Dare we believe our children are converted? 1

Think about the hymns we sing in the modern Evangelical church. Aren’t they often about a conscious conversion experience?

But what kind of hymns did God teach Israel to sing?

From Psalm 8:

O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.

And again here is Psalm 71. Notice especially verses 5, 6, and 17:

Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.
For you, O LORD, are my hope,
my trust, O LORD, from my youth.
Upon you I have leaned from before my birth;
you are he who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of you.

I have been as a portent to many,
but you are my strong refuge.
My mouth is filled with your praise,
and with your glory all the day.
Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
forsake me not when my strength is spent.
For my enemies speak concerning me;
those who watch for my life consult together
and say, “God has forsaken him;
pursue and seize him,
for there is none to deliver him.”

O God, be not far from me;
O my God, make haste to help me!
May my accusers be put to shame and consumed;
with scorn and disgrace may they be covered
who seek my hurt.
But I will hope continually
and will praise you yet more and more.
My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,
of your deeds of salvation all the day,
for their number is past my knowledge.
With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come;
I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone.

O God, from my youth you have taught me,
and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and gray hairs,
O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might to another generation,
your power to all those to come.

And Psalm 22:

But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
“He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him;
let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”

Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.
On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
Be not far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is none to help.

I have sung many hymns about adult conversion from unbelief yet I’m not aware of one Psalm which speaks of that subject. On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve ever sung a hymn that called for me to put myself in the place of one who was regenerated in the womb. That is a sad state of affairs. These Psalms were sung in Israel’s public worship of God. They were means of discipling Israel and forming their outlook and expectations. Our hymns do the same but in the wrong direction.

The idea that their relationship began from the womb was not some sort of fantastic exception, but the general expectation.

And why shouldn’t all Christians possess the expectation that their children are believers? After all, that is what God has promised us. God promised “to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Gen 17.7). The “lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children” (Psa 103.17).

“And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,” says the LORD, “from this time forth and forevermore.” (Isa 59.21).

God doesn’t say through Isaiah, that His Spirit and word will be put in the mouths of a Christian’s grandchildren, but rather that they “will not depart from” them. Obviously, this passage does not discount the fact that all children are born sinners, but it does seem to promise more than the bare hope of a future conversion experience.

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