Believers and Their Seed is not a book designed to prove infant baptism over against the baptist position. It is a book for those already convicted of the truth that “The baptism of young children is … to be retained in the church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ” (Article 24 of the Thirty-Nine Articles). Herman Hoeksema grounds infant baptism in the covenant of grace with believers and their seed which in turn is rooted in the covenant life of the Triune God, “a life of the most intimate communion of love and friendship, resting in the unity of God’s Being and living through the personal distinction[s]” of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (p. 61).

As well as grounding infant baptism in God’s covenant, Hoeksema draws out the relationship between infant baptism and election and the doctrines of grace. Thus he opposes a “conditional” covenant (chs. 1-2) and baptismal regeneration (chs. 3-4) and deals with the difficult pastoral issue of covenant children who die in infancy (ch. 11).

Believers and Their Seed has helped a lot of people understand infant baptism more deeply and been of great comfort to believing parents. The proper understanding of the covenant also helps to preserve Reformed, Presbyterian, Anglican and Congregational churches from the incursion of baptistic thinking (pp. 4-5) and the modern practice of infant “dedication” services. For those less familiar with some of the controversies between paedobaptists (chs. 1-4), it may be best to read the positive treatment of God’s covenant and infant baptism first (chs. 5-11).

This book can also be read on-line.

Click here to read this book in Dutch.
Click to read chapter 5 and chapter 6 in Italian.

REVIEW

Believers and Their Seed: Children in the Covenant, by Herman Hoeksema. Grand Rapids: Reformed Free Publishing Association, revised edition, 1997. 166 pages (hard cover). [Reviewed by Rev. D.H. Kuiper.]

There are really only two views of the covenant of grace. One view holds that the covenant of God is unilateral. The other view is that it is bilateral. That the covenant is unilateral or one-sided means that God is sovereign in every aspect of the covenant: He conceived of it, established it, maintains it, and perfects it. There are not two parties in the covenant, but one, and that is God. There are two parts to the covenant, God’s and man’s; but God performs His part, and also works man’s part by the power of His grace. The other view of the covenant, bilateralism, has God and man in contract or agreement. Each has a work to perform. When God does His part and man does his part then the covenant is successful. In this book Herman Hoeksema argues successfully that the covenant is unilateral. And he shows that all other views are essentially bilateral, and as such partake of Arminianism to one degree or another.

From a certain point of view, Believers and Their Seed is Hoeksema’s most important book, for it sets forth his greatest contribution to Reformed theology. At the same time, the view of the covenant developed here sets forth the heart of Protestant Reformed theology; if anyone wants to know what these churches stand for, in distinction from other Reformed denominations, this book will make that clear. As the sovereignty of God is the great truth that underlies and unifies the five points of Calvinism, so the sovereignty of God is the basis of Hoeksema’s understanding of the covenant. God is God! Salvation is of the Lord alone! And salvation, the covenant, and the grace of God revealed therein, are only for the elect whom God has chosen in eternity and unconditionally.

Because Hoeksema was intellectually honest and thoroughly committed to Holy Scripture and the Reformed confessions, it is safe to say that his insistence on particular grace assisted him in developing a view of the covenant that was biblically grounded and in harmony with the genius of the confessions. It is striking that in 1927, only three years after he was expelled from the Christian Reformed Church for opposing the theory of common grace, he set forth his covenant view in eleven editorials in the Standard Bearer. Those editorials form the contents of this book, first published in the Dutch language, then in an English translation in 1971, and now in this attractive reprint. This volume also contains a twenty-six page preface by Prof. David Engelsma which gives a biography of Hoeksema and a thorough introduction to the book itself.

As Prof. Engelsma points out, the significance of the book is that it makes six points about the covenant, points we believe Reformed churches need badly to hear today. 1) The essence of the covenant is friendship, friendship between God and His people through the work of Jesus Christ. And this friendship is to be traced back to the triune life of God Himself. God is the covenant God because He enjoys a life of friendship, first within Himself, and then with His people. 2) Included in this covenant life are the children of believers, for God saves His church in the line of continued generations. And for this reason infants are to be baptized. 3) There is one church throughout the ages, one covenant under Old and New Testament forms. Baptism has replaced circumcision. Infants must receive the token of the covenant. 4) The covenant is established only with the elect. Here we see Hoeksema faithful to the Canons of Dordt as he applies the doctrines of grace to the covenant. Because believers bring forth a twofold seed, the elect and the reprobate, it is necessary to distinguish the covenant from the sphere of the covenant. Only elect children of believers are in the covenant of grace. The Esaus in the church are not in the covenant, but are merely in the sphere of the covenant for which they are judged the more strictly. 5) The doctrinal struggle of 1953 must be seen as a controversy over the covenant: Would the Protestant Reformed Churches remain faithful to her historical moorings, or would she adopt bilateralism as regards the covenant? Hoeksema shows that the Christian Reformed view of the covenant was basically the same as that espoused by Dr. K. Schilder and the Liberated Churches, and therefore must be rejected. And 6) Hoeksema rejects the Kuyperian notion of presupposed regeneration as the reason for the baptism of infants. It is a mystery of modern church history that time and again Hoeksema and the Protestant Reformed Churches are charged with maintaining presupposed regeneration.

I have used the book to study the doctrine of the covenant twice, once with the adult members of a small congregation and once with older young people and young adults. Both times the experience was profitable and enjoyable for all concerned. We encourage others to study this important book, either personally or in society. Such a study will send us to Holy Scripture to learn what it means that God is the covenant God, and why the covenant is called the covenant of grace. Such a study, humbly and prayerfully undertaken, will be an act of friendship.

Many years ago an older pastor advised me to read Chapter 5 of the book before all the other chapters. In Chapter 5 the “Meaning of the Covenant” is set forth. With that in mind the other chapters are more understandable. We found that to be true, and pass the suggestion on for your consideration.

“I found Believers and Their Seed by H. Hoeksema really lovely.” – Yorkshire, England

“I finished reading Herman Hoeksema’s Believers and Their Seed a couple of days ago and found it helpful as well as food for the soul.” – Co. Antrim

Covenant and election are two of the most prominent and most important truths in Scripture. They run through the Bible like two grand, harmonious themes in symphony. These two doctrines and their relation are the twofold subject of this book.

In Covenant and Election, Prof. Engelsma traces these themes in the confessional documents of the Reformed churches and from John Calvin in the sixteenth-century through the fathers of the Secession churches in the nineteenth-century Netherlands to the twentieth-century theologians Herman Bavinck and Herman Hoeksema. With his usual penetrating scriptural analysis, Engelsma also exposes the contemporary and spreading heresy of the Federal Vision.

“As I read Covenant and Election, I was stirred up in my soul to renewed vigour and opposition to the lie. You did a wonderful job elucidating the issue. I especially appreciated the chapters dealing with Christ as first in God’s decree and the organic principle.” – Washington, USA

Belgic Confession Class, Vol. VII: Articles 15-16

11 classes on 11 CDs

Article 15: Original Sin
(1) Theological Terminology and Heretical Views
(2) “Birth Sin” and Adam’s Headship
(3) Original Sin in Its Theological Relationships

Article 16: Eternal Election
(4) Introducing Double Predestination
(5) Defining and Proving Election
(6) Eternal, Unchangeable, Unconditional Election
(7) Defining and Proving Reprobation
(8) Reprobation, Hatred and Hardening
(9) The Purposes of Election and Reprobation
(10) The Righteousness of Election and Reprobation
(11) Infralapsarianism and Supralapsarianism

“Have just finished listening to volume 7 of the Belgic Confession class on ‘Original Sin and Double Predestination.’ Hugely helpful and very encouraging. I will be listening to it again as I do with many of these CD box sets. There are always new insights to be had … please send me volume 8, as well as a copy of the book For Thy Truth’s Sake.” – England

Calvin’s preaching was intensely practical. From the outset of a sermon, Calvin was applying the teaching of the passage to the experience and life of the congregation.” “Practical as Calvin was in preaching the Old Testament, he did not view Old Testament history as a mere collection of illustrations for a godly life. For Calvin, Old Testament history has a covenantal centre and is, therefore, prophetic of Jesus Christ. Commenting on Rebekah’s attempt to gain the blessing for Jacob by ‘craft and lying,’ Calvin said, ‘The matter was here of the salvation of the world, the question was of having Jesus Christ whom God should send for a Redeemer’”

The sermons therefore are doctrinal. Nor is predestination the only doctrine taught. Indeed, the title of the set of sermons can be misleading. Sermons six through nine contain little or nothing that explicitly concerns predestination, treating as they do of the trial of Isaac in Gerar. Only at the end of sermon ten, where he explains Esau’s marriages to two heathens as a manifestation of his reprobation, does Calvin return to the subject of predestination.

Running through the entire exposition, as through all of Calvin’s theology, is the theme that binds all together, the sovereignty of the God and Father of Jesus Christ. This sovereignty is divine purpose and power governing all that takes place, the disobedience of the reprobate as well as the obedience of the elect, for the sake of God’s glory in the salvation of the church of Jesus Christ…. Following the apostle in Romans 9, John Calvin saw in the inspired history of Jacob and Esau the revelation of God’s eternal predestination of some particular individuals unto salvation, and of other particular individuals unto damnation.

Sermons on Election & Reprobation by John Calvin. Audubon, New Jersey: Old Paths Publications, 1996. 317 pp., plus subject and scriptural text indexes (hardcover). [Reviewed by David J. Engelsma]

These sermons by John Calvin on God’s election of Jacob and reprobation of Esau were published in English for the first time in 1579. Never again reprinted until now, they have been unavailable to, and virtually unknown by, English-speaking people for more than 400 years. They were originally part of Calvin’s series on the book of Genesis. Calvin began the series in September, 1559. The sermons represent, therefore, the reformer’s well-developed exegetical abilities and mature theological position. It should be remembered that the sermons on Genesis are different from Calvin’s earlier commentary on Genesis.

The sermons that make up the content of this book cover Genesis 25:12 – 27:38.

With this reprint, Old Paths Publications makes a very valuable work of Calvin available in English for the first time in more than 400 years. Preachers and other scholars will want to study it for its contribution to the knowledge both of Calvin’s method of preaching and of Calvin’s doctrine of predestination.

But the book will also be welcomed by the ordinary church member, especially the Reformed and Presbyterian church member. Calvin preached to the people of God. He used language that they would understand and that would bring the Word home to them. In the sermon on Genesis 27:31-38, Calvin explains that “Esau cried out, yea by yelling and roaring, and that he howled as it were a wild beast.”

The publisher has made the book reader-friendly. This reprint is not a mere photolithographed facsimile of the original 1579 edition; as is often the case, with the reprinting of Calvin’s sermons. The text has been newly typeset, so that the forms of letters and the spelling are modern. Also, archaic words are immediately explained in brackets by their contemporary equivalent. For example: “… to wit, these Dotards (foolish talkers, imbeciles)” (p. 202).

Nevertheless, the original work was left complete and unabridged. We have in this volume the sermons preached by Calvin in Geneva as the notable scribe, Denis Raguenier, took them down and as the English translator, John Field, rendered the original French into English.

The content is rich: God’s sovereignty in the predestination of men, not as an abstract treatise but in the form of faithful exposition of Old Testament Scripture. Commenting in the second sermon on God’s deliberate government of the birth of the twins so that Esau was born first and Jacob, second, Calvin explained:

And why doth God then pull him (Jacob) back, and make him inferior to his brother, as touching the law of nature, and afterwards setteth him (Jacob) above him (Esau)? In this we see that God would shut out all glory of man, that he would that all height should be thrown down, and that men should bring nothing of their own: to the end to say: I have attained such or such a good thing. I have gotten it by mine own industry. We see then that which I have already touched: that is to say, that we have here a glass, wherein we may behold, that all they that are of the church, are not advanced thereto by their own virtue, and that they have not obtained this favor by their merits: but that God hath chosen them before they were born (pp. 31, 32)

Not only do the sermons make clear what predestination is for Calvin, but also the importance of the doctrine for the Christian faith. Predestination is an eternal, sovereign decree that determines the everlasting destiny of every human. It is a decree that distinguishes between the natural children of believing parents.

The significance of election is that it is the source of every Christian virtue, the ground of the assurance of salvation, and the truth that attributes “the whole praise of our salvation to … him (God).”

Calvin was not the slick, smiling, positive preacher who is the curse of much of contemporary evangelicalism, indeed, of much of nominally Reformed Christianity. His preaching pointed out and condemned the errors opposed to predestination. The enemies could be distinguished as “dogs” and “hogs.” The dogs were the theologians who spoke and wrote against predestination. The hogs were those who professed to believe the doctrine, claiming to be elect, but whose unholy lives brought shame upon the truth that they professed.

Regarding those who opposed predestination by teaching that election depends upon foreseen faith, Calvin declared that they “have no drop of the fear of God.”

Predestination is by no means the only doctrine treated in the book. The chapters in Genesis covered by these sermons contain many doctrines, including instruction for the Christian life. Calvin found them all. The tenth sermon, on Isaac’s dealings with Abimelech, is a powerful exhortation to the Christian to purify himself “of all bitterness, hatred, and rancour, of all desire to revenge.”

Adding to the value of an already invaluable work – Calvin! Calvin’s sermons! Calvin’s sermons on predestination! – is an intriguing “appendix”: “An Answer to certain slanders and blasphemies, wherewith certain evil disposed persons have gone about to bring the doctrine of God’s everlasting Predestination into hatred.”

This is a little-known, succinct defense of predestination by Calvin himself against certain attacks on the doctrine, evidently about the time that Calvin was preaching on the doctrine out of Genesis.

From this “Answer” it is apparent that not only were the arguments against the doctrine of predestination the very same as those still raised today, but also they were the very same as the arguments being raised today in defense of the “well-meant offer.” In Calvin’s day, “Sebastian Chastalio or some such like” argued against predestination, that God “laboreth to draw unto him all that went astray”; that Ezekiel 18:32 33:11 teach that God desires to save all; that “God hath not created nor predestinated any man not to ‘believe, seeing he calleth everyone”; and that Jesus’ call to the heavy laden in Matthew 11:28 proves that “grace is given equally to all.”

In our day, the Christian .Reformed Church; John Murray and Ned Stonehouse; Iain Murray and the Banner of Truth; and others who profess Calvinism, adopt exactly the same arguments in their attack upon sovereign, particular grace in the preaching of the gospel, according to predestination.

Now the entire English-speaking world can read Calvin’s rejection and refutation of these perennial arguments against divine predestination.

The book includes a foreword of some length by the editor of the Standard Bearer.

There is also an index of texts and an index of topics.

Not to be overlooked is that the book is a handsome, gold-on-burgundy, hardcover volume. The publisher has done it right.

“I’ve begun to read Sermons on Election and Reprobation by Calvin. His sermons are very clear, and are a blessing to me as I learn more about predestination, election and reprobation. Calvin was a great Reformer, pastor, preacher, lecturer and writer.” – Lincolnshire, England

Click here to read this book in Hungarian.

7 sermons on Romans 9 on CD plus a bonus disk

Several years ago, when these sermons from Romans 9 on God’s sovereign election and reprobation were preached, this series was made available on cassette tapes and quickly became our best-selling set. Now, they have been produced as an attractive boxed set of CDs. An additional, bonus CD entitled “Does God Really Desire to Save the Reprobate?” is included in each set.

(1) Paul’s Sorrow Over Unbelieving Israel (Rom. 9:1-5)
(2) They are not all Israel Which are Israel (Rom. 9:6-9)
(3) Jacob Elected and Esau Reprobated (Rom. 9:9-13)
(4) God’s Hatred of Esau (Rom. 9:13)
(5) Is God’s Election Unrighteous? (Rom. 9:14-16)
(6) Is God’s Reprobation Unrighteous? (Rom. 9:17-18)
(7) The Ultimate Theodicy (Rom. 9:19-24)
Bonus Lecture: Does God Really Desire to Save the Reprobate?

“I have found real blessing in hearing the messages on Romans 9 and have never heard such clear teaching on this subject. This is what I believe and rejoice in.” – England

“I have listened to some sermons of your series on Romans 9 yesterday evening, and I am glad to hear that you stand firm on the truth without fear of men. That’s precisely the kind of preaching I couldn’t find … I am exploring your website, and appreciating your doctrinal views, your firmness and precision. To my knowledge, you are a unique voice in the European Reformed field.” – Italy

“Thank you for the CD of Romans 9, sermon 3. It was so good to hear … the vital teaching of ‘not all Israel being Israel.’” – W. Yorkshire, England

“I enjoyed listening to this sermon [‘The Ultimate Theodicy’ from Romans 9:19-24] last night from your website. I really liked your comment concerning the vehement objection to God’s sovereignty by the man who asks, ‘Why does God still find fault, for who can resist His will?’” – Georgia, USA