How Do My Unbaptized Children Relate to the New-Covenant Promises? | Desiring God

How Do My Unbaptized Children Relate to the New-Covenant Promises? | Desiring God

"Now, it is just as impossible, therefore, for a paedobaptist parent to be sure that his child is elect as it is for a Baptist parent. Paedobaptists may feel better about themselves by labeling the child a covenant member, but those children have no better standing before God than the children of Baptists....

"1) We view them as gifts of God, blessings of God, to be loved and served (Psalm 127:3).

"2) We view them as responsibilities that we have been given by God to bring up in the teaching and discipline of the Lord. That is, we are to lavish them with the Word of God and with love and with wisdom morning, noon, and night.

"3) We view them as objects of daily mercies in prayer in the hope that God would exercise his saving sovereign grace in their lives.

"4) We view them as little ones before whom God has charged us to rejoice so that they can see what it is like to taste that the Lord is good.

"5) Finally, we view them as little pilgrims in hope on the way to faith, woven into the fabric of relationships in the family and the church. And we have nothing to be ashamed of in this relationship with our children. It is every bit as hopeful for a good outcome of eternal covenant membership as any other way of viewing children."