All Articles For Our Doctrine

It is evident, therefore, that the righteousness of Christ, a righteousness which is of God, prepared by Him for us, is the ground of our justification. We may say indeed that Christ is the Justified One par excellence, and His justification is the justification of all the elect and of all that believe on His name. To understand this, we must above all remember that Christ is the Son of God, the only begotten God, that is in the bosom of the Father. On this confession rests the whole of the truth concerning all our salvation, and particularly, concerning our justification....

Christ, so we wrote in our last article on the subject of justification, is worthy of life eternal. He is the Son of God in human nature. And He humbled Himself deeply into death and hell in perfect obedience of love. Hence, it was entirely according to the justice of God that in the same measure that He humbled Himself He should also be highly exalted and attain to the state of immortality in eternal glory. This is the teaching of Scripture. Thus we read in Philippians 2:6-11: “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be...

That this is true can be proved from many passages of Holy Writ. Thus, for instance, in Romans 9:6-8 we read: “Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.

Faith is certainly not the ground or part of the ground of our righteousness before God. It is not another work. That this is the relationship is, however, virtually the view of all that deny the vicarious nature of the suffering of Christ, of His satisfaction and atonement. Thus, for instance, the governmental theory maintains that Christ died not to atone and to pay for all the sins of all the elect, but as a setting forth of the justice and righteousness of God as an expression of what God might justly do to all sinners. And if they acknowledge...

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel in those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that...

It is evident that circumcision was a sign of the work of God’s grace in the heart, whereby the heart is filled with the love of God; and therefore, it was a sign of the same grace that is signified in baptism.

Finally, we must note the fact that God continues His covenant, both in the old and in the new dispensation, in the line of continued generations. The Reformed symbols emphasize the fact that infants as well as adults are included in the covenant and church of God. But the question arises nevertheless: how are infants included from their very birth in the covenant of God? And the answer is that God establishes His covenant in the line of continued generations. This is the ultimate ground for the baptism of infants.

The above-mentioned view proceeds from the idea that the promise is for all that are born under the covenant. All the children of believing parents that are baptized have the promise. In the promise God bequeaths all the blessings of the covenant upon all that are baptized. He gives all the children the right to these blessings of salvation. And therefore one may say to all the baptized children: “You are really in the covenant. You have the right to accept the promise.” However, this promise must necessarily, according to this view, be presented as conditional.

The truth, therefore, is not that the ground of infant baptism is a certain presumptive regeneration. That, first. Nor is the ground that the promise of the covenant is for all that live under the dispensation of the covenant. That, second. But, thirdly, the ground rather is that God establishes His covenant in the line of continued generations, while in those generations there are children of the promise, and, at the same time, carnal children that never receive the blessing of the promise and that trample under foot the covenant of God.