in the post
I got back from a weekend away to discover an item of mail with disturbing contents.
It was a newsletter from a doughtily conservative denomination, but to say so belies its message. As I reached the second paragraph on the first page, I was confronted with a startling proclamation of the view that "the holiness of the children [of one or more believers, as mentioned in 1 Cor 7:14] is real, inward, infused, spiritual holiness or sanctification (...) whereby they are cleansed from sin and consecrated to God by the Holy Ghost."
After presenting some arguments in favour of this belief it concluded as follows: "How are believers ... to view their children? Not as unholy, little vipers but as 'holy by supernatural grace' possessing 'the new spiritual life' (Calvin, Institutes 4.16.31). For God sovereignly makes a difference between the children of believers and the children of unbelievers by His eternal covenant of grace."
Whiffs of this idea have come my way more than once recently, but this is the first time I've seen it explicitly set down on paper. And unfortunately, being put down on paper, it only gains concreteness, not credibility. It struck me that the main way it seems to fall down is by stretching a couple of uncontroversial views just a bit too far. This comes out in two points anyway.
One point is this: it's evident that some children of some believers are elect just like their parents (and end up being converted in due time). But the view put forward in this article seems to be that children who are born to a believer should be viewed as having been "cleansed from sin" etc simply by virtue of having been born to a believer. This is problematic, partly (a) because it discriminates between some members of the human race and others, whereas all mankind descending from Adam by ordinary generation are equally lacking in original righteousness, equally sharing the same corrupt nature, and equally in need of salvation. (b) It also makes your parentage a reason for your salvation, whereas not even a pharisee of the pharisees gains any merit from being one of Abraham's children. The sovereign difference that's made in the covenant of grace isn't really between the children of believers versus the children of unbelievers, but between some sinners of the human race versus other sinners of the human race, regardless of anything about them, any characteristics or privileges or family members they may have (grace doesn't run in the blood).
The second point concerns cases of individuals who were regenerated before they were born. It isn't controversial to believe that in itself (Jeremiah is an uncontroversial case anyway). But in the article this is stretched and stretched so as to imply that children being regenerated in the womb is actually part of the promises of God to believers for their children. This misses out a whole massive step in the argument though. It's one thing to show that infant regeneration can happen - but they still need to show that it's the norm for the children of believers, far less that it's an outright promise.
There are also bigger issues surrounding our understanding of "the covenant of grace" and the nature of the privileges belonging to people who are baptised, which I'm not going to venture into within the space of one wee blog (oh, and the issue of when and where it's legitimate to quote snippets from Calvin's Institutes). But to wrap up for the night, the main point would be that phrases like "holy children" and "our elect children" can only refer to a subset of children born to believers, not all children born to believers. Many people who have been saved have come from families where one or both parents was born again; but before they were saved, they were just as much "little vipers" as anyone else, with the same corrupt nature and the same enmity against the gospel as anyone else's children. We're all Adam's children after all. People aren't saved because they had godly parents, or for any other human reason: the reasons for salvation are all in the Saviour.
"The Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people (for ye were the fewest of all people) but because the Lord loved you ..." Deuteronomy 7. "For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God." Romans 2.
It was a newsletter from a doughtily conservative denomination, but to say so belies its message. As I reached the second paragraph on the first page, I was confronted with a startling proclamation of the view that "the holiness of the children [of one or more believers, as mentioned in 1 Cor 7:14] is real, inward, infused, spiritual holiness or sanctification (...) whereby they are cleansed from sin and consecrated to God by the Holy Ghost."
After presenting some arguments in favour of this belief it concluded as follows: "How are believers ... to view their children? Not as unholy, little vipers but as 'holy by supernatural grace' possessing 'the new spiritual life' (Calvin, Institutes 4.16.31). For God sovereignly makes a difference between the children of believers and the children of unbelievers by His eternal covenant of grace."
Whiffs of this idea have come my way more than once recently, but this is the first time I've seen it explicitly set down on paper. And unfortunately, being put down on paper, it only gains concreteness, not credibility. It struck me that the main way it seems to fall down is by stretching a couple of uncontroversial views just a bit too far. This comes out in two points anyway.
One point is this: it's evident that some children of some believers are elect just like their parents (and end up being converted in due time). But the view put forward in this article seems to be that children who are born to a believer should be viewed as having been "cleansed from sin" etc simply by virtue of having been born to a believer. This is problematic, partly (a) because it discriminates between some members of the human race and others, whereas all mankind descending from Adam by ordinary generation are equally lacking in original righteousness, equally sharing the same corrupt nature, and equally in need of salvation. (b) It also makes your parentage a reason for your salvation, whereas not even a pharisee of the pharisees gains any merit from being one of Abraham's children. The sovereign difference that's made in the covenant of grace isn't really between the children of believers versus the children of unbelievers, but between some sinners of the human race versus other sinners of the human race, regardless of anything about them, any characteristics or privileges or family members they may have (grace doesn't run in the blood).
The second point concerns cases of individuals who were regenerated before they were born. It isn't controversial to believe that in itself (Jeremiah is an uncontroversial case anyway). But in the article this is stretched and stretched so as to imply that children being regenerated in the womb is actually part of the promises of God to believers for their children. This misses out a whole massive step in the argument though. It's one thing to show that infant regeneration can happen - but they still need to show that it's the norm for the children of believers, far less that it's an outright promise.
There are also bigger issues surrounding our understanding of "the covenant of grace" and the nature of the privileges belonging to people who are baptised, which I'm not going to venture into within the space of one wee blog (oh, and the issue of when and where it's legitimate to quote snippets from Calvin's Institutes). But to wrap up for the night, the main point would be that phrases like "holy children" and "our elect children" can only refer to a subset of children born to believers, not all children born to believers. Many people who have been saved have come from families where one or both parents was born again; but before they were saved, they were just as much "little vipers" as anyone else, with the same corrupt nature and the same enmity against the gospel as anyone else's children. We're all Adam's children after all. People aren't saved because they had godly parents, or for any other human reason: the reasons for salvation are all in the Saviour.
"The Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people (for ye were the fewest of all people) but because the Lord loved you ..." Deuteronomy 7. "For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God." Romans 2.
posted by cath at
10:15 pm
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