COVENANTAL
HOLINESS
“For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the
wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your
children unclean; but now are they holy” (1 Corinthians 7:14).
The
Apostle Paul was discussing the subject of marriage and divorce, and he had
come to the point of discussing how unequally yoked marriages should be
handled. It is clear that Paul forbade the marriage of a believer with an
unbeliever (1 Cor 7:39c), but there were cases when a husband or a wife was converted
after their marriage. In such cases, the believing spouses would be naturally
concerned whether their marriages were lawful and whether they should leave
their unbelieving spouses. Paul advised: “If any brother hath a wife that
believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.
And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to
dwell with her, let her not leave him” (1 Cor 7:12–13).
As
is often the case, the Apostle does not leave a dogmatic statement without any
rationale. Christianity is not irrational! He gives them an argument: “For the
unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is
sanctified by the husband” (1 Cor 7:14a). Then, to prove or strengthen this statement,
he adds a further argument: “else were your children unclean; but now are they
holy” (1 Cor 7:14b).
It
is this last clause that catapults this otherwise seemingly obscure verse into
the arena of debates in theological textbooks, in the discussion of covenant
theology and infant baptism.
The
Baptist View
Baptist theologians
generally contend that Paul is simply arguing that the children are holy in
that they are legitimate, or that they are holy in that they come under the
ministry of the Gospel through the believing spouse.
Paul
K. Jewett is representative of the first position:
Let not the believer, he
enjoins, forsake the unbeliever. Why? Because the unbeliever has been and
continue to be sanctified through the covenant of marriage by him/her who has
since become a believer. Otherwise, your children would be “unclean,” that is,
illegitimate. But you know this is not so; rather they are “holy,” that is,
legitimate (Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace[Eerdmans, 1978],
136).
One
could understand how ‘unclean’ could mean ‘illegitimate.’ But how Jewett could
equate being ‘holy’ with being ‘legitimate’ is hard to conceive. One needs only
to realise that ‘to sanctify’ (aJgiavzw, hagiazô) is the verb form of
the adjective ‘holy’ (a{gio", hagios),
and do some substitution into 1 Corinthians 7:14 to see how unlikely his
interpretation is: “For the
unbelieving husband islegitimised by
the wife, and the unbelieving wife is legitimised by the husband: else were your
children illegitimate; but
now are they legitimate.”
How a believing spouse could legitimise an unbelieving spouse is beyond me.
David
Kingdon, who is another greatly respected Baptist polemist, holds to the second
position:
…the offering up of the
believing spouse sanctifies the whole, not in the sense of making inwardly holy
but in setting the family apart for the operation of the grace of God in
salvation through the witness of the believing partner (1 Cor 7:16). Paul is
confident of the power of the Gospel to exert, in many cases, a truly converting
and sanctifying influence through a Christian father or mother. Therefore, the
believer should on his part not break the marriage bond if the unbelieving
partner is willing to continue in it (Children of Abraham: A Reformed
Baptist View of Baptism, the Covenant, and Children [Carey Pub. Ltd. and Henry E.
Walter Ltd., 1973], 90).
This
is probably the most common view. I had myself taken this view earlier, before
I came to understand how God views the Christian family. But there are several
problems to this view. In the first place, if this is what Paul meant, then how
would his answer have allayed the concerns of the believing spouses as to
whether their marriages were legal? If the primary reason for a spouse to
remain married to an unbeliever is that he has a sanctifying influence on her, then one who is working in a
turf club might well justify his remaining in that work in order to exercise a
sanctifying influence. In the second place, if Paul were talking about the
sanctifying influence of a Christian in verse 14, then he would be repeating
himself in verse 16. In the third place, it would be rather odd for Paul to
argue as suggested that: “You should remain married to your spouse because you
have a sanctifying influence on him/her for you have a sanctifying influence on
your children.” Why should the believing spouses, knowing that they have a
sanctifying influence on their children, need the fact as an argument that they
have a sanctifying influence on their spouses too? In the fourth place, the tenses
and words used in the Greek, of the 1 Corinthians 7:14, simply do not allow for
this view. Literally translated, the verse read: “For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified [perfect passive] by the wife, and the
unbelieving wife has been
sanctified [perfect passive]
by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.” Paul
is not talking about continual influence, but about astate or status that has begun. In the fifth place, it
seems forced to equate “unclean” with “not having the sanctifying influence of
the parent” and “holy” with “having the sanctifying influence of the parent.”
Pedobaptist
View
Pedobaptists
(those who believe in infant baptism), on the other hand, believe that Paul is
speaking about covenantal holiness, which is the theological
basis for infant baptism (note the use of 1 Corinthians 7:14 in WSC 95; WLC 62, 166;WCF 25.2, 28.4).
Analysing
the verse, we see that Paul is arguing for something less well-known and
established with something already established. What is already established is
that children of the members are holy and not ‘unclean’ like the children of
those outside the church.
Why
do we say that Paul is referring to “children of the members of the church,”
rather than, as commonly supposed: “children of the families with one believing
spouse”? The reason is simple: Paul has been referring to the unequally yoked
couple in the third person; so consistent grammar would require him to say,
“else were their children unclean,” if he was referring
to their children. Instead he says: “else were your children unclean,” which would make it
a reference to all the children in the church. It is possible that Paul
switched to the second person pronoun suddenly in order to personalise his
statement. It is also possible that Paul is unable to use the second person
pronoun for the most part without making his arguments in verses 12–15 very
confused.
But,
it would be strange that the children of unequally yoked couples are holy
whereas the children of believing couples are not. In any case, it would be a
less than convincing argument if Paul had argued that the unbelieving spouse is
sanctified because their children are sanctified (verbal form
of ‘holy,’ i.e., ‘sanctify’ is to ‘holy,’ what ‘purify’ is to ‘pure’). For, how
would they know their children are holy in the first place? Someone may say,
they are holy because the unbelieving spouse is sanctified by the believing
spouse. But if that is so, then Paul would in effect be arguing circularly: the
children are sanctified because the unbelieving spouse is sanctified, and the
unbelieving spouse is sanctified because if he/she is not, then the children
would not be sanctified.
What
is more likely is that the Corinthians knew or took it for granted already that
the children in the church are holy. So Paul would essentially be saying: “You
know and believe that all the children in the church, including those who have
only one believing parent, are holy. If that is so, then surely you will agree
that your unbelieving spouse is holy (sanctified) too.” We must note that Paul
is not arguing that if the unbelieving spouse were not sanctified, then the
children produced would be unclean. He is rather, arguing by analogy or
parallel, namely: if the unbelieving spouse be not sanctified on account of
his/her union with the believing spouse, then it cannot be that the children
can be sanctified on account of the fact that they are the children of
believers. Of course, Paul’s argument can only make sense if the holiness of
the children in the church is a known and unquestioned fact.
A
few questions arise that must be answered however. First, how would the
Corinthians know that their children are ‘holy’? Secondly, why are they holy
and in what sense? We mentioned that they are “covenantally holy,” but what
does that mean? Thirdly, if the children are “covenantally holy” and so should
be baptised,—according to the pedobaptist view, then what about the unbelieving
spouse, since he/she must be covenantally holy too, according to our
interpretation of what Paul was saying?
Your
Children Are Holy
Why
would the church believe or accept the assertion that their children are holy?
I would suggest that it is because the Corinthian church regularly baptised
their children and newborn infants. Paul told the Corinthians: “but ye are
washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified” (1 Cor 6:11). Washing
refers to baptism. To be sanctified is to be consecrated or set apart. When the
Corinthians brought their children to be baptised, they knew that the children
were being consecrated to God. They would also, no doubt, have been taught that
the basis for their consecration is the Abrahamic covenant: “For the promise is
unto you, and to your children” (Acts 2:39). So, we can expect that there would
generally be no question when it came to the issue of the consecration of the
children to God.
It
is true that there is no one statement in the New Testament, which may directly
prove that infant baptism was apostolic. However, the doctrine of infant
baptism is really the doctrine of household baptism, which can be shown from
Scripture (e.g., Acts 16:14–15; 30–34). It has also been quite conclusively
established that the Early Church practised infant baptism with the same
significance as circumcision. The Church Father Cyprian, writing circa A.D. 250, about 100 years after the
last Apostle died, indicated that a North African council of 66 bishops, of
which he was one, was unanimous in holding that infant baptism was a practice
of the Apostles (Epistle 58 To Fidus, On the Baptism of Infants, in Early Church Fathers: Ante Nicene,
vol. 5). The fact that infant baptism was not treated theologically in earlier
writings is simply because it was never an issue of contention. Even in
Cyprian’s letter the contention was about whether the child may be baptised
before he is eight days old! Baptists may point to Tertullian (circa A.D. 145–220) to support their case,
but Tertullian did not deny the validity of infant baptism, even though he
personally preferred that baptism of little children be delayed (see
Tertullian’s On Baptism,
in Early Church Fathers: Ante
Nicene, vol. 3).
Covenantally
Holy
Why
do we contend that Paul is referring to covenantal holiness when he says that
the children are holy?
First
of all, it must be noted that a person who is included under the appellation
‘saints,’ i.e., ‘holy ones’ in the Scriptures, is not necessarily a justified
person. In other words, a person may be said to be ‘holy’ or ‘set apart’
without implying that he is a justified or true believer. For example, 2
Corinthians was addressed to “the church of God which is at Corinth, with all
the saints [i.e., ‘holy ones’] which are in all Archaia“ (2 Cor 1:1). Yet, in
the letter, Paul urges his readers to examine themselves whether they be in the
faith (2 Cor 13:5). It is highly unlikely that this call to self-examination is
restricted to the church at Corinth and not for the saints in Archaia. What is
more likely is that comprehended under the appellation ‘saints’ would be
unregenerate, unjustified persons as well.
Secondly,
the Apostle Paul affirms that it is possible for a person to be regarded as
holy based on his relationship to someone whose holiness is not questioned.
Paul, referring to Israel,
the covenant people of God, of old, says: “For if the firstfruit be holy, the
lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches” (Rom 11:16).
There are two metaphors in this statement. In the first place, Paul is alluding
to the metaphor of a meal offering in which a part,—the firstfruit,—is offered
as representative of the whole lump. The whole lump is regarded as holy and set
apart on account of the firstfruit. In the second place, the branches on the
tree are regarded as holy on account of the root. The second metaphor,
especially, speaks of children being considered holy on account of their
parents’ standing. Naturally, Paul could not be referring to the infusion or
transmission of inward holiness and faith to the children. What Paul must be
referring to is a federal or covenantal consecration in which God regards the
whole lump and the branches as, in a sense, special or distinct from the rest
of the world. And this is not just a matter of outward privileges which the
children, or those embraced in the covenant, enjoy but that God has special
regard for them, for “they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes” (Rom 11:28). In
other words, God often deals with the family as an organic whole, so that when
a parent is Christian, then the whole family is to be regarded as Christian.
This
has always been the way that God views His families. It is so in the Old
Testament as well as the New Testament. This is why God commanded Abraham to
circumcise his children. Though infants could not exercise faith, they were to
be applied the “sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith”
(Rom 4:11), in order to mark them out as being part of the household of faith
(cf. Gen 17:13–14). In the New
Testament, the Apostle Peter referring to the Abrahamic promise declares: “For
the promise is unto you, and to your children…” (Acts 2:39a), thus teaching
that God has not ceased to have covenantal regard for the children of
believers.
This,
of course, does not guarantee that every member in a Christian family would by
default be a true Christian. No, the family is regarded organically: like a
plant or branch of a tree. Ultimately if the member bears no fruit or marks of
conversion, it is cut off (see John 15:6; Romans 11:19). But we must insist
that such ultimate unbelief would be the exception rather than the rule in a
family which obediently uses the means of grace appointed by God for His
covenant members. This is especially so under the New Covenant where there is a
far greater effusion of the Holy Spirit when compared to the Old Covenant. It
is with this confidence of God’s promise that we baptise our children.
Status
of Unbelieving Spouse
If
children of Christian families are covenantally holy, then by the same token,
based on 1 Corinthians 7:14, the unbelieving spouse would also be covenantally
holy. And if the covenantal holiness of children behoves us to baptise our
children, then should not we also baptise the unbelieving spouses?
Baptist
theologians frequently use this point to debunk the pedobaptist interpretation
of the verse. A simple response to this objection would be that covenantal
holiness provides the basis for baptising whole households, but does not demand
the baptising of the whole household. The demand to baptise infants comes from
the command to circumcise infants under the Abrahamic covenant; whereas the
demand to baptise adults come from Acts 2:38, “Repent, and be baptised every
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.” For infants,
their parents’ faith is sufficient warrant to baptise, since they are unable to
make profession of faith. For adults, personal profession of faith, or at least
the absence of conscious objection, is required.
In
other words, based on the principle of family solidarity, the spouse of a
believer, who cannot show credible profession of faith,—such as being able to
articulate his/her love for Christ,—but is nevertheless willing to conform to
the doctrines and demands of the church can be received or regarded as a member
of the church, simply because he is married to a member of the church. We say
this more theoretically than absolutely because a person who is in such a
situation could possibly be already regenerate, albeit with weak faith.
Very
often, however, the unbelieving spouse consciously objects to Christianity. In
such a case, though he may be sanctified on account of his marriage with the
believer, and be no cause for defiling the believer, yet he has cut himself off
from the covenant community by his unbelief, and so cannot be admitted as a
member. Such an unbelieving spouse, however, could cut himself off completely
(and be no more covenantally holy) by deserting his believing spouse (1 Cor
7:15). The same goes for a child who may be baptised when young, but denies the
faith when he comes of age. In such a case, the church must excommunicate him.
Yet, he remains a covenant child, since his parents cannot excommunicate him
from the family. However, if he marries while in unbelief, he would essentially
cut himself off from his covenantal status.
Conclusion
This
article is not intended to be a defence of pedobaptism. It is an attempt to see
the meaning of a difficult verse and to see its implications. The solidarity of
the family in God’s sight in not only taught in 1 Corinthians 7:14; it is
hinted elsewhere in Scripture too. However, it is most vividly stated here and
we believe that the pedobaptist interpretation can be sustained.
—JJ Lim