“Natural Affections” and the Biblical Ordering of Our Loves (Part 3)
Part 1 of this series addressed the cultural, philosophical, and theological issues around the current interest in “natural affections,” Kinism, and the ordering of our loves. Of particular interest is the unbiblical pitting of nature versus grace. Part 2 examined key biblical texts in this debate. Specifically, it looked at passages that stress our need to love nation and family, and those that can appear to be in tension as they command love of others, particularly fellow Christians. Part 2 argues that Christians should view their brothers and sisters in Christ as more of an expansion of their familial obligations, not a replacement of them.
In the third and final part of this series, it is imperative for us to consider the concept of covenant and how it shapes our loves and obligations. Establishing a covenant ushers in new relationships that bring new obligations. Covenants bring form, structure, and direction to all of life. They shape our loves and obligations.
What is a covenant? Andy Naselli offers a helpful definition: A covenant is a special relationship between two parties based on binding promises with God as witness. I would expand this definition in three ways.
First, a covenant can include more than two individuals, such as between citizens in a nation and their rulers.
Second, God is the witness to all covenants, but that does not mean he is always recognized by those entering into a covenant. For example, the marriage covenant is hardwired into creation. Whether or not a couple recognizes God’s role in the covenant, he is still there.
Third, not all covenants are salvific to those who enter into them. From the creation covenant to marriage, some covenants do not provide atonement for sins. God is over all covenants, but not all covenants provide salvation. Nonetheless, every type of covenant is impacted by the salvific work of Christ (Col. 1:15–20; Eph. 1:20–23).
What does covenant have to do with ordering our loves? Everything. The covenantal structures of life inform how we think about our loves, obligations, and prioritizing them. To see this, we must understand how covenant trumps biological realities and how they form God-ordained spheres of sovereignty.
Covenant Trumps Biology
The marriage covenant is one of the oldest covenants in existence. God establishes it at the very beginning. In Genesis 2, we read its beauty and wonder as Adam first sees his bride:
And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:22–25)
Eve shares the same biology as Adam, as she comes from his flesh and bones. When he finally sees her, he is struck by her beauty and breaks into poetry. Adam’s words provide the very direction of all marriages. Jesus cites this passage as foundational to marital ethics (Matt. 19:5–6). Genesis 2 tells us that a marriage covenant is the formation of a new family.
Marriage marks the beginning of a new family as husband and wife leave their biological parents, become one, and cling to one another. In short, the marriage covenant brings a new order of obligation and love as husband and wife leave their biological families and cleave to one another. This covenant establishes a new family as husband and wife are joined together through sexual and covenantal unity. The covenant of marriage trumps, or displaces, the spouses’ prior biological relationships.
Some may object, “But the husband and wife become one flesh! Therefore, they are physically related.” There is an element of truth to this, but how exactly do they become family? What is the device that causes them to leave their biological kin and become one flesh? It is the covenant of marriage. Their biology, genes, and DNA remain the same, but their covenantal status changes. Marriage is a new reality marked by leaving and cleaving. The principle is clear—covenant trumps biology. A husband and wife are in a closer relationship than a parent and adult child because of the marriage covenant. When spouses reject this creational truth, the marriage is doomed to failure.
One reason Kinism and natural affections fall short is their failure to grapple with the significance of covenantal relationships. The primacy of covenant over biology runs counter to much of the ideology of natural affections and Kinism. Our natural, or biological, relations are not inherently greater or more fundamental than our covenantal ones.
This truth runs across the canon. In Deuteronomy 29:10–13, ethnic Jews and the “foreigners” among them are invited into the covenant. By doing so, these different kin become God’s “people.” This reality builds on the command that circumcised foreigners may eat the Passover meal and are to be treated as a “native of the land” (Exod. 12:48–49). Non-ethnic Jews, who entered the covenant, became Jews because covenantal realities trump mere biological lineage. The New Testament makes this same point in saying that not all Jews are truly Jews (Rom. 2:28–29; 9:6; Rev. 3:9). There is a deeper covenantal definition of being God’s people than mere ancestry. The power of covenants also explains why adoptions really do make a child belong to his new parents, and, more importantly, that we are adopted into God’s family.
Biology, family, kin, and nation are of some importance, but these realities themselves flow out of the covenantal structures God created, not just biology. All of these covenants shape our obligations and loves. The idea of covenant also shapes the doctrine of sphere sovereignty. This too is a reality God has woven into life. To that, we must turn our attention.
Covenants to Sphere Sovereignty
I’ve written a fair amount concerning sphere sovereignty (see here and here). Sphere sovereignty, according to Abraham Kuyper, is the recognition that God has ordained specific spheres of authority (e.g., sovereignty) in life. These spheres include the individual, family, church, and nation. Each sphere is established by God, and he ordains the authority structure within each one. In the family, the husband leads the home, and the parents lead the children. In the church, pastor-elders have authority over their people. In the state, rulers are delegated authority to protect the good and punish evil.
It is God who defines and limits the ministry, structure, and purpose of each sphere. Most importantly, God through Christ is the head of each sphere. All of life is under his authority, and all human authority is delegated and derived from God. As God is the source of this power, and not man, all righteous authority is both legitimized and limited. The spheres, though distinct in ministry, are all equal. The family cannot replace the church, and the church can’t replace the state. The state has no right to interfere with the ministry of the church, nor infringe on the rights of the family. Each sphere has only the authority given to it by God. No more and no less.
For our discussion, we must observe that each sphere of sovereignty ultimately is formed by God and reflects a specific covenantal reality. The individual, as he is born into the creation covenant as a son of Adam, is in a covenantal relationship with God. As such, he owes God obedience and worship. He is called to fulfill the cultural mandate and live as a priest-king in God’s world (Gen. 1:26–28). The family, as displayed above, is instituted by God through the covenant of marriage (Gen. 2:18–25). The state is instituted by God in Genesis 9:1–17 as he institutes the death penalty, in effect, handing the sword of justice to the state (Rom. 13:1–7).
As covenants, each of these spheres of authority is established by God. As God-ordained, these spheres direct our obligations and loves. We are called to express our love in the church through the obligations that mark its covenantal life—the fruit of the Spirit and the one another commands. In the family, our love and obligations flow out of the one-flesh union of husband and wife, and the children of that covenant. In the nation, God is the master of his servant (e.g., rulers); they have an obligation to serve him faithfully. Moreover, there are covenantal obligations rulers have to their citizens, and citizens to their rulers. A political nation is a covenantal reality that informs what obligations bind our actions.
Consider the obligations of the marriage covenant. Husband and wife exchange vows, pledging to fulfill their husbandly and wifely obligations “till death do us part.” Husbands owe their wives provision, leadership, protection, and love. Wives owe their husbands respect, submission, and care. Both owe each other sexual intimacy and fidelity (1 Cor. 7:1–4). Similarly, in Western nations, elected rulers take an oath of office. In America, this includes swearing to “uphold and defend” the Constitution. The Constitution is the covenantal document of our nation, laying out the rights, duties, powers, and obligations of our political covenant. Covenants give form, substance, and direction to our loves and obligations.
As each covenantal sphere of authority is under God, Christ, as the head of all things, is redeeming them all (Col. 1:15–20; Eph. 1:20–23). Each sphere is equally under him, and each sphere exerts specific obligations upon us. The problem with Kinism and the natural affections crowd is their desire to pit these covenants against one another. It is argued that we must rank them in order! Yet, Christians can (and are) members of multiple covenants and we are wholly obligated to fulfill all those duties. The only real ranking of our loves is that we are commanded to love God most, and from that, to then love others. If we love God correctly, we will love righteously in every sphere of life. It is sin, not the covenantal spheres themselves, that creates what appears to be warring obligations and the need to make some less important.
Applying Covenantal Sphere Sovereignty
In an ideal world (which this isn’t), there would be no need to rank our loves and obligations. Even the call to love God inevitably leads to loving others. Of course, our love for God is primary, but loving God and loving others are not inherently at odds with each other. They are mutually reinforcing. The same must be said about our love for nation, family, and church. Our so-called “natural affections” and “grace-based affections” are not inherently opposed to each other. They all flow out of the two great commands.
Recognizing how covenants shape life, and how they give form and direction to our affections, helps us wrestle through the “ordering of loves” in two ways—by recognizing both our sin and our covenantal context.
First, much of the perceived tension today is not rooted in the covenantal spheres but in our sinfulness. This truth is vital to recognize. When we do, we begin to ask, “How is sin distorting these covenantal obligations?” How many parents have renounced the Church because it would not affirm their child’s sinful behavior? Reordering our loves by prioritizing the family over the church is not the solution. Rather, in this example, the family sphere was thoroughly perverted by sin. The parent, in this situation, is still obligated to love his child and to love the church. But his idolatrous prioritization of his child has distorted his affections that he actually fails to properly love both his child and the church! Love would mean not affirming his child’s sin.
Second, many of these perceived tensions can be solved by recognizing that we often operate in different covenantal spheres. We have different obligations at different times depending on the context. For example, as a Pastor, I could, theoretically, serve as juror for the trial of a church member. Based on the evidence, I could rightly cast my vote, finding him “guilty” of a crime. It would do me no good to say, “Since he’s repented of that sin, based on the blood of Christ, I know he is truly innocent. Therefore, I must vote ‘not guilty.’” As a member of a jury, I am serving in the covenantal sphere of the state. It is my love-filled obligation to both the guilty and society to find the responsible party guilty of his crimes. No appeal to the greater realities of the new covenant can abrogate my obligation to rule justly in this sphere.
Nonetheless, I could visit that man in jail that very day, share communion with him, and tell him that, because of the blood of Christ, he has been declared not only innocent but also righteous. These two acts are not contradictory, nor do they require me to reorder my loves. Rather, these two acts are rooted in different covenantal spheres of authority. As I execute my covenantal role as a Pastor, I fulfill my obligations in one sphere, and as a juror, I fulfill my role in another. It is understandable that in such a situation I would feel the tension, but both acts are righteous fulfillment of my covenantal loves. To refuse to do either would not be about ordering loves, but a confusion of covenantal obligations.
Let’s work through some possible objections. For example, someone once asked, “If I’m in a war, and in my foxhole is an atheist, but on the enemy’s side is a brother in Christ, who do I love more in that moment?” This is more than a theoretical question, as the Christmas truce of World War I demonstrates. There, Christian soldiers on both sides spontaneously ceased firing on one another and even exchanged presents around Christmas. How should we think of this apparent tension?
This problem can be resolved with both of the above points. First, it is sin that brings this perceived tension between the love of the nation and the church. In short, Christian soldiers should abstain from partaking in an unjust war—even if that means they are thrown in jail. In WWI, I believe Germany was in grave sin. German Christian soldiers should never have been on the frontline in the first place. Of course, in a fallen world, both sides are likely convinced of the righteousness of their cause. Therefore, second, as a soldier, one is acting under the covenantal sphere of the state. To be a soldier is to bear the state’s sword. Therefore, it is your job to righteously wield that sword alongside your atheist colleague against your erring Christian brother. In my estimation, the American Christian soldier who fought alongside an atheist was doubly in the right for doing so. The German Christian soldier, in my estimation, had a duty before God to refuse to wield the sword of the state in an evil way.
What about immigration? What obligation does a covenantal nation have to take in foreigners? This issue drives much of the passion around our current debate.
First, as God is over every nation, a nation must treat others righteously—both its own people and foreigners.
Second, a nation does have a moral obligation to help its allies reasonably in times of distress. God judges Edom for its refusal to help Israel in its time of need (Obad. 1:10–18). If a nation has entered into a treaty to protect another, it is duty-bound to keep its word. Moreover, if an ally falls into ruin, it is righteous to provide aid to those in need.
Third, all of this has limits. Covenants are bound by their creational realities. As a father, I have unique covenantal obligations to my wife and kids, not your wife and kids. The same is true of every nation. The government has a primary covenantal obligation to righteously seek the good of its own people. All potential immigration must be done in light of seeking the good of one’s own nation, and this includes righteous cultural assimilation.
The problem Western nations face is that their governments have sold out their own people in the name of unchecked immigration and woke multiculturalism. Rulers who sell out their own people have violated the creational realities of their covenantal obligations. Just as the borders of a nation mark the limits of its jurisdiction, the citizenry of a nation marks off the covenantal realities, loves, and primary obligations of a government.
The immigration problems of the West are not so much about preferring your ethnicity over others; rather, they go to the very created order, purpose, and limits of the government. The anger that marks this discussion flows from the reality that many governing officials, like an adulterous spouse, have violated the very core of the covenant they swore to uphold. They’ve broken covenant fidelity and exchanged their covenant partner for someone else. Such betrayal is thoroughly abhorrent and wicked.
The Ordering of Our Loves
The adulterous violations of the national covenants across the West rightly provoke anger among the people. The government has obligations that they not only neglect, but sneer at. The America First doctrine rings true for the American government. America, covenantally, is obligated to righteously seek the good of its people first. The same is true for Mexico, Great Britain, France, Italy, etc. The fact that so many leaders reject such thinking speaks to the core of our current crisis. They want an open national marriage. Whether it’s the state’s failing in its covenantal obligation of being a terror to evil, or selling out its people in pursuit of globalist dogma, more and more people are fed up with their leaders playing the part of an adulterous spouse. It is no wonder that across Europe, the Raise the Colours movement is gaining traction. The covenantal spheres of authority rightly direct our loves and obligations. In the sphere of the nation, this means the government’s primary obligation is to its own people.
The solution to the apparent dilemma of ordering our loves is neither pitting nature versus grace, nor is it found in Kinism or embracing things like racial partiality. The solution is understanding the creational and covenantal realities that shape our love and obligations. All of us have different spheres of covenantal obligations that must direct our choices. In this, we must examine our obligation by seeing how sin distorts life, and then we must recognize the covenantal context we’re operating in. In a fallen world, there is no perfect solution, but we are called to love God and others throughout all of life. This love of others is inevitably shaped by our creational and covenantal realities. Instead of importing the unbiblical schema of nature versus grace, Christians would do well to work out the biblical concept of covenant as we wrestle through the tensions of life in a fallen world.
Pastor Levi Secord
Christ Bible Church
