They call the movements “quickening.” It means it’s the first moments when a mother can feel her baby’s movements. What a bizarre concept! A person can live inside another person. Sometimes I try to imagine I’m an alien visitor to our planet, completely unacquainted with how anything works. Try it. What would you think if someone explained to you how new people are born into the world? I think I would laugh in their face and think them mad as a hatter. People inside other people? I think it’s time to put down the sharp objects, my friend.

Yet it is so. There is a person inside, and that person has had a beating heart since he/she was the size of a pea! No, I’m not exaggerating. Don’t look at me that way.

There is a person inside. And they are known to Jesus. In fact, He has an active relationship with them right now. As David confessed, “From my mother’s womb You have been my God,” and, “You made me trust in You from my mother’s breasts.” (Ps. 22) The tiny person inside has tiny faith. Who knows what things this small person experiences and perceives, before he or she possesses even self-awareness? Before he or she can form conscious memories? John the Baptist leapt inside his mother’s womb when he heard Mary’s voice. What causes my child to leap? I don’t know. Maybe my voice. Maybe some kinds of music. Maybe something I ate. Maybe the voice of One I cannot hear, but whom he/she hears better than I.

“And a little child shall lead them…” “From the mouths of children and nursing babes You have ordained strength…”

Read the rest: Quickening « The Hinterlands.

To put Calvin’s later position in Pauline terms: Grace (Abraham) came first, and the law that came through Moses did not nullify the promise but was a means toward the fulfillment of the promise. Grace is prior to law not only in Israel’s history, but in “the grammar of creation. God’s grace, in covenant love, creates Adam for covenant love and then lays him under unconditional obligations, warning him of the consequences which would follow ‘if’ he transgresses these commandments.” Federal theologians generally said instead that the covenant was added to a natural Adam, an Adam possessed of the natural law but not yet a recipient of God’s covenant love. Before that happens, he must pass the test of obedience.

Read the whole post: Peter J. Leithart » Blog Archive » Trinity, Nature/Grace, FV.

1. The rite of baptism is God’s act by which, through His representative and the power of the Holy Spirit, He confers citizenship in His Kingdom upon the one baptized, and incorporates the person into Christ’s body, the Church. This is not done to some baptized individuals (the elect) but to all who are baptized. God’s promise in baptism is worthless if it cannot be trusted.

2. Baptized believers are covenant keepers, and baptized unbelievers (in doctrine or life) are covenant breakers. A “believer” here refers to one who simply demonstrates a credible confession of faith (in doctrine and life).

3. Baptized infants who cannot demonstrate faith as is legitimately expected of older Christians, are believers. Simply being baptized counts as a credible confession for a baby.

4. The children of baptized believers possess the right to membership in the Covenant, and their parents are under obligation to offer them to be baptized into the Church. They are God’s by right, like the tithe, because He demands that they be brought to Him. They are His by possession when they are incorporated into His Kingdom by baptism — just as the tithe is possessed by God when the tither relinquishes it to the Church (otherwise the tither has stolen from God). Thus, though baptism incorporates one into Christ, one need not fear for the salvation of babies and other believers who die before baptism can be administered. God will not be robbed of his elect by their death.

5. All covenant keepers are to be considered regenerate. Not “presumed” (which implies an unwarranted assumption), but considered — reckoned, regarded, and / or treated as — regenerate.

6. All covenant keepers are given the Holy Spirit. They may have been regenerated before they entered covenant (infants perhaps, and adults converted from unbelief almost certainly), or at their baptism (infants perhaps). Since some people do apostatize and break covenant, we know they never were truly regenerate. However, all are truly given the Holy Spirit at baptism, and either persevere in His fellowship (if truly regenerate) so that they attain to Eternal Life, or grieve the Spirit so that He departs from them and they die in their sins (if unregenerate). Furthermore, for a baptized individual who apostatizes (as a child or adult) and then is brought back by a new understanding of the Gospel, there is virtually no way to be sure when he was truly regenerated. Nor does it really need to be known.

7. All covenant keepers, infants and adults, must continue to be discipled and persevere in the faith in order to inherit Eternal Life.

8. All those who die in the covenant, have persevered by God’s grace, and thus can be assured of Eternal Life.

9. Parents of baptized babies can be assured of the eternal salvation of their infants, should untimely death befall them. They do not need to be told that, “If your infant was elect then he is in Heaven.” That tautology is a useless torment from Satan. A promise to be the God of you and those of your children of whom God decides to be the God,” is no promise at all. The promise is to us and our children. Our covenant children who die have died in the Lord. They are shown to be elected unto Eternal Life.

10. Baptized children are just as much Christians as their parents are. Both are in covenant with Christ and both must endure to the end to be saved. God is equally the God of parents and their children.

SOURCE

This mistake is the result of confusing the session interview with St. Peter’s interview at the Pearlies. It demands of preschoolers that they show their high school diploma as a condition for admittance into preschool. It confuses the end from the beginning, and the beginning from the end. It muddles baptism and the eschaton. It reverses the order of the Great Commission — teach them obedience to all that the Lord commanded, and then bring them in. It is theological dyslexia.

via An Interview At the Pearlies.