“Every sabbath he shall set it in order before the LORD continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.”
(Leviticus 24:8)
God’s everlasting covenant with His people teaches us that what He sets apart to Himself is to be regarded according to His own appointment. Under the old administration, for example, priests, the Sabbath, the tabernacle, its vessels, and the people marked by circumcision were sanctified in the sense of being set apart for holy use. This holiness did not always indicate saving grace, but rather a covenantal relationship established by God.
This distinction is important when considering even the children of believers. Scripture speaks of a holiness belonging to the children of believers. This does not mean that every child is inwardly regenerated and justified. Rather, it signifies a federal holiness: they belong outwardly to the covenant community and within the covenant administration established by God.
For example, God’s covenant with Abraham plainly included his seed. God promised to establish His covenant not only with Abraham but with his children after him, to be God to him and to his seed. The apostolic declaration that “the promise is unto you, and to your children” shows the continuing significance of the covenant relation of believing parents and their children.
Moreover, the unbelief of one parent does not cancel what God grants through the believing parent. The covenant promise is not made void by the unbelief of the other party. Hence the children are called holy, not because the unbelieving parent possesses saving grace, but because the covenant standing of the believing parent extends to the children in this relationship God has appointed.
Christ’s reception of little children also confirms that children are not to be regarded as strangers to His kingdom. When they were brought to Him, He forbade His disciples from hindering them and declared that of such is the kingdom of heaven. Whatever distinctions must be made concerning inward saving grace, Christ nevertheless owned them as belonging within the sphere of His gracious kingdom.
The sign of the everlasting covenant therefore follows the divine acknowledgment of those whom God owns. Under the old covenant, the infant seed received circumcision because they were inside the covenant. Under the new covenant, the children of believers are likewise to receive the covenant sign of baptism to represent God’s covenant promise and His claim upon the children of His people. Believing parents should therefore plead the promise, seek the grace signified, and pray that covenant privileges may result in true faith, holiness, and salvation.
Contemplations:
- Teach Me to Take Your Covenant Seriously. You have never treated covenant signs and covenant relationships as insignificant, but what You set apart is to be regarded according to Your own appointment. Let me neither confuse outward covenant standing with inward regeneration nor reduce covenant privilege to something meaningless.
- Help Me Plead Your Promise for My Children. You have said that Your covenant extends to believers and their seed. Teach me to bring that promise before You with humility and faith. Keep me from presumption, and help me pray for my children as among those whom You have outwardly set within the covenant community, asking that Your grace may be powerfully wrought in them.
- Do Not Let Covenant Privilege Become Empty Formality. A covenant sign without the inward grace it signifies cannot save. Therefore make me earnest in prayer. Cause the realities represented in covenant baptism—cleansing, union with Christ, forgiveness, renewal, and belonging to Your people—to be manifested truly in those who bear the sign.
- Make Me Faithful in Raising Those You Have Set Apart. Keep me from raising my children as though they were strangers to Your Word, worship, promises, and ordinances. Rather help me bring them continually under the means of grace and teach them to seek the God whose covenant name has been placed upon them.
Prayer (Supplication):
Covenant-keeping God, teach me to honor what You have appointed and to take seriously the covenant privileges You have given to Your people and their children.
Keep me from confusing outward holiness with inward regeneration, but keep me also from treating covenant standing as insignificant. You have appointed signs, ordinances, and promises according to Your wisdom, and I ask for grace to receive them according to Your Word.
Help me plead Your covenant promises for the children of believers. I know that outward privilege does not save, so let me ask earnestly that You grant the inward grace signified by the outward seal.
Where baptism marks a child as belonging outwardly to the covenant community, bring that child to true repentance, faith, holiness, and perseverance so that the sign never remains without the saving reality.
Make Christian parents faithful. Give them seriousness in teaching, praying, correcting, encouraging, and bringing their children under the ordinary means of grace.
Where one parent believes and the other does not, preserve confidence in Your own covenant appointment. Let unbelief in one not erase the privilege You grant through the believing parent.
Above all, cause those outwardly set apart to become inwardly sanctified by Your Spirit.
Make covenant privilege lead to deeper prayer, greater responsibility, and stronger hope in Your faithfulness.
In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Further Scripture References:
Num. 4:7; Psalm 105:10; Ezek. 20:13; Heb. 13:20
