Those who came back under Ezra tended to be from those families that had come back in 538 B.C. (Ezra 2). Is there a principle here that would give encouragement and hope to parents? The message here seems to be that covenant faithfulness tends to run in families.
“Even over generations”, writes McConville, “particular families were to the fore in making the journey back to the land. Reading between the lines, we may discern an example of faith-in-action transmitted from generation to generation by families that took seriously their religious and educative duties.” (McConville, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, Daily Study Bible, 53).
This generational view of faith is tied to God’s Covenant of Redemption.
Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with every good thing to do His will. And may He accomplish in us what is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen, (Hebrews 13:20)
In this covenant (we might also call it the Covenant of Grace), the Father sends the Son to pay for the redemption of His people, who brings it to pass through the work of the Spirit. This covenant includes the sum total of the promises made to Man from Adam to Christ.
The Old and New Covenants deal with how we are to respond or how, practically, we are to enter into this Covenant of Grace. First, it was always through faith. Paul did not invent the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith alone. • He got it from Genesis 15:6 and from Habbukuk 2:4.
Secondly, that faith was an obedient faith. It had content. Whether sacrifices and circumcision or Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, it was made evident through obedience. And so in all Covenants, it was futile to say you had the faith that saves if you did not do the things that faith demanded.
Back to families. What place does the family – in contrast with the church, the world or the individual – have in this Covenant of Redemption?
God has ordained the family as society’s most prominent government after the self-government of every man, and it is to the family, through a man as head, that the Covenant of Redemption is offered.
Though evident from Adam to Christ, the most well-known statement of the Covenant is found in Abraham. So, starting with Abraham, let’s work our way through the scriptures and read the terms of the Covenant and their repeated reference to the family.
And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. (Genesis 17:7-9)
These same promises are repeated and developed in passages such as Deuteronomy 7:9-13, Psalm 103:17-18, Jeremiah 32:39-40, Ezekiel 37: 24-25, Luke 18:15-16 and Acts 2:29.
Did any of these promises and demands change with the arrival of the New Covenant? No.
With the arrival of the New Covenant, God did not move from “you and your children” to, “every man for himself.” Parents who put their hope in God for their own salvation have ample warrant from scripture to put their hope in God for the salvation of their children – since – it is not their faith that saves either one, but the promise of God. Our faith is not in faith, “if I believe it will happen, it will happen”. Their faith is in a promise.
How, then, is a parent to exercise this faith in the promises of God? Under the Old Covenant, David said,
He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments (Psalm 78:5-7)
A parent with faith in the promises that God has made for his children will make use of the means. In the first instance, that means instruction. Deliberate, ongoing, clear instruction.
The instrument by which God brings about the salvation of children is, in the ordinary scheme of things, the parent. This is why, while children don’t suffer eternal hell on account of their parent’s sins, they do suffer for it.
Parents and grandparents are the ordinary instruments by which God works in a child’s life for judgement or mercy. A blunt knife cuts a crooked loaf. If parents do not instruct their children in the things of God, they ought not to be surprised when their children drift.
Abraham was told to bring every member of his household into the Covenant of Grace. Not just Isaac. Isaac had not even been born. Likewise, Children of believing parents are members of the Covenant.
What did Abraham do in Genesis 18 immediately after a busy day with the scalpel in Genesis 17? He and his family sat down to dinner with Jesus. Who were the Covenant members? All of those in his household.
Let’s put the question to the modern church: Is your child a Christian or a pagan? He is a Christian (1 Corinthians 7:14; Eph 6:4). This makes all the difference in the world to how you raise your children. Are they outside until they prove they should be in, or inside until they show by their actions that they should be put out?
According to Paul, our goal with our children is not conversion but Covenant nurture, “raising them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord…”.
Therefore, children of believing parents are members of the covenant. The fact of which should be acknowledged by baptism, which signifies their inclusion and opens the way for them to come to the table of the Lord in order to strengthen them as they grow in faith and spiritual understanding.
We create two problems for ourselves when we keep children from the covenant signs and seals. First, someone has to decide when they should come. Who gets to decide? On what basis? By what standard? Secondly, in the meantime, we may be teaching them to doubt.
Our children are not outsiders hoping to get in; they are insiders who enjoy the same blessings as every other Christian and come under the same conditions and discipline as any other Christian.
The larger community also bears responsibility, especially the task of equipping parents. Grandparents play a huge role here (2 Timothy 1:5), as do those called to teach (Zechariah 11:16-17). Moreover, parental disregard for the Covenant may be one of the reasons for ongoing unbelief in the child.
A man may be faithful in his calling as a man, but if he is not faithful in his calling as a father, his children will suffer for it (1 Samuel 2:29 and 3:10-13, 2 Samuel 11, 13, 1 Kings 1:6).
It is instructive that, so far as scripture speaks, the righteous kings of Israel typically had Hebrew mothers, and, in two cases, the identity of the kings’ mother as pagan is offered as an explanation for that king’s faithlessness (2 Chronicles 12:13-14; 22:2-4).
We must also acknowledge, however, that God can and does still act graciously in the face of unfaithful parents. Jonathan, Saul. Hezekiah and Manassah are all good examples.
The goal of parenting is not to convert your children. Nor is it to sit back and say, “Oh well, if they are elect, their in, and if not, theres’ nothing I can do”. That sort of thinking is unbiblical. We are not commanded to act on the basis of whether we know the secret counsel of God or not. The goal of parenting is to raise your children in the fear and knowledge of the Lord. Children of believing parents are to be welcomed into full fellowship among God’s people unless they show, by their rejection of the gospel, that they are unrepentant. At that point, they are disciplined as children of the Covenant.
What about believing parents with unbelieving children?
We can affirm that each child is accountable to God for his own sin and faithfulness to God (Ezekiel 18:14-20) and that to assign blame to parents or ministers, apart from the revelation of scripture, is a fruitless, unhelpful and hurtful mission given the complexity of the task and the fact that it cannot be proved.
Likewise, we can affirm that a parent will be accountable to God for their personal faithfulness, which includes parental faithfulness. We can also affirm that it would be unwise to prematurely judge the immediate wanderings of our children. We ought to encourage both parents and church to take the long view and seek God for the return of a prodigal son through diligent prayer and covenant obedience.
Finally, the Bible’s teaching of parental covenant nurture does not undermine the Sovereign Grace of God. People come to faith in Christ through the obedient messenger sent from God to declare the gospel (Romans 10:14-15). • The salvation of sinners does not ordinarily occur apart from the obedient messenger, yet the messenger remains an instrument of grace – nothing more.
Likewise, parents are the usual instrument by which their Covenant children come to faith in Christ, whether before, during or sometime after birth (cf. Psalm 22:9; Luke 1:41).
The connection between faithful nurture and Covenantal faithfulness is one of the grand themes of Proverbs. • The Covenantal name ‘Yahweh’ is used throughout to demonstrate the book’s immersion in Covenantal life (Proverbs 2:1-21; 14:26; 19:18, 22:6, 15; 23:13-14).
This wonderful teaching of God is given as an encouragement to believing parents. The overwhelming majority of Christians in the church today come from believing parents, compared to those who have become Christians without believing parents.
This should greatly encourage all parents seeking to raise their children in Christ. Your faith in God’s gracious promises for yourselves and your children – and the obedience that follows from that faith – are not in vain.
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