Dads, do you sing to your babies before they are born? Do you talk to them? Current experts tell us to speak to our babies before they are born, and we are told that they recognize our voices when they are born, because they have been hearing it the whole time. What can your babies know about you yet? They know immediately to latch on to Mom. They recline in her arms. They rest and receive. And they know your voice, too. Like sheep who know the voice of their master (John 10.4). Those sheep don’t know how to do logic, but they can find their shepherd. Are children less than sheep? Certainly not!
Last week, I made a big claim that Christians should fully treat their children as Christians. I want to show you that the Bible says such things. In ways both explicit and implicit, scripture says that there is a faithful relationship between Christian-infants and God. We are called on to confess this before God, and we are called to teach it to our children. And we can relax theologically in the rest of knowing that recumbency (lying back in the arms) is the picture God gives to portray faith in the womb.
I want to take time in this post to read through some of that actual Bible material so that it can sound more plausible, and harder to dismiss.
THE PSALMS TEACH US HOW TO THINK OF THE NORM
Certainly there are, and have always been new converts to God’s way. But by and large, the church is made up mostly of people who grew up in the church, and who are still faithful. Even though some might come in newly from the outside, we have songs written by the Holy Spirit that teach us to describe the norm of how God works: He normally can be expected to enliven the children of believers with a reliance on Him from inside the womb. Our songs describe what entrance to the church is normally like for those born to believers.
INFANT FAITH
Psalm 71.5-6:
“For you, O Lord, are my hope,
my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
6 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.”
WHEN?: “From before my birth” (71.6).
I can imagine someone saying, this is just a picture of God delivering a baby – like a doctor who takes the child from the womb: “you are he who took me from my mother’s womb”. It certainly is a picture of God’s provision and faithfulness, but that isn’t what is being illustrated 4 times in a row in this passage. The picture is of child and father relating to each other faithfully – the child reclines in the father’s arms, and the father protects the child – but this is explicitly a picture of faith: 1) “my hope”, 2) “my trust”, 3) “upon you I have leaned”, 4) “you…took me from my mother’s womb.” It is one picture that melts from the theological (trust and hope) into the pictorial, (child leaning – father supporting). And it is “continual” from before birth, to delivery, to youth, to now.” All along the way, the faith has been constant and the support of the father has been constant – and the Psalmist says “My praise is continually of you.”
INFANT PRAISE
Psalm 8.1-2:
“O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.”
How does Jesus render this in Matthew 21.16?: “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?”
Don’t keep the babies’ cries out of your service! They shut the mouths of God’s enemies. But that is because they are lively (Spirit-filled) participant’s in God’s family. God hears baby talk as praise, and as a call he answers.
Should we balk at this? Why do babies cry? Is it not to call their father to them? Do you answer the calls of your children?
INFANTS CLAIMED BY GOD
Psalm 22.9-10:
“Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.
10 On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.”
Once again, being taken from the womb (God’s side of the image) is made parallel with “trusting” (the child’s side of the image). This is because the same father-child relationship is being described, and it is one of faithfulness, and of faith. But we make the mistake so often of thinking the bible defines faith as intellectual assent. But repeatedly here “trust,” and “hope” are described EXACTLY as Jesus illustrates with several pictures: “being like a child” (Mt 18), blessing nursing babies (Mt 19). When the disciples were angry that mere babies were taking up Jesus’ time, he was INDIGNANT (Lk 18), and told them the Kingdom claims mere nursing babies as citizens (Mt 19, Lk 18, Mk 10).
And that same claim of God over each baby of the church is made in liturgically commanded songs, written by the Holy Spirit for us to sing together – we all claim Psalm 22 aloud in song in church saying: “from my mother’s womb you have been my God.”
Yes, there are some new converts in our midst – but the norm is taught by the Psalm. That then is our expectation – we can rely on it.
God has promised us:
“And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.” (Gen 17.7)
“For the promise is for you and for your children…” (Acts 2.39)
ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES (LINKS):
- 1 Tell Your Children, “You’re A Christian!” (10/26/21)
- 2 My God From My Mother’s Womb (11/02/21 – reposted after deletion 11/23/21)
- 3 My Baptist Obstacles: What It Took to Change My Mind About Infant Baptism (11/9/21)
- 4 My Baptist Obstacles: Immersion (11/16/21)
- 5 My Baptist Obstacles: The Great Commission Says, “Baptize Disciples” (11/23/21)
- 6 My Baptist Obstacles: Did Circumcision Come from a Works-Based Religion? (12/1/21)
