Rushdoony on the Objective Covenant
So I listened to more Rushdoony, and this time was especially interesting and relevant. A question was posed to him if he differed with the Tyler school of Reconstructionism (North, Jordan, Sutton) on the sacraments and liturgy. His answer (I'm quoting now) is informative:
"The Lord's Supper is a celebration of the fact that we are members of the new humanity of Jesus Christ. ...[O]nce members of the old humanity of Adam, the fallen humanity. And Jesus Christ has made us members of his humanity, a new humanity, a new human race."
"We are now God's kingdom warriors. We go to the table to be rearmed."
"Baptism celebrates, again, the same fact. Because we are members of Christ's covenant through his saving grace, our children are to be reared in the nurture and admonition of the LORD. We are to do what Hannah did with the infant Samuel when she took him to Eli and said 'This child is given to me by the LORD, and I therefore give him to the LORD.' That's baptism. Our child belongs to the LORD. By His grace, by His covenant, He gives us children and they are to be His property. And so by baptism we signify that fact. They are His property. They belong to His covenant."
"The early church also gave to infants, or rather, children who were capable of understanding, communion. It depended on the age, four, five, six, seven, and at the service, as in the Passover service, there would be the youngest boys from the congregation, might be half a dozen because they were home churches, or might be more, who got up and recited in unison; boys of four, five, six, seven, whenever the parents felt that they had an understanding, and at the beginning of the communion service, they would say 'What is the meaning of this that we do?' in unison. And then, the pastor would explain the meaning of communion, the covenant of our God, the new humanity in simple language so that the children and adults could understand it."
"If they (children in the church) went astray, they were stealing God's property because they did not belong to themselves. They belonged to Jesus Christ. I think we need a return to that kind of teaching again, highly covenantal."
So Jacob, it ain't quite Federal Vision theology, but that would be the only thing even in the same ballpark. If forced to place him in one of the three current camps (Southern Presby, Klinian, or FV) there is only one real option.
"The Lord's Supper is a celebration of the fact that we are members of the new humanity of Jesus Christ. ...[O]nce members of the old humanity of Adam, the fallen humanity. And Jesus Christ has made us members of his humanity, a new humanity, a new human race."
"We are now God's kingdom warriors. We go to the table to be rearmed."
"Baptism celebrates, again, the same fact. Because we are members of Christ's covenant through his saving grace, our children are to be reared in the nurture and admonition of the LORD. We are to do what Hannah did with the infant Samuel when she took him to Eli and said 'This child is given to me by the LORD, and I therefore give him to the LORD.' That's baptism. Our child belongs to the LORD. By His grace, by His covenant, He gives us children and they are to be His property. And so by baptism we signify that fact. They are His property. They belong to His covenant."
"The early church also gave to infants, or rather, children who were capable of understanding, communion. It depended on the age, four, five, six, seven, and at the service, as in the Passover service, there would be the youngest boys from the congregation, might be half a dozen because they were home churches, or might be more, who got up and recited in unison; boys of four, five, six, seven, whenever the parents felt that they had an understanding, and at the beginning of the communion service, they would say 'What is the meaning of this that we do?' in unison. And then, the pastor would explain the meaning of communion, the covenant of our God, the new humanity in simple language so that the children and adults could understand it."
"If they (children in the church) went astray, they were stealing God's property because they did not belong to themselves. They belonged to Jesus Christ. I think we need a return to that kind of teaching again, highly covenantal."
So Jacob, it ain't quite Federal Vision theology, but that would be the only thing even in the same ballpark. If forced to place him in one of the three current camps (Southern Presby, Klinian, or FV) there is only one real option.
posted by Steven W at 8:16 PM 
2 Comments:
Odd. I thought Rushdoony held to paedocommunion, but it doesn't sound like it from these quotations.
I don't know where he got the idea that the Passover wasn't given to the littlest children. Obviously kids who weren't eating meat didn't partake, but kids start eating meat at a pretty early age, even before they're weaned.
In Institutes he sounds like a full-blown paedo because of his strong Passover/Lord's Supper connection, but this talk reveals that he had a sort of hybrid position. Of course where I am if you let 4 year olds come to the table then you might as well be paedo.
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