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God's Covenantal Promise (3)

Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. - Acts 2:38-39.

For two issues now we have been discussing this passage in Acts 2. In the last issue I was concentrating on vs. 39, and particularly the question: What is the promise of God?

I pointed out that our clearest discussion of that question is found in Heb. 6:13-20. There God's promise is said to be an oath. God did not have to swear an oath, according to Heb. 6. In fact, it really should not have been necessary, for God had determined in His counsel to save His people; that counsel is immutable; that should have been enough.

But God is merciful to His people. He understands how weak our faith is and how easily we doubt. And so, as a merciful concession to our weakness, God adds to His immutable counsel an oath which He swears so that "by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us" (vs. 18).

We must, however, not only consider God's promise from a formal point of view, but we must also ask the question: what are the contents of the promise? What is it that He promises?

The answer to that question, according to Heb. 6, is: "Blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee." Now there are a few things about that too which we have to notice.

In the first place, that promise as defined in Heb. 6:14 is a quotation from Gen. 22:16-17. It was God's promise to Abraham.

In the second place, that very promise is God's promise to us as well. We must not say as the Baptists do that Abraham had his own promises pertaining to Israel's national life, earthly Canaan, and the natural seed of the Jews; while the promises to us are different. This is nonsense, and a complete distortion of the passage in Heb. 6. The text switches from a promise made to Abraham to a discussion of the heirs of the promise (vs. 17) whom he defines as being the saints in the new dispensation - "we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us…." It is all the same. God's promise is to Abraham and all the heirs of the promise, and those heirs include us.

Thus the promise "and multiplying I will multiply thee" was made not only to Abraham, but also to us. God will give Abraham a mighty seed. God will also give us a mighty seed.

Does this mean that God promises His people that they will have large families of eight or nine or ten children? Of course not. It means that God will give to His people the true seed of the covenant in their children. If it does not mean that, it makes no sense at all.

For Abraham and Israel it meant that Christ would be born of their line. It meant that in Christ, the true seed of Abraham would be saved (see Rom. 2:28-29). It means for us that that host which no man can number, greater than the sand of the sea, will be taken from our children and children's children.

So we must go back to Acts 2:39.

That promise, Peter says, that oath which God swore, that He would bless and multiply His people, is given to us and to our children.

I suppose that the crucial question here is: What is meant by the words "is unto….?" Do these words mean that God is saying, I am giving you and your children a promise that I will fulfill if you on your part fulfill certain conditions, obligations, requirements, etc.? Is this what God is saying? So some would interpret it.

But God never says that in His promises. God didn't say that to Abraham, Peter did not say that to the Jews anxiously inquiring concerning their great sin. Peter did not say, "The promise is unto you and your children provided that you accept the promise." Peter did not even say, "The promise is unto you and your children provided you repent and be baptized." He told them to repent and be baptized because the promise was to them and their children. That is the force of the little word "for."

What Peter says is this: God gives His promise to you and your children. God not only objectively gives that promise, but God fulfills His promise to us and our children as well. God makes us and our children the heirs of the promise. God blesses us and our children and multiplies us and our children. Peter's words cannot be taken in any other way.

And that is why we and our children must be baptized, for baptism is the sign and seal of God's promise. Our children are heirs of the promise as well as we, and in the same sense as we are heirs.

What a wonderful truth proclaimed by Peter!

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Additional Info

  • Volume: 8
  • Issue: 5
Hanko, Herman

Prof. Herman Hanko (Wife: Wilma)

Ordained: October 1955

Pastorates: Hope, Walker, MI - 1955; Doon, IA - 1963; Professor to the Protestant Reformed Seminary - 1965

Emeritus: 2001

Website: www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?speakeronly=true&currsection=sermonsspeaker&keyword=Prof._Herman_Hanko

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