Covenant Children and adoption

[athanatos]

My girlfriend was born in Bangladesh and was adopted by two believing American parents. She grew in the Christian home and professes Christ. She tells me of the racism she experienced in highschool, but also of teasing from other children regarding not being a "covenant child". ... I am, up until a couple years ago, ignorant of the depth of the concept. I remember it being mocked when I was a child.

She has since had a very sharp hesitation to get on board with Reformed things, not because she disagrees exactly, but because of the association she's made with the Christian Reformed Church, Dutch Reformed, and others. (As you might guess, she grew up in Grand Rapids area) .... Hence, she is a Baptist, and hasn't really examined it but she's a Dispensational. In any case, she and I usually agree theologically. But when I mention something unique to the Covenant or Reformed camp, she is more engaged on more of an emotional level due to a ton of bad experiences.

That's the background. My depth of understanding of "covenant children" is that children under a covenant head (a parent) are within the new Covenant community in virtue of but one believing parent. If this is true, it would make just as much sense to me for children being adopted into a family, just as we are adopted as God's children, to have an inheritance under the covenant head. That is, adoption means she became a covenant child, even though she was born to two unbelieving parents (well, we don't know this with certainty, since she was in an orphanage).

What am I missing? Am I misrepresenting covenant children's status? I really don't see the big deal with being a covenant child, which comes from my Baptist background that I'm straying from. So, any explanation there would help too.

 

[athanatos]

I would add, that though I originally intended for a purely theological/doctrinal answer, a pastoral answer would be adequate as well. That is, how I ought to frame it for her and express how Christ's new covenant plays out for us in this particular case.

 

[he beholds]

If her parents were Christians, she's a covenant child.

 

[athanatos]

If her parents were Christians, she's a covenant child.

Her adopted parents, or biological parents? ...Or is it merely where she grew up?

 

[athanatos]

Josh, I think that makes the best intuitive sense. Thanks. I would be inclined to say that since the authority over her changed, she entered into the covenant community and is a child under her covenant head, her adoptive father.

I must admit, in my curious mind I am trying to find the reason/grounds on which she would've been teased for not being a covenant child. It is a perfectly acceptable answer to say that they were mistaken or ignorant jerks.

 

[he beholds]

The parents who adopted her are now her parents. If they were Christians, she was a part of the covenant.

 

[Jack K]

it would make just as much sense to me for children being adopted into a family, just as we are adopted as God's children, to have an inheritance under the covenant head. That is, adoption means she became a covenant child, even though she was born to two unbelieving parents

You are exactly right. Any kids who teased her for not being a "covenant child" were just being stupid (and mean) kids. Tell her so. Tell her we all agree. She's been hurt and it was wrong.

In fact, if anything we might say her status as an adopted child makes her more surely a member of the covenant family. She's even more fully selected by God in the sense that she was plucked out of an unbelieving family and into God's family. Don't we all become God's children by adoption? Not that there really are levels to inclusion in God's family, but an adopted child fits the model best of all.

I know a young woman who was adopted out of an unbelieving home into a Christian one. She is keenly aware of the blessings of being adopted and the unmerited favor (not even merited by birth) that is hers by her adoption. It has given her a deeper appreciation for her spiritual adoption in Christ, not a weaker one.

BTW... I've heard that here in Colorado, at least, an adopted child actually has stronger rights than a natural one, and cannot be disinherited. If true, that's another sweet parallel to our adoption by God.

 

[puritanpilgrim]

All of Abraham's servants were in covenant by virtue of being under his authority.

Why doesn't this carry over into the modern sense of employer/employee relationships? Why shouldn't an employer baptize his employees based upon them being under his authority? Where is the line?

 

[he beholds]

(Sorry for being so brief! I was on hold when responding and then the person came back on.)

I think the girl maybe was teased just because kids are jerks. I cannot imagine "covenantalness" being a reason for scorn in any peer group, but kids will find reasons to be mean. Maybe they were even racist or something. Who knows. But it stinks that their ridicule impacts her theology.

 

[Zenas]

I must admit in my mind, I am trying to find the reason/grounds on which she would've been teased for not being a covenant child. It is a perfectly acceptable answer to say that they were mistaken or ignorant jerks.

And probably the correct answer. We as human beings are cruel.

 

[discipulo]

She's a covenant child by virtue of the parental authority God has put over her if they are Christians. All of Abraham's servants were in covenant by virtue of being under his authority. We believe in household baptism, not merely infant baptism.

Amen! Thank you Joshua for such a clear statement.

 

[Peairtach]

Jonathan

I must admit, in my curious mind I am trying to find the reason/grounds on which she would've been teased for not being a covenant child. It is a perfectly acceptable answer to say that they were mistaken or ignorant jerks.

These kids are a good example of the same attitude as the Pharisees and Saul the Pharisee before he was converted. Being a covenant child is not something to boast about but to thank God for and to realise the greater responsibility there is to respond by grace to God's grace to you in placing you in a Christian family.

Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh-though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. (Phil 3:2-7, ESV)

I hope these little Pharisees have since come to true faith in Christ - if they did not have it - and have since realised that all that they had from birth was of grace, and nothing to boast of.

 

[kvanlaan]

Yes, she's a covenant child. We are children of God who were not only disobedient and rude, but hated our father. That she associates it with the Dutch/Reformed is a too bad. Just because they were too myopic to see their own sin should not blind her to a right understanding of scripture.