“Father, we thank you that we are your children.” This is how my home room teacher in the local Christian high school that I attended began his prayer at the beginning of almost every day. When I first heard these words I thought nothing of them. But as time wore on and I began to get to know my classmates, I wondered: does my teacher really think that all of my classmates are children of God? If so, what about those who showed no evidence of spiritual life? Were they also children of God? And if they were not, would they not be led to think that they can continue in their unconverted state because they are children of God anyway? I did not know it at the time, but this was my first real encounter with covenantal optimism.

What is covenantal optimism? Covenantal optimism – which is common in many Reformed and also Presbyterian churches – is an overly positive view of membership in the covenant of grace. It is closely (though not necessarily) tied to the doctrine of presumed regeneration which became the official doctrine of the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland (GKN) – the sister churches of the Christian Reformed Churches in North America – in 1908. In that year, the synod of the GKN declared that “the seed of the covenant, in virtue of the promise of God (is) presumed to be regenerated and sanctified in Christ until, as they grow up, the contrary appears from their life and doctrine.” Although not all churches that display evidence of an optimistic view of the covenant of grace hold to the doctrine of presumed regeneration (in fact, some of them openly repudiate it), they do all tend to view the children of the covenant in the same way: saved unless the opposite proves true later in life.

This optimistic view manifests itself in various ways. Churches that hold to this view tend to use unqualified inclusive (“presumptive”) language (“we”, “our”, “us”) both in public prayer and in preaching. They also tend to lack any discriminating element in the preaching (i.e. addressing both converted and unconverted members). There is also an absence or near absence of a regular call to faith and repentance and pressing home the necessity of the new birth and initial conversion. They tend to view the life of faith as relatively easy. Not much if any attention is paid to man’s depravity and inability or to the struggles that characterize the life of faith. The tendency is to view everyone in church as true believers. Consequently, the main focus of the preaching is to encourage believers to live in covenantal obedience.

There is nothing new about this view. In fact, it was widespread at various times in the history of Judah. Perhaps the best example of this was during the days of Jeremiah. One day the Lord commanded Jeremiah to stand in the gate of the temple and proclaim this word to all who entered:

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.Jer 7:3-4

The people of Judah were acting very wickedly. They were oppressing the fatherless and the widow, shedding innocent blood and worshipping idols – yet they continued to worship the Lord. What is more, they believed that because they were God’s covenant children and because they had the temple in their midst, all would be well. Their enemies would not attack them and they would continue to enjoy peace and prosperity. But the Lord through Jeremiah warned them that they were only deceiving themselves. Mere membership in the covenant of grace will not save them. They needed to be born again. They needed to be circumcised in their hearts. Until then, they had no ground for presuming that the Lord would bless them. In fact (as Jeremiah goes on to say in the next verses), they had every reason to expect the exact opposite.

We see evidence of this view also during the time of the Lord Jesus. When many of the Pharisees and Sadducees came to John the Baptist to be baptized by him, he said to them:

O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.Matt 3:7-9

The Pharisees and Sadducees thought that they did not need to repent because they were children of Abraham – children of the covenant. But John told them that membership in the covenant in and of itself did not mean a thing for God was able to raise up from the stones children unto Abraham.

Jesus Himself also encountered this way of thinking. During His conversation with Nicodemus (John 3) He marveled that Nicodemus was the teacher of Israel and yet he did not understand that he had to be born again. Why not? Because like most of the Jews of his day, he thought he had nothing to worry about because he was a child of the covenant – and a Pharisee as well! But Jesus said no. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

An overly optimistic view of the covenant is very dangerous. The greatest danger is that if we are not careful, we can build our hope for eternity on something other than the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Being a member of the covenant is a great blessing. But the covenant cannot save us. Neither can baptism. Only Christ can save us. We must, therefore, look to Him and His active and passive obedience as the only hope and ground of our salvation. If we do not, we will go lost.

How then should we view membership in the covenant? Someone once put it like this: the covenant is not a resting ground or a sandy ground, but a pleading ground. By this we mean that in the covenant God personally signifies and seals to each and every member all the blessings of His salvation. But these blessings are realized only in the way of faith and repentance – and that not in a matter-of-fact way, but in the way of us being brought to an end in ourselves and learning to live by grace and grace alone. May God grant, young people, that you may more and more see the value of your membership in the covenant and develop a proper understanding of it. Even more importantly, may you also learn – for the first time or again – to plead upon these promises and ask God to fulfill them in you in His own time and in His own way to His glory and your salvation.