It is common for Reformed theologians today to equate the members of God’s covenant with those whom God elected for salvation in eternity past. In other words, they equate covenant membership with election. Only those who are elect by God for salvation are members of God’s covenant.
This is the position of Reformed Baptists, who hold that only those who give evidence of election (by professing faith) are in covenant with God. It is for this reason that Reformed Baptists reject infant baptism, seeing no reason to give the covenant sign to those who are not demonstrating faith.
However, there are also some Reformed infant baptists who equate covenant membership and election. Yet this puts them in a tough position, since it is clear that not all baptized children of Christians prove themselves to be elect. It is indisputable that Reformed infant baptists administer the covenant sign of baptism to at least some non-elect persons. So what are they to do?
Infant baptist Abraham Kuyper (who equated covenant and election) sought to solve this problem with his doctrine of presumptive regeneration, which presumes children of believers to be elect and regenerate and thus in the covenant. (This was a common view among the early Reformed but soon became a minority position.) Kuyper held that it is on this ground that the children of believers are to be given the covenant sign of baptism.[1] But if a baptized child apostatizes and dies an unbeliever, Kuyper held that such a child was not elect and was thus never actually in covenant with God.
Most infant baptists today (Presbyterian and Reformed alike) reject presumptive regeneration as the grounds for infant baptism. However, this raises the question asked by Reformed Baptists—if a child born to believing parents is not actually in the covenant (nor is he or she presumed to be in the covenant as regenerate), then what is the basis for baptizing the child? I would argue that there is none—and that equating covenant membership and election actually undermines infant baptism.
This is why infant baptists who equate covenant and election often use unbiblical language to describe baptized infants, saying they are “under the sphere of the covenant” or “in the shadow of the covenant.” They know they need to somehow link baptism with the covenant, but they do not want to go so far as to say that all baptized children are in God’s covenant. Reformed Baptists are at least consistent in this regard. They recognize that there is no reason to give the covenant sign to someone who is not a member of the covenant.
Distinguishing Covenant and Election
Alternatively, there is a historic Reformed view of the covenant that is consistent with infant baptism and actually provides the proper grounds for such a practice. This position distinguishes between covenant membership and election, holding that not all covenant members are decretally elect unto salvation. In this case, there are both elect and non-elect persons in the covenant (e.g. Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau).
The promises and threats of the covenant are made to all its members—the elect will keep covenant and receive its saving promises through faith, while the non-elect will break covenant through unbelief. The reality of covenant breaking, which is taught throughout the Old Testament (Genesis 17:14; Deuteronomy 31:16-21) and in the book of Hebrews, necessitates such a distinction between covenant and election. Not all Israel is of Israel (Romans 9:6).
This position recognizes that only the elect partake of all the saving benefits promised in the covenant (the point Reformed Baptists want to stress), but it also recognizes Scripture’s teaching that God makes His covenant with both believers and their children. Just as Abraham’s offspring were in the covenant by birth (Genesis 17:7), the children of believers are also born into the new covenant. These covenant children are to therefore receive the covenant sign of baptism.
Of course, covenant children must receive the covenant blessings through faith in Christ (Romans 4:5; Galatians 3:7), and those who fail to do so apostatize by breaking the covenant. Hebrews 10:29 speaks of the person who “profanes the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified.” This position guards us from a view of the covenant that is dominated by election. God has not revealed to us who are elect for salvation, but He has revealed to us who is in His covenant (Deuteronomy 29:29).
Unfortunately, many Reformed people today hear this language and associate it with the controversial group known as the Federal Vision. But the distinction between covenant and election is actually a common position in the Reformed tradition, held by theologians such as Herman Bavinck,[2] Geerhardus Vos,[3] Klaas Schilder,[4] and Louis Berkhof.[5] They held to what is called the dual aspect of the covenant.
The dual aspect of the covenant means that in one sense the covenant is made with believers and their children, but in another sense only the elect partake of the covenant benefits. Bavinck spoke of “external” and “internal” sides of the covenant, though Vos and Schilder did not like this language. Vos distinguished between the covenant as a purely “legal relationship” and the covenant as a “communion of life,” while Schilder used the terms “legal aspect” and “vital aspect” of the covenant. Berkhof also adopted this legal and vital distinction.[6] In this case, believers and their children are legally bound by the covenant, but it is only the regenerate who are in living communion with Christ.
The Reformed Confessions on Covenant Children
The position that the children of believers are members of God’s covenant should not be controversial in Reformed circles. It was not only a common view of many Dutch Reformed theologians, but it was also the position of the Reformed confessions, both the Three Forms of Unity (Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dort) and the Westminster Standards (Westminster Confession of Faith, Larger Catechism, Shorter Catechism).
The Three Forms of Unity clearly show that baptized children are members of God’s covenant:
Are infants also to be baptized? Yes: for since they, as well as the adult, are included in the covenant and church of God; and since redemption from sin by the blood of Christ, and the Holy Ghost, the author of faith, is promised to them no less than to the adult; they must therefore by baptism, as a sign of the covenant, be also admitted into the christian church; and be distinguished from the children of unbelievers as was done in the old covenant or testament by circumcision, instead of which baptism is instituted in the new covenant (Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 74).
The children of believers are holy, not by nature but by virtue of the gracious covenant in which they together with their parents are included (Canons of Dort I.17).
The Westminster Standards are more difficult, as we see that Westminster Larger Catechism Q&A 31 does say that the covenant is made with the elect: “With whom was the covenant of grace made? The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed.” This has caused some confusion, for if that is all a person were to read, he would end up equating covenant and election.
But notice that WLC Q&A 166 also says that baptized children are in the covenant:
Unto whom is baptism to be administered? Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, and so strangers from the covenant of promise, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him, but infants descending from parents, either both, or but one of them, professing faith in Christ, and obedience to him, are in that respect within the covenant, and are to be baptized.
The Westminster Standards therefore employ a dual aspect of the covenant. This distinction is seen particularly in the language of the “visible” and “invisible” church. The “visible” church is equated with the covenant, while the “invisible” church is equated with the elect:
Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible Church; but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in the newness of life. Which sacrament is, by Christ’s own appointment, to be continued in His Church until the end of the world (WCF 28.1; cf. WLC Q&A 165).
What is the visible church? The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world do profess the true religion, and of their children (WLC Q&A 62).
What is the invisible church? The invisible church is the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one under Christ the head (WLC Q&A 64)
It becomes clear that the Reformed confessions, both the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards, require a view that distinguishes between covenant and election. Baptized children are truly members of God’s covenant, though they must come to faith in Christ in order to partake of the promises made in the covenant. Not all in the covenant are elect.
The Federal Vision
I mentioned above that the distinction between covenant and election is often associated with the views of the Federal Vision. It should be clear by now that such a charge requires ignorance of both the Reformed confessions and the views of significant Reformed theologians. Of course, there are some similarities between the view advocated here and that of some members of the now-defunct Federal Vision, but Reformed theologians should be able to recognize the differences.
The Federal Vision was a loose affiliation of Reformed pastors and theologians that came together in 2002 for a conference called the Auburn Avenue Conference. But what makes discussing the Federal Vision so difficult is that its advocates differed on a wide range of issues. Many of them advocated the position that distinguishes between covenant and election, speaking of the “objectivity” of the covenant into which the children of believers are baptized (e.g. Douglas Wilson).
But some of them took this theology much further. Steve Wilkins, for example, applied soteriological language to all covenant members, including apostates. He therefore spoke of baptized children as having union with Christ and being elect, regenerate, justified, and adopted. Speaking of covenant children, Wilkins said, “The covenant is union with Christ. Thus, being in covenant gives all the blessings of being united to Christ.”[7]
But Wilkins is sloppy in his use of language regarding apostates. He fails to make important distinctions within the covenant between the elect and non-elect. Yes, apostates partake of some covenant blessings, and in some sense they do experience election and union with Christ. But the election is merely a corporate election, as with Old Testament Israel, not a decretal election to salvation made by God before the foundations of the earth (Ephesians 1:4). The apostate’s union with Christ is legal, not vital and saving.
I too believe that covenant members can break God’s covenant. But that does not require that passages such as John 15:1-6, Romans 11:11-32, Hebrews 6:4-6, and Hebrews 10:26-31 be read to mean that covenant members enjoy full union with Christ outside of faith. Not all in the covenant are of the covenant (Romans 9:6), and those who apostatize clearly show they did not possess the persevering faith that flows from vital union with Christ.
Conclusion
In summary, the Bible requires us to make a distinction between covenant and election. This is the only way to account for covenant breaking and apostasy in Scripture (Genesis 17:14; Hebrews 10:29). This distinction also provides a consistent paradigm for the practice of infant baptism. God’s covenant is made with both believers and their children, and it is on this ground that such infants are baptized.
But covenant members must receive the covenant blessings through faith in Christ. If they fail to do so, they break the covenant and prove themselves to be non-elect. This dual aspect theology may be found among some former advocates of the Federal Vision, but it is not to be equated with their views. Rather, this distinction between covenant and election has a strong witness by both the Reformed confessions and some of the greatest theologians in the Reformed tradition.
[1] J. Mark Beach, “Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, and ‘The Conclusions of Utrecht 1905,’” Mid-America Journal of Theology 19 (2008), 41: “Kuyper’s views on the fourth issue, namely assumed regeneration (onderstelde wedergeboorte)—often translated as presumed or presumptive regeneration—had to do principally with the ground for infant baptism. Kuyper argued that a principal ground for administering the sacrament of baptism to the infants of believers is that we may assume their regeneration on the strength of God’s promise to them.”
[2] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics (transl. John Vriend; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006), 3:231-232: “It is self-evident, therefore, that the covenant of grace will temporarily—in its earthly administration and dispensation—also include those who remain inwardly unbelieving and do not share in the covenant’s benefits . . . Though not of the covenant, they are in the covenant.”
[3] Anthony Hoekema, “The Christian Reformed Church and the Covenant,” in Perspectives on the Christian Reformed Church: Studies in Its History, Theology, and Ecumenicity (eds. Peter De Klerk and Richard De Ridder; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1983), 185-201. Hoekema shows the similarities between Geerhardus Vos, Foppe Ten Hoor, Louis Berkhof, and William Hendriksen regarding the covenant, in contrast to the views of Abraham Kuyper and John Van Lonkhuyzen. Van Lonkhuyzen followed Kuyper in equating covenant with election, a move away from the Reformers: “Van Lonkhuyzen was one among others who saw the covenant of grace as including only the [elect]. This conception, in which the doctrine of the covenant of grace is dominated by the doctrine of election, was not found in the Reformers, but has been influential in the churches of Reformed persuasion since the seventeenth century” (191-192).
[4] J. Geertsema, ed., Always Obedient: Essays on the Teaching of Dr. Klaas Schilder (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1995), 19-31.
[5] See the chapter “The Dual Aspect of the Covenant,” in Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 284-289.
[6] Nelson Kloosterman, “For the Sake of Accuracy: Berkhof, Schilder, and the Legal/Vital Distinction,” Christian Renewal 25/15 (May 2, 2007): 26-27. This article demonstrates agreement between the positions of Vos, Schilder, and Berkhof.
[7] E. Calvin Beisner, ed., The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros & Cons (Fort Lauderdale, FL: Knox Theological Seminary, 2004), 262.