been missed.

Even if catechetical instruction is started when children are five or six years old, some ministers, seemingly too busy, give their catechism work a lick and a promise. Oh, they are only children. We can wing it in catechism. Nobody will ever know.” This will not do. It is as important to prepare instruction for the children as it is to prepare a sermon for the Lord’s Day. Any minister with any conscientious awareness of his calling has those words of Christ ringing in his ears: Feed My lambs! He painstakingly leads them through the Scriptures, first through the sacred history of the church, the history of God’s covenant, God’s mighty deeds; and then gradually he introduces them to the great truths of the Reformed faith. He does that as a minister of the gospel, as a servant of Christ in the church, as an officebearer fulfilling the church’s responsibility, until those children come to spiritual maturity and can take their place in the church.

Let me say one more thing about that, something that I consider important. The children of a congregation are the responsibility of the congregation. When the parents present their children for baptism and answer “Yes” to the questions that are put to them, the point is that the parents assume primary responsibility to teach their children the ways of the Lord. But the whole congregation joins with the parents and says resoundingly, though in their hearts, “Yes, we assume the responsibility for the covenant instruction of these lambs of Christ!” You must never forget that. We may not ignore our responsibility towards the children in the church. We may not say, “Oh, that’s the parents’ business; let them take care of it.” The church that does not heed this calling of Christ suffers, and will suffer, because of its indifference to the instruction of its children. That is where keeping God’s covenant begins.

Keeping God’s covenant in the church means also what Paul says in Ephesians 4:3, “Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” That word “endeavouring” could perhaps be interpreted as meaning “striving with all your might, laboring night and day, dedicating yourself to the task of keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Let me call your attention to a couple of elements. In the first place, notice verse 1: “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” Paul formulates this admonition in this fashion because he wants to remind the Ephesians that he is a prisoner in Rome and that it is more than likely that his life on earth is near its end. He is saying, in effect, to the Ephesians, “Now that I have just about come to the end of my earthly ministry in the church of Christ, as a prisoner awaiting execution, if there is one thing more than any other that I want to admonish you to do, it is this: strive to keep the unity of the Spirit.”

Second, it is clear that Paul is speaking here of the church institute. He is assuming that the people of God who keep covenant are members of the church. We say we face problems here in the British Isles in establishing the church institute in its purest form. Do you think Paul had no problems in establishing the church institute on his missionary journeys throughout Asia Minor and Greece and Italy? Nevertheless, he assumed that those to whom he writes are members of the church. And now he is saying, “As members of the church, because the church is the means whereby God establishes and maintains His covenant with His people, strive to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Third, Paul means that the church of our Lord Jesus Christ is at the very heart and centre of our lives. I underscore that because, in today’s world, even those who belong to the church have a very loose attitude toward the church. They are what I call ecclesiastical hobos. They move from one church to the other without giving it a second thought. They come to a church, maybe even a Reformed church where the gospel is fully preached, and they say, “Ah, we found it at last. Here is a church that preaches and holds to the Reformed faith.” With eagerness in their heart they join. But within six months or a year, the man, who is working for such and such a company, receives orders from his superiors, “You are being transferred to such and such a town. And we will double your salary and pay for your moving expenses.” Before you can even realize what is happening, he has ordered a moving van. You say to him, if you can catch him before he leaves town, “Is there a church there?” “I don’t know, I’ll find somewhere to go,” is his response. And off he goes with a wave of his hand. That is not the attitude of one who keeps covenant towards the church. This is the church where God is realizing His everlasting covenant of grace. That means that this church, to which I belong, where my children and where I myself and my wife can be fed, where I can be defended from the fierce attacks of the enemy, where I can be preserved by the almighty grace of God through the preaching of the gospel, is the church that is at the very centre and heart of my life.

Nothing is so important as my church. Without that I have nothing. And so the entire life that the believer lives revolves around the welfare of the church. That is where his heart is. That is the object of his love. For that church he continually prays. On behalf of the unity of that church he will do anything.

So often our attitude towards the church is one of selfishness. We go to church on Sunday and we sit there. Maybe we are in a foul mood. Maybe we are sleepy or tired. We leave church and say, “I don’t know what is the matter with that minister, but this was rubbish that we had this morning and I didn’t understand anything of it. It is far above my head. And I didn’t get anything out of the service.” Well, as frequently as not, the answer to that kind of complaint is this: You don’t go to church for your own benefit in the first place. This is the church of Christ, where God is praised and glorified, where God establishes and maintains His covenant. The whole church does not revolve around whether you are edified or not. If you are, that is good. You must be. If you take a proper attitude towards the preaching of the word, you will be. And if you dedicate yourself to the church, blessings will flow to you and to your family. But it is not all about you. It is not a personal matter that involves your own personal feelings and judgments. It is the church; it is the cause of God and of Christ. It is the cause of His covenant, which is far, far greater and far more important than your personal edification or mine. In other words, to keep covenant in the church means that we set ourselves to the side, in the interests of the welfare of the church of Jesus Christ and its glorious and mighty calling in the midst of the world, that God’s covenant may continue with us and with our seed, and that the church may be gathered, the elect brought into the fellowship of the body of Christ, and God’s covenant realized.

The church is your mother. If you cannot find your mother where you live, you must look for mother, or you are an ecclesiastical orphan. Mother carries us in her womb. Mother comes close to death in bringing us to birth. Mother feeds and nourishes us as the lambs of Christ with that true heavenly bread. Mother disciplines us when we grow a little older and our footsteps stray, because mother loves us. Mother keeps us safe. Mother protects us from the bullies that roam the streets. Mother will see to it that no harm befalls us. We are defended and protected by mother. Mother will, if we submit ourselves to her rule in keeping covenant, bring us to spiritual maturity, when mother will say to us, “Now you yourself are ready to become a responsible part of the church, to raise your own covenant family, that the covenant may be continued with you and with your seed.” If you love God’s covenant, love the church.

Chapter 3

Keeping God's Covenant in Marriage

P r o f. David J. Engelsma

Scripture: I Corinthians 7:1-17, 39 ; Malachi 2:11-17

Introduction

God Himself emphasizes that right behavior on the part of His people in marriage is an important aspect of our keeping the covenant. He emphasizes this when He makes marriage the outstanding symbol of His covenant with us. Throughout the Old Testament, for example, Jeremiah 3 and Ezekiel 16 , God teaches that He is married to Israel/Judah. In Isaiah 54:5, 6 , God is called Judah’s husband, and Judah is called Jehovah’s wife. In the New Testament, Ephesians 5:22ff . teaches that God is the husband of the church in Jesus Christ. God’s spiritual marriage to the church is the covenant.

If marriage is nothing less than the symbol of the covenant, our behavior in marriage is certainly an important part of our keeping the covenant. We are called to show the truth of the covenant in our marriage.

God emphasizes the importance of our behavior in marriage also by making the behavior of Christ and the church in the covenant the pattern of the behavior of the Christian husband and wife. This is the teaching of Ephesians 5:22ff . The Christian husband is commanded to behave towards his wife as Christ behaves towards the church, and the Christian wife is commanded to behave towards her husband as the church behaves towards Christ. The comparison implies that the covenant of God in Christ—the real and everlasting marriage—must be evident in our marriage. So closely are covenant and marriage connected in the life of most of us.

There is still a third way in which God emphasizes the importance of our conduct in marriage with regard to keeping the covenant. Ordinarily, God uses our marriages to bring forth and rear children who, by His election, are members of the covenant of grace. The covenant promise is always to believers and their children. Right behavior in marriage promotes the covenant by benefiting those members of the covenant who are the children of believers. Behaving rightly in our marriage, we are obedient to Christ, who said, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God” ( Luke 18:16 ).

There is also the obvious emphasis in the Bible on proper conduct in marriage as covenant keeping in that so many passages are exhortations, warnings, or instruction concerning marriage.

Transgressing the Covenant

We must be aware, as we consider this aspect of our calling to keep the covenant, of the powerful pressures on Christians to transgress the covenant by corrupting marriage. There is such development of rebellion against God in the West that not only is marriage dishonored by open, shameless fornication and by divorce and remarriage at whim, but society also approves homo-sexual unions. States are sanctioning such unions as “marriages.”

There is such lawlessness in churches that most, including those with a name for orthodoxy and conservatism, tolerate, if they do not approve, divorce for any reason and subsequent remarriage. This lecture will not be polemical. My intention is to be positive in setting forth what the Bible teaches on the great covenant truth of marriage. But I observe at the outset that there are very few churches any longer that even restrict remarriage after divorce to the “innocent party.” In the practice of most supposedly conservative churches, remarried guilty parties are accepted as members and received at the Lord’s Table.

God’s faithful covenant friends are called to keep the covenant in marriage in a time when there is such widespread sexual promiscuity, such encouragement of the gratification of sexual desire outside marriage, and such exaltation of the goddess Sex as tend to destroy the institution of marriage altogether. In such societal, religious, and moral darkness, the call comes to the saints: “But fornication, and all uncleanness … let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints” ( Eph. 5:3 ). A little later, in the same chapter, the Spirit calls us to conduct ourselves rightly in marriage, which He describes as the mystery of Christ and the church ( Eph. 5:22-33 ).

Before I take up the subject of keeping the covenant in marriage, I must recognize that some Christians are called to keep the covenant outside marriage, that is, in single life. I Corinthians 7:7-9, 25ff. allows this, if one has the gift of sexual self-control, so that he does not “burn.” Others are prevented by God from living in marriage, as I Corinthians 7:11 notes. A woman separated from her husband because of his adultery must remain single, or be reconciled to her husband.

Single life is perfectly honorable. The unmarried can more fully devote themselves to the Lord. Marriage for all its importance is of no permanent significance. It is a passing institution and relation: “they that have wives b