# C. Matthew McMahon & God's Everlasting Covenant



## AV1611 (May 14, 2007)

I am just intregued as to why you say of Hanko that "His answers in ratifying infant baptism were horrific, and illogical at best. “Reformed” Baptists would laugh at his work in this book as arguments to win them over to his side."

http://www.apuritansmind.com/BookReviews/HankoHermanEverlastingCovenant.htm#_ftnref9



> Chapter 9 explores the question, “Who is the true seed of Abraham?” Some believe that the Jews are the seed of Abraham, and others that believers and Jews are made of the seed of Abraham. Hanko asserts that Christ is the Seed that Abraham bore in his lineage and is the Seed that is discussed in the New Testament. It is true that the child Isaac came as a promised “seed” but this seed pointed to the greater Seed that is Jesus Christ. Isaac was simply a type of Christ to come. If Christ is the true heir of Abraham, then only those in Christ can be true seeds of Abraham. It is only for the heirs of the promise that Christ died, and only for them that are children of God. Christ is the true heir to the promises given to Abraham, and all those in Him are co-heirs.
> 
> Chapter 10 deals with the believers and their seed. All those who are in Christ are also true seeds of Abraham. Dispensationalists are wrong when they make a division between Israel and the church in this case, for all children of Abraham are considered the church. The church is constituted of the Gentiles and Jews as heirs to the kingdom and seeds of Abraham. Also, Hanko says it is important to consider how children are continually part of the covenant instead of casting them out because of a dispensational change. He says we should remember that the church in the Old Testament and New Testament is one. If there is only one covenant, then there is only one sign of the covenant (circumcision in the Old Testament and baptism in the New Testament both point to regeneration). God gave Abraham an everlasting sign to the covenant. That is why there is no mention of the baptism of infants in the New Testament because we see the same hermeneutic of “households” being baptized as they were inducted by circumcision in the Old Testament.
> 
> ...


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## C. Matthew McMahon (May 14, 2007)

Hanko's treatment is not only non-Westminsterian, but non-RB, and more pro-FV. I am not saying Hanko is FV, but his view is much like what leads one to be FV. Its the erroneous road that leads one down that path. He blurs the lines and covenant concepts together making Chapter 3 and Chapter 7 of the WCF unintelligible bewcause he redefines covenant.


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## AV1611 (May 15, 2007)

C. Matthew McMahon said:


> Hanko's treatment is not only non-Westminsterian, but non-RB, and more pro-FV.



Matthew,

Thanks for the reply. 

I know you disagree with his conception of the covenant of works &c. and I know that FV folk have said that the work of Hoeksema _et al_ helped them onto their own brand of (in my opinion heretical) theology but what I was wondering is why do you believe that Hanko's position would cause "Reformed” Baptists to "laugh at his work in this book as arguments to win them over to his side." I am just interested in the specifics as I found Hanko's book _We and Our Children_ to be very helpful in dealing with Baptist polemic and has helped me see that I was wrong to reject paedobaptism.

Further what are your grounds for arguing that in saying that "children receive the external mark of the sign, but not the inward salvation that is represented in the sign" Hanko "does not answer the question"?


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