I will be a God to you and to your children

Before reading this post, please see here.

The Paedobaptist Argument

One of the most common arguments for the practice of the baptism of infants is the appeal to the phrase “I will be a God to you and to your children.” The argument is that the covenant of grace is repeatedly declared in these terms, or terms similar to it, such as “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Therefore apart from God’s removal of this promise, it persists.

Passages in the New Testament are appealed to as a confirmation of the persistence of this promise. For example, Peter declared in Acts 2:39 that “The promise is for you and for your children.” Jesus blessed children and said that “of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Households were baptized in the book of Acts. Paul declared that the children of believers are “holy” in 1 Corinthians 7 and taught children to obey their parents “in the Lord” in Ephesians 6.

The argument is sometimes presented to say that the substance of the covenant of grace is summed up in the phrase “I will be a God to you and to your children.” For example, in this post, Dr. R. Scott Clark states,

The substance of the covenant, i.e., that without which there is no covenant, that which is of the essence of the covenant is the promise in v. 7 [Genesis 17:7]: “to be Elohim (God) to you and to your offspring after you.” That promise, “and I will be their God” is repeated after the land promise in v. 8.

[Side note: Dr. Clark, has a much better definition of the substance of the covenant, limiting it to justification and sanctification in this post.]

By equating the substance of the covenant with this promise, the Reformed paedobaptist is able to say that though there are numerous outward changes in the transition from the old covenant to the new, this promise remains the same. It is the substance. It is what the covenant is, in itself. For what could be more gracious than for God to be the covenant-God of a people after the fall? The denier of infant baptism, say they, destroys the unity of the covenant throughout history and disinherits those whom God himself has claimed, the children of believers.

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The Reformed Baptist Critique

Allow me to interact with this argument, which I have summarized. Elsewhere you can find ample reading or listening in defense of this particular piece of the grounds of infant baptism.

Counter-argument 1: A Generic Covenant Formula

The promise “I will be their God, and they will be my people” is a generic covenant formula and carries in itself no specific details regarding the promises God provides in covenant, or the obedience he requires in covenant. It cannot, therefore, be correlated to, or equated with, automatically, the covenant of grace which has specific promises and precepts.

In John Owen’s comments on Hebrews 8’s quotation of Jeremiah 31, he discusses this promise. Owen notes that it is is a general phrase for any covenant between God and a people.

Owen argues that this is merely a general covenantal formula because Jeremiah 31 invokes this promise in the context of the new covenant not being like the old covenant. For Owen, the old and new covenants are substantially distinct, but this phrase is used in reference to both. Therefore, this phrase cannot be used to equate two covenants, automatically. Owen notes that the specifics of the covenant must be considered. He comments, immediately after the previous quote:

So, when one finds a formula such as this, one must consider (1) the specific grounds upon which the covenant is founded and (2) that which God specifically promises to his covenant people as well as the response which he specifically requires of them (i.e., the “mutual actings”). Owen identifies the grounds of the new covenant in the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ. And he describes the “mutual actings” in more detail here:

The focus and conclusion of this consideration is simply that the phrase “I will be their God, and they will be my people” is a generic covenant formula whose instances in the Scriptures cannot  be equated automatically with one another apart from proof that the  specific grounds of the covenant, the specific parties of the covenant, and the specific precepts and promises of the covenant are actually the same.

The Westminster Confession (as well as 2LCF) affirms the validity of good and necessary consequences. Consequences are necessary conclusions from clear and certain premises. The premises necessitate the conclusion. Covenants are not natural, but supernatural, that is, covenants between God and man exist only when God initiates them, and are what they are based only on what God makes them to be. Considering, therefore, that this formula is generic, not specific, then it follows that there is no necessity in the phrase itself that would permit us to conclude, theologically, the specific content of the generic phrase apart from additional context. Nor is there a sufficient necessity in the phrase itself to equate it with any other covenant, even if the same phrase, or a similar one, appears elsewhere. One would have to align all the specifics.

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Counter-argument 2: A Specific Covenant Promise

Proceeding under the notion that generic covenant formulae must be explained by their specific covenant details, we can consider the argument for infant baptism that appeals to the covenant promise in Genesis 17:7, “I will be a God to you and to your children.”

This promise has specific, unique, individual referents. It is a promise to Abraham himself and his descendants, according to the flesh. Consider the simple grammar of Genesis 17:7.

And I will establish my covenant between me and you (2nd person masculine singular) and your (2nd person masculine singular) offspring after you (2nd person masculine singular) throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you (2nd person masculine singular) and to your (2nd person masculine singular) offspring after you (2nd person masculine singular).

The parties are specified clearly–Abraham and his offspring according to flesh (his descendants after him). What are the specific promises? These descendants, according to the flesh, will multiply and possess Canaan. And from Abraham’s descendants, according to the flesh, will be born the one who blesses the nations. This means that Abraham’s offspring, by virtue of being his offspring, possess:

• The land of Canaan
• A relation according to the flesh to the one who will bless the nations

God placed a specific demand on these specific parties, a demand which must be kept or these specific promises will be lost. Abraham and his descendants, according to the flesh, must keep the covenant or they will be disinherited on an individual basis (Genesis 17:10, 14). God will guarantee that the covenant does not fail, corporately (Genesis 15), but individuals and families can be cut off and disinherited (such as the wilderness generation).

Considering the specific details of this covenant, on what ground do we connect these specific details with any other covenant? Is there another covenant made with Abraham and his offspring, according to the flesh, which they must keep or they will be disinherited? This is where numerous parties distinguish themselves.

• Option 1: The Westminster Confession

The Westminster Confession recasts the details of Genesis 17 and abstracts the specifics of Abraham and his descendants according to the flesh to believers and their children. A believer can insert their own name into the second person masculine singular referents of Genesis 17:7. Certainly, they believe they have exegetical reason to do so, as mentioned at the beginning of this post. Nevertheless, the result is that in such a view the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and new covenants are the same covenant, the covenant of grace, made with believers and their children, requiring only a consequent obedience of gratitude, and being threatened only with fatherly discipline and chastisement.

• Option 2: Formal Republication

Others in Reformed theology follow the previous option, except the Mosaic covenant is distinct in substance from the Abrahamic covenant and new covenant (like Owen, above). Such persons agree that the Mosaic covenant is made with the same parties as the Abrahamic and new covenants, but it dealt only with life in Canaan and must be obeyed and kept in order to be enjoyed. The end result is that the covenant of grace is made with believers and their children now, as it was then.

• Option 3: Reformed (Particular) Baptist, or at least my position and the position of most seventeenth-century Particular Baptists

When we consider the specifics of Genesis 17 (and from Genesis 12 up to that point), we find that the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants are made with the same parties (Abraham and his offspring according to the flesh), with the same promises (blessed life in Canaan and the birth of the one who blesses the nations), with the same precepts (moral and ceremonial obedience), and the same threats ( qualified disinheritance).

The Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants are not the new covenant, but carry in them the new covenant, in at least two ways. First and foremost, God promised that the one who blesses the nations would be born from their midst. This means that the old covenant(s) can never be considered as divested of a connection to Christ Jesus and his covenant. From the first moment the Abrahamic covenant was introduced (Genesis 12), this was the purpose. Second, God designed Israel from the ground up to be a typical foreshadowing and preparation for the birth of Christ so that his mission would make sense when he came. Again, this means that the old covenant(s) can never be detached from pointing to Christ and preparing the world for him. Positively, the gospel of Christ, and therefore the new covenant, were woven into the fabric of everything Israel was, and did.

Notwithstanding the connection the old covenant(s) have to Christ, they are not the new covenant. Their parties, promises, and precepts are distinct. Christ rejected Abrahamic paternity as sufficient grounds for inclusion in his kingdom, he rejected the idea that Canaan would be the realm of his kingdom, and he rejected the continuance of the Abrahamic/Mosaic laws.

The new covenant is the blessing for the nations, a people born from above. It forgives sins and perfects the conscience. It grants an everlasting inheritance in the new creation. It enables its people to believe and obey. It is for Jew and Greek, all who call on the name of the Lord.

The question at hand, though, is this: considering the details of Genesis 17:7, can the phrase “I will be God to you and to your offspring after you” be abstracted to “believers and their children”? Can it be equated with the new covenant?

Many would appeal to Romans 4 and Galatians 3 at this point. Those passages deserve separate treatment. For now, however, if one does appeal to Genesis 17:7, and if it is the pattern, the paradigm, for the covenant of grace, then several questions are raised:

• Do the children of believers belong to the covenant according to the flesh, as the descendants of Abraham after him did?
  • If yes, does this last their whole life? Or, does their continuance in the covenant transfer at some point from the relation they have to their parents to their individual relation to Christ the head of the covenant?
  • If yes, does the covenant extend to the third and fourth generation and beyond, whether any in that generation believe? If it runs in the flesh, it runs in the flesh. Does a wilderness generation disinherit its children?
  • If yes, are the children instructed that the covenant is of no advantage to them unless they believe its promises? (And at that point, how are they different from the children of unbelievers in such a view?)
  • Does the threat of disinheritance connected with circumcision apply to them if baptism is the new outward form of the same covenantal ordinance and paradigm established in Genesis 17?
• Do the children of believers belong to the covenant according to the Spirit, as believers are described to be?
  • If yes, why do some fall away?
  • If no, then you hold that they are the children of the covenant only according to the flesh and the previous set of questions apply.
  • If no, how does that fit with the fact that all of Abraham’s descendants, after Ishmael, had a right to the promises of the covenant, but your children do not have a right to the promises because they do not belong to the covenant inwardly?

Genesis 17 declares a definite promise for the offspring of Abraham. It is theirs. All of his descendants have a right to it and in it. Based on this fact, the foregoing sets of questions press the issue of whether the covenant is definite or indefinite to the children of believers, an issue of disagreement among paedobaptists.

To sum up the argument, too many appeals to Genesis 17:7 are vague and general appeals to something quite specific. And given that paedobaptism is practiced as religious worship unto God, it requires a more careful foundation. A conscience desiring to worship God aright must have answers to these questions before acting. Do the specifics of this verse apply to me and my child? Can I substitute myself and my children into Genesis 17:7?

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Counter-argument 3: The Problem of Faithfulness and the Eschaton

It is a mistake to equate the substance of the covenant of grace with the promise “I will be God to you and your children” because such a promise will not extend into the consummation of all things (the eschaton). Revelation 21:3 assures us of the blessed comfort that God will be our God, and we will be his people, forever. But, following Owen’s method, what are the specifics of this promise?

The parties are clear. The elect of God alone behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So, in eternity will the promise persist that God is a God to us and our children? No, the promise that persists, the substance of the covenant that lasts into the eschaton, is that God will be merciful unto us and remember our sins no more (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Certainly, by God’s grace some of our children will join us in that precious covenant promise. And God will be their God, but not because of any relation to us.

If we say that the promise that God will be a God to us and our children will persist into the consummation, then we must ask, is God unfaithful? We know that not all our children will be there. If the promises of the covenant depend on God’s sovereign grace and faithfulness, and God cannot lie or fail, and yet some of those to whom he has promised to be God fail to behold his glory in the face of his Son, is God unfaithful?

If an appeal is made to Paul’s discussion of Israel’s faithful remnant as evidence of God’s faithfulness, then one must be willing to say that God is a God to us and our children, so long as we persevere in the covenant, and God has not promised to preserve us all. And therefore, at the end one can say that yes, the promise to be God to us and our children lasts into the eschaton, because God never promised to save them all and the unfaithful ones have already been cut off. Now, such a position involves many preceding arguments and/or suppositions with which I strongly disagree. But I regard it as an unavoidable dilemma (and conclusion) of making the formula “I will be a God to you and your children” the substance of the covenant of grace.

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In conclusion, when someone appeals to the formula, “I will be their God, and they will be my people,” or the formula, “I will be a God to you, and to your offspring after you,” it is necessary that the specifics of these general formulas be investigated and explained carefully.

• This is a general formula, what are its specifics?
  • What are the grounds of this covenant?
  • Who are the parties?
  • What does God promise?
  • What does God require?

I will conclude with more of Owen’s comments on the precious promise of Jeremiah 31:33 quoted in Hebrews 8:10, that God will be our covenant God, and we will be his covenant people.

The Marrow of Modern John Owen Debates

Owen vs. Baxter on Active and Passive Obedience in Justification

Richard Baxter:
“The Independents gathered a Synod at the Savoy, and there among their Doctrinals, or Articles of Faith, laid down two points Expressly contrary to Scripture: 1. That it is not Faith, but Christ’s Righteousness, that we are justified by; whereas it is both, and the Scripture often saith the contrary.”

John Owen:
“It is a strange thing that any man should take upon him such Magisterial Dictatorship in matters of Religion, to insinuate into Men’s Minds, and unjust accusations of others: For 1. When the Scripture speaks of Justification by Faith, doth any sound Divines or Christians understand it of the Act of believing, but that the object of Faith that Justifies, is the Righteousness of Faith, our own Righteousness, or Christ’s Righteousness; but this dispute is not our present Province. The Articles of the Savoy Confession saith, God freely justifieth us — not by imputing faith it self, the Act of believing, &c. Will you say, That God imputes the Act of believing for Righteousness, in Justification of a Sinner before God? If you will, there’s more good Protestants will condemn this as your Error, then will say there is any Error in that Article of the Savoy Confession; I am sure we have Scripture enough against you; but this is one of your Arminian Errors.”

Richard Baxter:
“That Christ’s Righteousness imputed is our sole Righteousness; whereas the Scripture doth name also our inherent and practical Righteousness.”

John Owen:
“Why do you not speak out now, but intimate an Error? Doth the Scripture name inherent Righteousness for Justification? I know what you would be at, you are for your Evangelical Works to come in Cheek by Jole with the imputed Righteousness of Christ for Justification; and you are inforced to it, because you will bring in the To Credere, one may as well come in as the other; And in this Doctrine I must tell you, you have laid the fairest Bridge for Popery to come in, that ever any Protestant Divine hath done this hundred years. And that’s your Popish Error.
I will rehearse the Savoy Confession in its own words, which is taken verbatim almost, if not quite, from the Assembly’s; so that you charge the latter, in charging the former.”

Savoy Confession of Justification, Chap. XI.

Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth, not by infusing Righteousness into them, but by pardoning their Sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; not by imputing Faith it self, the Act of Believing, or any other Evangelical Obedience to them, as their Righteousness, but by imputing Christ’s Active Obedience unto the whole Law, and Passive Obedience in his death, for their whole and sole Righteousness, they receiving and resting on him and his Righteousness, by Faith, which Faith they have not of themselves, it is the Gift of God.

“This Article we stand by, and will defend against all men that shall oppose it as erroneous.”

Persons and Subsistences in the Confessions of Faith

A careful examination and comparison of the Second London Baptist Confession (LCF) and the Westminster Confession (WCF) yields a variety of differences and nuances, some more obvious than others. One such difference is found in the second chapter, “Of God and of the Holy Trinity.” The London Confession is considerably more detailed and technical in its formulation of the doctrine of God (which is not to imply any lack of orthodoxy on the part of the WCF). This technicality is seen in the LCF’s use of “subsistence” instead of “person.” Compare the following:
WCF 2.3

LCF 2.3

Why the change? Or what’s the difference between Person and Subsistence? The short answer is that while there is no doctrinal difference, the term “subsistence” is more technical and carries less linguistic baggage. John Owen shows the agreement of the two terms:

Richard Muller provides the following definition for “subsistentia”: An individual instance of a given essence. [Subsistence has other meanings as well, in fact it is used in a different way in paragraph one to describe God’s self-existence. His “subsistence is in and of himself” meaning that he derives his existence from himself. Or in another sense, his existence is not derived at all.]

Think about that for a moment. There is only one divine essence. Thus, three divine subsistences must all share one divine essence. How can one essence be distinguished into three subsistences but not divided? It is infinite. The essence of God is deity. The essence of man is humanity. Human nature is finite, thus no one else can subsist within my essence. I may share a common essence with humanity, but it is a divided, individual, and separated essence. A substance is an essence in existence, thus each human being is a different and separate substance sharing the common essence of humanity. But there is one divine essence and thus one divine substance, in which godhead the three persons of the trinity subsist.

This makes “subsistence” the perfect word for expressing the technical unity and trinity of God because it necessarily connects to a given essence, in this case the singular and unique essence of deity. “Person” carries with it the linguistic baggage of human personhood connected to human essence. Without proper definition, “person” can be easily misused. Trinitarian personhood is not human personhood. That being said, the WCF is in no way heterodox on the trinity. The term “person” is perfectly capable of carrying these theological distinctions. One must simply be careful. Consider the discussion of this anonymous writer. He begins by saying that the doctrine of the Trinity is practical to us because it helps us to know the one God that we love, worship, and serve.

Next he warns us of the need for precision because the Socinians (in their Racovian Catechism, see end of post) claimed that God was one person. Their fundamental flaw was to equate human personhood with divine personhood.

Persons are distinguished by personal relations and peculiar relative properties, as the LCF above made clear. Notice how in the midst of this he reminds the reader that “the divine nature is unchangeable and indivisible, and not multiplicable; therefore there is no proper action nor passion, as in nature, nor production of new being.” In other words, the eternal generation of the Son never “happened” because God is not bound by time, thus nothing can “happen” to him, i.e. no passion. He is pure being, no becoming. Thus the Son’s generation is eternal in the sense that it is atemporal. Were God bound by time, he would be changeable. Were the Son brought forth from the Father as we conceive of generation, then the nature of God would be both divisible, multiplicable, active, and passive in time (which it is not – he has no parts or passions).

Next he explains where we get the term “person” from and why we use it, acknowledging that there may be better ways to express the concepts. Once again he reminds the reader to separate ideas of human personhood from divine personhood. God is altogether other than we are.

The language we use is “improper,” that is, it does not fully describe, though it does truthfully describe, who and what God is.

In light of all of these careful nuances and important distinctions, we can safely conclude that while there is no doctrinal disagreement or difference between the two confessions, the LCF displays a careful desire for further technicality and precision and thus employs the term “subsistence” rather than person.

***A judicious and impartial reader pointed out to me that 2LCF 8.2 employs “person” while referring to Christ as the “Second Person” of the Holy Trinity. This is corroborative evidence of the fact that “subsistence” is a technical, not a doctrinal choice of language.***

See also:
John Norton on Passivity and Suffering

John Norton on the Divine Names and Perfections of God

Here are relevant portions from the Racovian Catechism: