By: Pastor Thomas F. Booher
What distinguishes Reformed Presbyterians from other Calvinists and those like Reformed Baptists?
Above all, I believe our (Reformed Presbyterian) covenant theology is biblical and desperately needs to be recovered, particularly concerning our covenant children. You should become a Reformed Presbyterian if you care about being faithful to God and Scripture, and if you care about your children and the future generations serving the Lord.
Allow me to explain.
God commands us to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). A great intro article on what that entails can be found here, written by a Presbyterian pastor and theologian, even though the article itself is posted on Desiring God: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/every-fathers-calling
In essence, what parents are commanded in Ephesians 6 is the same they were commanded in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 --
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."
There are so many things to note concerning parent's covenantal responsibility to nurture their children in the Lord. We call this covenant nurture. First, loving God with your whole being is where it all starts. If parents do not love God first and foremost, they won't love their children, their neighbors, or anyone well. If we have a strong love for the Lord (we all must grow in this, none of us perfectly loves the Lord, not even close) then we are equipped to love our children well and raise them in the Lord, for the Lord.
We are called to "diligently" instruct our children all the time. The word diligent has the idea of inscribing something, pressing it down so that the truths of God's Word -- who He is, what He has done for us, and what He calls us to do in obedience to Him -- sticks to our children. This is not playing the Holy Spirit. We trust the Spirit to work through His Word, for that is the purpose of the Holy Spirit, to convict us, encourage us, enlighten us, by the Bible.
Of course, the the Word of God, His law and precepts, the wisdom literature of Scripture, in short the full counsel of God, teaches a complete world and life view. The Bible must be digested by the parents first, so that their Christian/biblical worldview is well-formed, and then they, father and mother both, must diligently teach all of Christ for all of life to their children.
This gets at what it means to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I would hope and pray that many, not just Reformed Presbyterians, would grant all this, would give it a hearty "yes" and "amen"! I know many do.
But what distinguishes Reformed Presbyterians, and perhaps a few other similar groups (Reformed Episcopalians, etc.,) is that we raise our children not only as parents, but also as churches. What do I mean? I mean that our children, from conception, are part of the church, the covenant, and have a covenant relationship to Jesus Christ. We baptize our babies, because baptism is a sign of being included in God's covenant of grace, established in Christ's blood through His work on the cross for us (Matt. 26:28) and our children (Acts 2:38-39).
Look closely at Ephesians 6:4. Fathers, the head of the household (which may be single mothers in more difficult circumstances) must raise their children in the Lord's nurture and admonition. In short, they bring them up in the Lord, not outside of the Lord. They bring them up in the covenant, among God's people, and are nurtured there. This doesn't mean we do not call our children to faith and repentance, we do. But it means that such a call is not going out to a child pagan, but a Christian child. Just as all male Israelite babies were circumcised when they were 8 days old as a sign of covenant inclusion, so our babies, male and female, are included in the new covenant shed in Christ's blood!
This transforms parenting, and the duties God gives parents in Deut. 6, Eph. 6, and elsewhere. We parent by God's promises to us and our children, promises of blessing and salvation as we faithfully raise our children. We raise our children with a hope and expectation, rooted in Scripture, that our children will be converted by the Spirit, particularly through the means of covenantal nurture in the home and in the church.
In short, we see the Bible teaching that our children are born into the womb of the church, and thus God gives us an expectation that from within that church womb, our children will be born again as the spiritual nutrients of the church and parental nurture are fed to our covenant children.
Of course, the opposite is also true. If the parents and church fail to faithfully follow Eph. 6 and Deut. 6, while the Lord may still mercifully save our children, it will be over against our sinful disregard and abandonment -- our spiritual abortion of our children -- as parents and pastors.
Reformed Presbyterians, when following God's Word and their creeds, confessions, and catechisms (sadly too many have abandoned these when it comes to covenant children in practice, even if not on paper, likely due to the overwhelming baptistic influence in American Christianity), have a biblical hope, a promise from God for them and their children, that almost all other Protestant/Evangelical Christians living in the United States today have either forgotten or forsaken. It is a promise that God indeed is God to them and their children, and will grant eternal life to their children as the children are raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, diligently, faithfully, with much prayers and repentance from parents for their shortcomings in parenting (and God gives much grace as we believe His promises and confess to Him).
So our covenant theology does not devolve into a mutated, or even hyper-ish Calvinism that frankly many Calvinists today seem to verge on. Election and Predestination do not work contrary to nature and the covenant, but in and through them. The saving grace of Christ restores family bonds, it does not spiritualize or obliterate them. Yes, all in the Church are brothers and sisters in Christ, but not at the expense of our own flesh and blood brothers and sisters, wives and husbands, children and parents!
Many Reformed Baptists and Calvinistic Baptists, and sadly not a few Presbyterians that have been too influenced by Calvinistic Baptists, seem to think that God's unconditional election means that God has no means of grace, no channels through which the Spirit ordinarily flows to convert sinners. It would be like going to the street corner, preaching the Gospel, and expecting a completely random work of the Spirit to then pick out some who are elect and convert them. But this isn't how God elects or predestines. Election goes through the covenant. No, this does not mean all who are in the covenant are elect, but it does mean that those in the covenant who are not elect are not so for real reasons, not just because God said "eeny, meeny, miny, moe". God works out the end of election through His means of giving grace -- which are summarized as His Word, prayer, and the sacraments, and therefore include parental nurture, gospel preaching, Christian fellowship, and more.
Take Job as an example. From his perspective, all the horrible things happening to him seemed pointless, unjust, yet he continued to trust the Lord "though He slay me." We get the inside story, of Satan going to the Lord, all that was said, and the end with Job's multiplied blessings. It wasn't random. God didn't from all eternity just say "Job's gonna have a real hard time for no good reason". In other words, unconditional election is not without good reasons. God does more often elect the lowly things of this world, the poor and unwise (I Cor. 1:26-27), for His own glory. That doesn't violate unconditional election.
There is no condition found within man himself that causes God to choose him for salvation. But there are causes, external and otherwise, fore-ordained by God, for which some people are elect/chosen by God for salvation, and others are not. Faithful covenantal nurturing by parent and church is one primary means of grace that God has fore-ordained to bring His elect to regeneration, faith, and repentance. Failure to nurture your children well, or some scandalous sin in your life, may well be a reason fore-ordained by God for which He has not chosen your child for salvation. This is the true teaching of Scripture, and pure, covenantal,. confessional Calvinism (See Westminster Confession of faith Chapter 3, sections 5-7 in particular). And it gives great hope. Grace restores nature, it doesn't destroy it or work contrary to or parallel to it, but through nature, God's good design of family, church, and even government/state.
Church government would also be a distinction between Reformed Presbyterians and other Calvinists/Reformed Baptists. We are ruled by elders, not just led by elders (some RB's have this as well). But we are also covenanted together in our denominations with our fellow elders, forming a presbytery (from the Greek word for Elder in the New Testament). But this is a topic for another time.
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