Boanerges said:
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
(1Co 13:11 ESV)
My name is Covenant Calvinist, a good friend of Crib Calvinist. Yes, I am a Presby now and my good friend still a Reformed Baptist. I was sitting here thinking through my infant years and discovered some startling facts.
As a covenant child, though I was not a member of the invisible Church, I realized that God (as the ruler of His Kingdom and covenant) was still operating in my life. See, He had that right, because I was a member of His covenantal family. Though I was a dirty stranger in a clean country, He kept me when I did not deserve keeping. He had His covenant representatives (my parents and Church) train me up in His Kingdom precepts, which I had an obligation to learn and apply. I came to know I was suppose to worship God in spirit and truth. But, I was growing up in a Kingdom that I was not worthy to belong to
in any form. I kept failing over and over. I was attempting to do everything in my own strength. I was a failure. What’s more everyone around me knew it. What I called fun, they called sin.
Then the Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the Word, began to put it all together for me. I could look back at my baptism and see where God had put me in covenant with Him early on. This meant that God had a responsibility to me and I to Him. Though this did not guarantee my salvation, it still put certain obligations upon both of us (me and God that is). God and His people were faithful to train me up and love me though I did not deserve it. See I learned that God was faithful to His covenant, though I was not. God took time out to be faithful just to me.
As time went on, I realized that God had kept His promise to me long ago in Christ. See, only Jesus is the perfect covenant keeper. I saw how my covenant association with God and His people had been operating in my life all along. They exhibited a love in this covenant that I was not accustomed to in the Kingdom of Darkness and not worthy of. I was deemed holy and blessed on several occasions. Now,
for some reason, I desired this kind of everlasting love. Things changed. My covenantal relationship now became internalized. I was saved by grace alone—a grace that had been exhibited over and over again.
You are right I can’t look back to when I was 8 days old to my baptism, just like the Israelites (Gen 17; Lev 12:3) and Jesus himself (Luke 2:21) could not look back to their earliest days. However, as elect Israelites and Jesus himself knew they were in the Covenant, so do I know the same, for my faith bares witness and we both bare the sign and seal of the Covenant. As the Israelite’s covenant sign was not initiated
by their own infant faith, neither was mine. See baptism emphasizes entrance into God’s covenant
by grace alone,
not by our faith alone (Jer 31, Heb 8:8-9). Thus, the emphasis in the covenant sign and seal is upon God grace first and His covenant faithfulness (His death, His crucifixion, His burial, His resurrection) and then to our faith which proceeds from His grace (Eph 2:8-9). This is true even of adult baptism.
Moreover, both covenants have a sign and seal. Both were fulfilled in Jesus, as He is the Covenant Head of each. As the Covenant Head and to fulfill the OC He accepted its sign and seal, and to initiate, head, and fulfill the NC, He accepted its sign and seal as well. Jesus was not baptized because of His repentance and faith, as He always had faith and never had a need to repent, but rather to demonstrate, head, and fulfill the covenant (to fulfill all righteousness; Matt 3:15). See, He is my continuity in the covenants demonstrating their distinctiveness and similarities—one, but two; two, but one. Jesus is my bridge between the Covenants.
It is really too bad about Crib. He speaks, thinks, and still reasons as a non-covenant child. He had a lot of the right information, but could never iron out all those discrepancies that kept popping up. If only his parents had kept him away from that Malone Doll. But, Crib is coming along. He is beginning to put away his childish ways. He is beginning to realize there are lost and saved in God’s covenants, as with the Israelites of old. He is noticing that there are lost people in his very church—many of which are baptized. He is beginning to grasp that one cannot be deemed holy in any respect while in the Kingdom of Darkness, unless that person is someway in the Kingdom of Light. Yep, he is beginning to see it. As he becomes a man he will understand that God did make provision for children in His covenant—for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.
