God's Covenantal Promise (4)

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.

I have a few more remarks to make about this passage before I leave it. Perhaps some will say that an inordinate amount of time was spent on it; but my defense is that it is a significant and beautiful passage, and indeed a word of God that plays a major role in the whole Biblical doctrine of the covenant.

It must be emphasized that Peter is saying here that the children of believers are also heirs of God's covenant promises as well as believers themselves.

That means that God saves children. He saves His elect children, to be sure; but He saves children-infants if you will. And Scripture gives some indication of the fact that God even saves already before birth - as He saved Jeremiah and John the Baptist. This is God's ordinary way of working in the lines of the covenant.

If the gospel is preached on the mission field and through the gospel God's elect are gathered, they are to be baptized with their children, for the promise is to them and their children. That is Peter's clear word.

This principle that God saves believers and their children, is a principle of the entire new dispensation. This is taught clearly by Peter when he speaks of the promise being also to them that "are afar off."

The idea is not that three classes of people are mentioned here: 1) believers; 2) their children; and )3 those that are afar off. The meaning is rather that the same principle that believers and their children are the heirs of the promise is applied throughout our entire dispensation.

Wherever the gospel is preached throughout the whole world and whenever during the 2000+ years before the Lord comes back, the gospel is preached, the same will be true: The promise will be to believers and their children. This is the way it was in the OT; this way in which God works is not altered in the new dispensation.

We who believe may confidently know that our children are also the heirs of the promise. What a blessing that is.

But one more remark is added by Peter: "even as many as the Lord our God shall call." We must inquire as to the meaning of this.

Well, first of all it is clear that Peter refers to those who are called in the same way as those in Peter's audience have been called. Through Peter's sermon God had called His own. The result of that call was that they had cried out in consternation: What shall we do? Always God calls in this way. The fruit of the call is always a consciousness of sin. This is important, for only those who know they are sinners will know their need of the cross, and will flee to that cross.

Secondly, it is clear that the efficacious call of the gospel is meant here. It is the same call mentioned so often in Scripture. It is the call of Isaiah 55:1-2. It is the call of Jesus in Mt. 11:28. It is the call of which Jesus speaks in John 6:44. It is the irresistible call by which God gathers His church.

That call comes to the elect only, for "whom he did predestinate, them he also called" (Rom. 8:30). It is a particular call, sovereignly efficacious, accomplishing its purpose - even though it comes through the external call of the gospel which is preached to all men. And, let it be understood, it is the call which comes to believers and their seed.

Again, the Baptists in their efforts to escape the clear teaching of this passage, want to read the passage as if it said: "Although the promise is to you and to your children, it is only to your children when they are no longer children, because as children they cannot respond to the call of the gospel." That surely is a strange way to read the text. But it is a wrong way.

By this limitation, therefore, Peter means two things. He means in the first place that only the elect are heirs of the promise. The elect are the called ones, and they are the ones to whom the promise is given.

It means in the second place that the calling is the way in which God makes His elect heirs of the promise. When they are efficaciously called, they are given the promise. What a wonderful truth! They are overwhelmed with the consciousness of their sin, and cry out, What shall we do? God speaks to them of Christ and His work, and brings them to repentance. Hearing the promises of the gospel, they apply those promises to themselves and lay hold by faith on what God says, "Surely blessing I will bless thee…."

Do you say, Yes, but children cannot do that?

I say, How do you know that? Scripture tells us: "Except ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of God."

God calls them too. He calls them in earliest infancy. He calls them through the preaching, through baptism, through the songs and prayers of the church, through covenant instruction in the home, through all the means of grace which they come under.

Yes, He calls them according to the measure of their understanding. So be it. But He calls them. And so they too learn to lay hold on the promises of God which are for them. For God saves believers and their seed.