I’m finishing my little mini-series thinking about Paul’s view of the inclusion of children (of believers) in the New Covenant church. To wrap up these few, scattered thoughts, here’s a lengthy quote from Robert L. Reymond’s wonderful A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith. He talks about the vital importance of including children in the church. He says (on p.881):
“In this context I want to call attention to the “presbyterian” doctrines of covenant succession and covenant nurture. Robert S. Rayburn is doubtless correct when he claims, “that far and away the largest part of the Christian church at any time or place—excepting that historical moment when the gospel first reaches a place and people—are those who were born and raised in Christian families.” Accordingly, when the church contemplates its growth, either quantitatively or qualitatively, it cannot afford to ignore its responsibility to its own children. The church must always remember that (1) “it is God’s will and declared purpose that his saving grace run in the lines of generations” (Gen. 17:7–9; Exod. 20:6; Deut. 6:6–7; Ps. 103:17–18; Isa. 44:3; 54:13; 59:21; Jer. 32:38–39; Ezek. 37:25; Acts 2:38–39; 16:14–15, 31; 1 Cor. 7:14), and (2) “the biblical paradigm is for covenant children to grow up in faith from infancy” (Pss. 22:9; 71:6; Eph. 6:4; 2 Tim. 3:15). Since their children are members of the covenant community, Christian parents are charged to nurture their children in Christian faith and love, “which nurture when carried out faithfully becomes the divine instrumentality of their awakening to spiritual life.” Rayburn is right again when he concludes his discussion by declaring:
The [church’s] appropriation by faith of this divine promise and summons of [covenant succession] is the means appointed to furnish the church with generation after generation of great multitudes of Christian servants and soldiers who reach manhood and womanhood well taught, sturdy in faith, animated by love for God and man, sophisticated in the ways of the world and the Devil, polished in the manners of genuine Christian brotherhood, overshadowed by the specter of the Last Day, nerved to deny themselves and take up their cross so as to be counted worthy of greater exploits for Christ and Kingdom. Currently the church not only suffers a terrible shortage of such other-worldly and resolute Christians, superbly prepared for spiritual warfare, but, in fact, is hemorrhaging its children into the world. Christian evangelism will never make a decisive difference in our culture when it amounts merely to an effort to replace losses due to widespread desertion from our own camp. The gospel will always fail to command attention and carry conviction when large numbers of those who grow up under its influence are observed abandoning it for the world. Recovering our Presbyterian inheritance and inscribing the doctrine of covenant succession upon the heart of family and church must have a wonderfully solemnizing and galvanizing effect. It will set Christian parents seriously to work on the spiritual nurture of their children, equipping them and requiring them to live the life of covenant faith and duty to which their God and Savior called them at the headwaters of life. And, ever conscious of the greater effect of parental example, they will forsake the easy way, shamelessly and joyfully to live a life of devotion and obedience which adorns and ennobles the faith in the eyes of their children. This they will do, who embrace the Bible’s doctrine, lest the Lord on the Great Day should say to them: “You took your sons and daughters whom you bore to Me and sacrificed them to idols.”
spes clara 