progressivegal said:
Hello,
I have a question that I hope someone will be able to answer for me
First off let me say that I attend a Christian reformed Church, and I will be married in a Christian Reformed Church, but though some of my theological beliefs tend to lean a bit calvinistic, I do not consider myself to be Reformed and/or Calvinist so please forgive me if my question seems ignorant or offensive, I certainly don't mean it to come across that way. ANYWAY, he it is. Yesterday I heard it said that Christian Reformed people (CRC was specifically mentioned, not calvinists) hold a belief that their children are automatically saved. Is there any truth to this, or is it just a case of one Christian group missunderstanding another Christian Group's beliefs? (Which I know happens ALOT
) I appologize if this question was already answered. Thanks for any light you can shed on this
God Bless.
OK, I'm friends with people in the CRC, and it's not true. Nope. Not true.
It's very "open" what actually is believed on this count, but you
can't believe in comprehensive, automatic salvation of believers' children and agree with the CRC's Three Forms of Unity.
I know of two different ways someone could make this mistake. So it's hard to know what mistake was made in interpreting CRC theology.
The most common error is confusing human presumption with fact. Y'see, most Reformed churches (including many Presbyterians)
presume the regeneration of their children dying in infancy. By "presume" we mean that we assume the regeneration of the infant before it is actually occurred, confirmed or denied. Stretch this beyond the breaking point and you'd say all their children are saved. But that's not the case. Early in an infant's life when the external evidences fail us, we go on the vows God makes to our families. So we take seriously God's vow to be God to our children (Gen 17). Given that David expected to go to his infant son after death ("He shall not return to me, but I shall go to him"), as well as the immense promises God makes "to your children, and all afar off, as many as are called" (Ac 2:36-39 thereabouts), we're led to
assume beforehand at this early stage (infancy) that our children
will be saved (but not that they are saved, already).
This also doesn't mean we "sit back & do nothing", either. It's all assumed from the standpoint that we are covenanted with God for the salvation of our children. And so we operate within this covenant, talking about God pervasively with our children, nurturing them and admonishing them to seek God early in life.
However, there's a second way of attacking it that's embedded in the Belgic Confession. Modern American theology fuses "regeneration" with "new birth", older Reformed theology
does not. So there's a more erudite confusion on this issue as well.
Both are really errors in understanding this church, as well as the theology of the Presbyterian church which also holds to the existence of elect infants, among whom there are some who hold to the presumed "regeneration" (in the 1500's concept) and thus the eventual salvation of infants dying in infancy.