I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like The Wonder Years. We love the nostalgic feeling of the show. We love that its set in early-1960s suburbia, and is replete with witty retrospective commentary. We can easily identify with so many of the characters. Preeminently, we love and identify with Kevin. His character is very believable (warts and all). What’s more, we have the gruff and detached father, the sweet mother, the hippie older sister, the dumb and domineering older brother, the cute girl across the street, and (most importantly for this post) the best friend, Paul.
In season two, there is an episode called “Birthday Boy” in which Kevin’s birthday falls on the same day as Paul’s Bar Mitzvah. Kevin is initially jealous of the fact that Paul’s going to get a truck load of gifts and money. But as the Bar Mitzvah approaches, he finds (sitting around the dinner table with Paul’s family) that Paul, as a Jew, has an identity that has been passed down to him from past generations. Kevin feels the lack of this in his own life. Kevin comes to realize that he has no discernible heritage or familial identity; nothing substantial to his personal identity has passed down to him. He knows he’s Kevin Arnold, but he doesn’t know what that means.
Paul’s Jewish family is not so much a model for us (as Christians), but it does retain one very important aspect of biblical teaching, that is, covenant identity. The children of Christians (or even of one Christian parent – 1 Cor 7:14) are not spiritual orphans with no heritage or identity. God has included (and still does) the children in his covenantal dealings with his people. This fact is manifestly plain as we look through God’s successive, redemptive covenants in the Bible. In Genesis 17:7, God says, “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.” This is the same (at later times) when God makes covenant with Israel under Moses, and when he makes covenant with David. The children are included in God’s covenants. This is also explicitly true of the New Covenant. As the end of his sermon in Acts 2, Peter says that the promised New Covenant blessings (including the forgiveness of sins and giving of the Holy Spirit) are “for you [Jewish listeners] and for your children [standard covenantal inclusion] and for all who are far off [the Gentiles].” This, it should be quite apparent that God makes covenant with (and extends covenantal promises to) believing adults and their children.
As if that grace weren’t enough, God goes further. He identifies our children as his own. In Ezekiel 16, Yahweh is *how shall we say?* tearing into Israel for being unfaithful to him. One of the unthinkable things the people of Israel were doing was sacrificing their children in the fire to foreign gods, just like the wicked King Manasseh (2 Kings 21:6). Here’s what God has to say about that in verses 20 and 21. “And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them?” I’m aware that this context is a horrible example of unfaithful covenantal parenting. But even so, note how God refers to the children: those “whom you had borne to me,” and “my children.” The children of the covenant are borne to God and they are his.
To put it succinctly, covenant children (the children of at least one believer) belong to Yahweh. That is who they are. That is their identity. Our children should never, like Kevin Arnold, flounder around wondering who they are. As parents, we need to train them up in their baptism (which is the sign of the covenant into which God has included them). “Who are you, son or daughter? You are a child of the covenant. Yahweh is your God. Christ is your King and Savior. God’s covenant grace is for you. God’s covenant law is for you. You are a child of the covenant, just like me and Mommy. This is who WE are.” Our children are not spiritual orphans; they are God’s own children, from their conception. God’s gracious covenant gives them identity, just as it does for their parents.
Tim,
This has always been a concern of mine… having children… are they saved if they die before they have a chance to reason? We actually just covered this in a comprehensive Bible study with our small group.
If you are indicating that our children and our wives are automatically saved because we are… I disagree. If this is not what you are saying, forgive me for my ignorance.
There is only one way of salvation, and that is through faith in Jesus Christ (Matthew 7:13-14; John 6:67-68; John 14:6; Acts 4:12; Ephesians 2:8).
Jesus Himself indicates that the Gospel often divides families. For example, in Matthew 10:34-36 Jesus said: “
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.”
Of course, I use the ESV because that is the best interpretation
Also, what you have taught me about election and from what I have found on my own… God elects individuals to salvation and that only those that are elect will be saved (John 6:44-65). This indicates that both election and salvation are not corporate but individual in nature. God elects individuals to salvation (Romans 9:6-18), and those that are elect, believe and are saved (Acts 13:48).
Or have I missed something?
Mark, I don’t mean that wives and kids of believers are *automatically* saved. You’re quite right that the *individual*, so far as they are able, must personally repent and believe.
To move from that (and the idea of individual election) to the idea that the individual considerations of salvation rule out the corporate or covenantal would be incorrect. Have you read anyone on “covenant” or “federal” theology? In history, God works by way of covenant, wherein he draws a people unto himself (which includes children), calls them his own, places his demands (law) upon them and bids them obey unto blessing. They obey only by his grace and by his Spirit working in them to do so. If, in their sinfulness, they disobey, God tells them they’ll be cursed. This is the regular (but not only) form of covenant found in the Bible. The New Covenant is a covenant and functions in this way. It is in this connection that I am laboring in the post above. Maybe that starts to clear things up, and maybe it doesn’t. Let me know.
Yes, I guess I am misunderstanding you. So you do not believe, as you seem to state above, that a child of even one Christian parent, is automatically one of God’s children… a believer… part of the elect? A child can still be a member of the non-elect although his/her parents are believers?
Mark, certainly a child of a believer can be lost. Paul runs through two generations of just that in Romans 9. From the Romans 9 perspective, election cuts through covenant. However, from another perspective, the covenant is our view of election. (It occurs to me right now that maybe the term “covenant” might also be confusing.) Who are the elect? Look around at the members of your local church. These are the elect and these include our children. You can see that I’m using the term “elect” in two different ways, and that’s quite on purpose. You see, we can’t know God’s election; it’s invisible. But God has given us the covenant, which serves to “make visible” God’s election. Thus, we are to receive those in covenant as God’s own people, unless and until they are excommunicated.
This probably isn’t an adequate explanation, but it’s a start.
Tim,
Alright. So you are saying that we are to accept that the children of believers are elect until proven otherwise… correct?
In a word, Mark, yes. It is (of course) a bit more involved than that, but in a bare-bones way, that is the case. The way I prefer to boil it down is that we perceive election through covenant. This isn’t merely a “judgment of charity,” but more a judgment based upon God’s covenant promises.