Yesterday Jared Longshore posted Are Your Children Members of the New Covenant? He responds to the argument that Jeremiah 31:31-34 teaches that the New Covenant is unlike the Abrahamic Covenant in that the geneological principle does not continue because the New Covenant is made only with the regenerate elect.
Promises to the Children of New Covenant Members
Indeed for some time, I considered the various biblical promises God made to His people’s children in the Old Testament as promises God made to Israel and their offspring and in some general sense similar promises were made to New Covenant members and their offspring… I took these promises as announced to the Christian’s children, even promises made to such children in a special way given their presence in a Christian home. But I did not take them as promises stuck to them, promises from God signed and sealed upon them.
I would like to know what verses Longshore has in mind here. It sounds to me like when he was a baptist he did not understand the typological nature of the Covenant of Circumcision and the promises to Abraham’s natural offspring. It sounds like he may not have understood the prophetic idiom of the later prophets either. This video unpacks the meaning of that idiom with regards to “offspring.”
Unbroken New Covenant Administration
Longshore argues that the New Covenant and the Old Covenant are the same covenant, but that they differ in outward form (“administration”). Thus the New Covenant is not a different covenant, but just a different outward form of the Covenant of Grace, which changes form throughout history. Longshore then argues that “The Old Covenant [administration/outward form] as a whole was broken such that it came to an end (2 Cor. 3:11)… [But the New Covenant] administration itself is never going to fade away like the old one did.”
But is Longshore consistent with this claim? He believes that the present administration of the Covenant of Grace includes unregenerate members (that unregenerate members are part of the “administration” of the covenant, but not the “substance”). He also believes that they will not be members of the Covenant of Grace in the eschaton. At that point, the Covenant of Grace will include only the regenerate elect. That is a change in administration (outward form). Therefore the present administration (the “New Covenant”) is “going to fade away like the old one did.”
A Greater Degree of the Spirit
Jeremiah speaks to the degree of the Spirit’s power and efficaciousness upon the New Covenant people. He does not imply that the saints under the old administration of the covenant of grace were saved without the work of the Spirit upon the heart.
First, this presents a false dichotomy. Either the saints in the OT were saved without the work of the Spirit, or Jeremiah is only referring to a greater degree of the work of the Spirit. The option Longshore leaves out is the view held throughout the history of the church that OT saints were saved by the New Covenant work of the Spirit.
Second, Calvin tried to argue Jeremiah’s promise just referred to a greater degree of the work of the Spirit in Hebrews 8:10 but he ran into a problem. “[T]he faith and obedience of Abraham so excelled, that hardly any such an example can at this day be found in the whole world[.]” Calvin’s solution:
[W]hatever spiritual gifts the fathers obtained, they were accidental as it were to their age; for it was necessary for them to direct their eyes to Christ in order to become possessed of them. Hence it was not without reason that the Apostle, in comparing the Gospel with the Law, took away from the latter what is peculiar to the former. There is yet no reason why God should not have extended the grace of the new covenant to the fathers. This is the true solution of the question.
Even Doug Wilson recognizes this
[T]he New Covenant is powerful to save throughout all time, including the time of the Levitical administration (Heb 9:15; Jn. 8:58; Heb 7:3)… The author of Hebrews tells us this: “And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” (Heb. 9:15). In other words, the New Covenant is effective in the salvation of the Old Testament saints… The Levitical administration could not save retroactively; in fact, it could not save at all. It could only look forward in anticipation. The Christ of the New Covenant was savingly effective in the lives of Abraham, Samuel, David, and countless others. The second covenant not only saves those under the second covenant, it saves believers under the first covenant.
To a Thousand Generations, 29-30
All Shall Know Me
Regarding Jeremiah 31:34/Hebrews 8:11 “they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” Longshore argues “Jeremiah here speaks hyperbolically.”
The problem with this claim is that it is contrary to how Jesus understood Jeremiah’s prophecy. He did not interpret “all” as hyperbole meaning “a lot more” but rather as referring to everyone in the covenant: the elect (John 6:45 – check your Bible’s cross references).
They shall all know me, saith the Lord, that is, as Christ doth interpret it, They shall be all taught of God, Joh. 6. 45.
David Dickson, THERAPEUTICA SACRA Ch. VII
God saith only of, and to the invisible Church and not of the visible Church in his gratious purpose, Jerem 32. 38. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people, Jer. 31. 33. I will put my Law in their inward parts, 34. They shall all know me (all within the covenant) I will for∣give their iniquity… A church in covenant with God, and the Spouse of Christ, and his mysticall Body, and a church which he redeemed with the Blood of God, Acts 20.28. Eph. 5.25. 26. Col. 1.18. 1 Cor. 12.12. Is a church whereof all the members without exception are taught of God. Jerem. 31.34. They shall all know me (saith the Lord) from the least, unto the greatest. Esa. 54.13. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord. And therefore they all haveing heard and learned of the Father, come to Christ, John 6.45. and therefore have all the anointing within them which teacheth them all things, 1 John 1.27
Samuel Rutherford, The Due Right of Presbyteries
The idea that the covenant is fully realized only in the elect is a perfectly Scriptural idea, as appears, for instance, from Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-12.
Louis Berkhof. Systematic Theology IV.III.III.B
The proposition is universal, as to the modification of the subject, “all;” but in the word “of them,” it is restrained unto those alone with whom this covenant is made… Where there is not some degree of saving knowledge, there no interest in the New Covenant can be pretended.
Owen, Exposition of Hebrews 8:11
‘They shall all know me,’ (Jer 31:34)…All the seed, without exception…all these predestinated, called, justified, glorified ones, shall know God by the grace of the new testament, from the least to the greatest of them.
Augustine, A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, 406-407
Contrast 