accepted as God’s people. When the people of Israel resorted to the idolatrous worship of the golden calf, after the giving of the law, it was on the basis of the Abrahamic covenant that Moses successfully 121 based his plea for God to avert his anger. Of course, every covenant has its obligations as well as it 122 privileges, including the New Covenant. The conditional “if” is as important to the New Testament as 123 it is to the Old. We demonstrate the reality of what we are by keeping his commands. The mark of the covenant in the Old Testament was always a sign of God’s gracious dealings with his own people – both before and after Sinai. As Paul makes abundantly clear in Gal 3.17f: “The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.” [3]
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COVENANT OBLIGATIONS WITH RESPECT TO CHILDREN
The family had a vital role to play in Israel’s ongoing relationship with God, 125 especially “as a vehicle of continuity for the faith, history, and traditions of Israel”. Fundamental to this role was the responsibility of the father (or whoever was the head of the household) to instruct children within the family in the ways of God, as God himself had revealed them. Such instruction was regarded as a “solemn obligation”. There are instances in the Old Testament where this obligation is placed fairly and squarely on those responsible for such instruction. Deut 6.6-7: “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Deut 11.18f: “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Deut 32.46: “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law.” Their future would depend upon it. In addition to this didactic form of instruction there was a place for catechetical instruction. The “question and answer” format adopted by Presbyterians was an essential ingredient of Jewish life. It provided the means whereby Jewish ceremonies, especially those associated with the Exodus, could be explained to children by the head of the household. There are several instances in the Old Testament where this form of teaching is required. Passover. “When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord…’” Ex 12.26f Consecration of the first born. “In the days when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us up out of Egypt… When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed every firstborn in Egypt… This is why I sacrifice to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons…’” Ex 13.14) Laws commanded by God. “When your son asks you, ‘What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?’ tell him, ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand… The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive…’” Deut 6.20-24 Crossing of the Jordan. “When your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord…’” Jos 4.6-7 Crossing of the Jordan. “When your descendants ask their fathers, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground…’” Jos 4.21f As Wright observes the catechetical pattern was introduced to “‘prime’ the child 126 with questions as a ‘springboard’ for the teaching of specific religious history and belief”. Whether the teaching of children was didactic or catechetical it was a solemn, God-ordained obligation for the well-being of both family and nation. 121
Exodus 32.11-14. cf. Rom 8.17: “Now if we are children of God, then we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” Cf. also John 15.6,7. 123 John 15.10. 124 CJH Wright, God’s People in God’s Land: Family, Land and Property in the Old Testament, Paternoster 1997, p 81. 125 Ibid, p 81. 126 Ibid, p 83, quoting JA Soggin, Legends and Catechesis, p 76. 122
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