christianyouth
Puritan Board Senior
From talking to a lot of paedo-baptists, it sounds like one of their rationales for baptizing their children is because of a promise that God made to save their children. They say that they trust God at his promise to save their children, and the baptism of the child is a public ceremony showing God's promise to save that child.
But doesn't trusting in the promise imply that the promise is unconditional? If the promise is for all children of all believers, and is unconditional, then wouldn't we expect that all children of believers will be saved? I don't think many believe this, so I'm assuming that most people would see the promise of salvation given to the children as being conditional.
If the promise is conditional, what are the conditions? If the conditions are faith and repentance on behalf of the covenant child, what makes the promise significant? I question the significance of the promise because if it is conditioned on faith and repentance on the part of the Covenant child, because that promise is not unique to covenant children, but is a promise that is given to all who hear the Gospel.
So which is it? Is the promise for God to save our children universal and unconditional or is it universal and conditional?
I may have missed something here, and I can see how depending upon the nature of the promise, paedo-baptism could be true in both cases. So I'm not using this to debate the validity of paedo-baptism, but I'm trying to find what exactly is the nature of the promise made to children of believers.
Looking forward to your response.
But doesn't trusting in the promise imply that the promise is unconditional? If the promise is for all children of all believers, and is unconditional, then wouldn't we expect that all children of believers will be saved? I don't think many believe this, so I'm assuming that most people would see the promise of salvation given to the children as being conditional.
If the promise is conditional, what are the conditions? If the conditions are faith and repentance on behalf of the covenant child, what makes the promise significant? I question the significance of the promise because if it is conditioned on faith and repentance on the part of the Covenant child, because that promise is not unique to covenant children, but is a promise that is given to all who hear the Gospel.
So which is it? Is the promise for God to save our children universal and unconditional or is it universal and conditional?
I may have missed something here, and I can see how depending upon the nature of the promise, paedo-baptism could be true in both cases. So I'm not using this to debate the validity of paedo-baptism, but I'm trying to find what exactly is the nature of the promise made to children of believers.
Looking forward to your response.