• Is telling a person he is saved unbiblical?
• Is there more to assurance than saying “Yes, you’re saved because…”
• When a child states that he is saved already, at what point should a parent “let” him be saved?
• Should a parent ever bring up salvation with a child? At what point developmentally?

A quick survey of the New Testament epistles demonstrate that Paul speaks to the recipients of his letters as believers. In essence, he’s saying that they are in fact, saved. Of course, he is speaking to a group, but even in the case of his personal letter to Philemon, he calls him a brother.

On what basis does Paul make assumptions of Philemon’s salvation? Evidently on his profession and testimony: I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints…. Philemon 4

In fact, we make assumptions about people’s salvation all the time. Otherwise, every time we talk about the Lord, we’d be prefacing our comments with absurd qualifications  “assuming you’re saved, don’t be weary in well doing…”  or “if you’ve trusted in Christ as your Savior through faith alone, then you can be asssured he will not test you beyond your ability to bear it.”

When we have reason to doubt someone’s salvation (either because of a lack of testimony or lack of evidence of a regenerate life), we sometimes include these conditions. At some point, though, these are insulting and cynical. At some point, we simply trust God with the details. God’s Word never returns void, whether a person is saved or unsaved.

So, a friend of mine was recently saved. At one point, when Lee and I asked her if she was saved, she wasn’t sure. As we talked with her, it became clear that she was indeed trusting Christ for her salvation, that she was not depending on her own efforts to reform herself. Hurray! When we were discussing salvation later, we talked through a number of passages focusing on salvation.

• Is this what you’ve done? I asked.
• Yes, exactly.
• So…. what does God’s Word say about a person who does these things?
• She’s saved.

Fun conversation. What’s interesting to me is the process of finding assurance. Just like in my situation, my mom didn’t tell me I was saved because I trusted in Christ. She gave me Scripture and said, “Here’s why you might not be sure you’re saved. Now you determine whether you’re saved or not.” In other words, she put her trust in the Holy Spirit’s ability to convince me of my salvation (or lack thereof) through God’s Word. Likewise, for my friend, I didn’t know for sure whether she had trusted God. So it made sense to let God’s Word make that call.

But now, I’m thinking about my children. For some inexplicable reason, my children are rather private about spiritual things, and I’m wondering whether letting Scripture manage their salvation is a good idea. That takes a good deal of pressure off me, because I don’t feel the pressure to correctly identify the point of salvation for my children. (I’m talking about my two older children who are 6 and 5; since I’m not convinced my 3 year old understands the basic components of salvation, I’m not including her in this conversation yet.)

I’m still thinking on this. Perhaps next I’ll consider some objections to this approach.Similar Posts:

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When I was a teenager, I started having doubts of my salvation. The trouble was, I couldn’t really remember exactly what happened when I was saved. I remember sitting with a Sunday school teacher, and her opening the Bible on a step. That’s it. I was four years old. When I was six, I wanted to be baptized, and I remember much more clearly the questions of the pastor. Does baptism save you? I remember being horrified by the question! Absolutely not. I knew then that I was trusting in Jesus Christ for my salvation.

But as I got older, I started to worry. What if I hadn’t prayed right? What if my memory was a fabrication of my imagination? What if… I tried a number of means to reassure myself, but finally one night I woke up my mom and told her my problem.

She didn’t tell me I was saved. She didn’t tell me I wasn’t saved. She did open her Bible and explain that people doubt their salvation for a number of reasons.

• First, some people doubt their salvation because they are not saved. That one is pretty obvious, and the solution is to get saved.
• Second some people doubt their salvation because they do not understand who God is and the nature of their salvation. First John, and First Peter, directly address some of those fears. The solution is to learn. The more we learn about God and salvation, the more confidence I have in what He has done.
• Third, some people doubt their salvation because they have sin in their lives or are not growing spiritually. The guilty feeling is a gift from God to tell us that something is wrong. We’re told to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We’re told to examine ourselves, to see if we are in the faith. Peter tells us that people who are not growing forget about their salvation! The solution, for this problem, of course, is to repent and/or grow! Peter commands us to give diligence to adding spiritual disciplines to our lives.

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, ⁶ to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, ⁷ to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. ⁸ For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
¹⁰ Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; ¹¹ for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  II Peter 1:5-10

This discussion with my mom was extremely helpful for me, although it didn’t completely answer whether I was saved or not. I still wasn’t entirely sure what category I was in! That came several years later, in college. A pastor in my church mentioned that what we think about to reassure ourselves that we are saved can indicate what we’re trusting in for our salvation: baptism, church membership, the word of a parent, the words of a prayer we said. For a saved person, assurance comes from what Christ has done and said. At that point, I understood completely that as long as I looked to my memory and what I did, I’d continue to have doubts. But if I looked at God’s Word, I would find assurance (assuming I had obeyed His Word in the matter of salvation).

I Timothy 1:12 says For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

God used this passage to give me assurance. I knew I believed, and was trusting in Jesus Christ for my salvation. Thus, I could rest assured that God is able to keep me saved. Several times after this sermon I had doubts, but I found immediate relief when I turned to Scripture. Then the doubts stopped completely.Similar Posts:

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Let’s consider the fruit of the spirit:

Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faith, meekness, self-control

I regularly require my unregenerate children to be patient: we have younger children who come visit, and I require my own children to be patient when guests want to play with the best toys. Waiting is especially hard for the little ones. I require them to be kind to their siblings when one says “please stop.” I require them to have self control when they are hungry and I tell them to wait until after we have prayed to eat. I don’t know that I “require” some of the other fruit like faith or meekness, but I see embryonic evidence of something resembling those things.

It’s helpful to note that these qualities are present in good unsaved homes, to some degree. Most parents, even in unsaved ones, want their children to be kind and loving to their siblings. They want a house of love and joy. These qualities can also be evidenced to some degree in our own lives when we are not consciously following Christ or walking in the spirit. Some adults have developed habits of self-control and patience by nature of their training or personality, and give no thought to Christ in exercising these qualities.

This is one of the blessings of being reared in a Christian home. Certainly, it allows for the possibility of Pharisaic actions, but that doesn’t mean we are destined to be Pharisees. Having the externals established as habit allows us to spend greater attention on our hearts. In some ways I am reminded of a smart person who gets As on a test in school; the A shows he knows the material, but it might not reveal any meritorious character on his part.

The danger is that we start to think that those blessings of habitual character strengths are personal merit badges. I think that danger is true for our children as well. In their case, there is a danger that they equate those merit badges with evidence of salvation. Why, then, do we require the fruit of the spirit in children who don’t have the Holy Spirit?

First, as Laura said in the comment section, we require some things just for order and pleasantness. In our family, we are kind to each other. Period. If an unsaved adult were a guest in my home, and began to berate me or my children, I would ask them to stop or leave. These are common courtesies, enabled by the common grace of God (that is, available to all people, regardless of their spiritual status)

Second, we require these things in faith ourselves, expecting that God will save our children in the future (I’m not positive we have a guarantee of this, but I do think it should be our expectation until we know for certain otherwise). I know that when God saves my children, it will be good for them to have developed habits of meekness (as evidenced by obedience, for example) and joy.

Tomorrow we’ll think about this some more.Similar Posts:

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I regularly feel the tension of responding to my children who do not make a profession of faith. I tell them to display the fruit of the spirit: love joy peace… patience, and so on. But my theology says that unsaved children don’t have genuine fruit of the spirit, any more than an unsaved adult. Thus, it does feel like I’m inducing my children to be hypocrites when they follow the motions of Christianity without testimony or evidence of regeneration. Or does it?

I do believe it is good and right to require unregenerate children to be good, but that does give me more questions. Those we’ll have to consider another day.Similar Posts:

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I was fascinated to watch Bethel’s response. At first, she didn’t do anything. I’ve found that sometimes kids don’t know what to say when something bad happens, so I started giving her words to say.

• Tell David you’re sorry [she didn't intend to pop the balloon, and it was unclear whether they were playing or not].
• Tell David you are sad that his balloon popped [expressing remorse is a good part of making things right].

On her own accord, she offered her own helium balloon. David refused it [ perhaps understandably-- it was a heart balloon] and continued to cry. Unable to do anything to make it better, Bethel started to cry. She was genuinely grieved that there was nothing she could do. She asked if I could fix it, and I had to tell her the balloon was beyond repair.

As David started to calm down, I realized that the helplessness that Bethel and David both felt– a wrong with no way to make it right– was exactly the helplessness that we have to save ourselves. So we talked about that.

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Romans 3:23

It’s not exactly the same, and maybe I was ruining the point of this verse. But I tried to explain that just like Bethel fell short of being able to make it right with David, we fall short when we attempt to make things right with God on our own. The only way we can make things right is through Jesus Christ. Not sure how much they understood. They didn’t say anything. In retrospect, I suppose I could have asked some good leading questions or something!

Sometimes I don’t do very well remembering to bring my children back to the gospel. I was delighted that God gave me an opportunity, and helped me to seize it. I need to pray specifically that God would give more situations that will help make the gospel clear to my children.Similar Posts:

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I’m not ready to blog about how I differ from this approach, but I did find an excellent, if not seemingly atypical article from a covenant theologian perspective. It has a number of excellent thoughts on teaching children about the gospel, particularly in the second and third sections. Here is an excerpt that I found quite thought provoking:

How will our children see this love in us towards God, themselves, and others? Mostly through our words and actions as we move through the day. In this, they will see and instinctively feel:

• How important God, prayer, the Bible, and worship are to us, and whether we approach God with eager expectation or out of a mere sense of duty.
• How much time and energy we spend in spiritual devotion.
• How we respond to affliction.
• If we really believe that all things work together for good for those that love God (Rom. 8:28), that not a hair can fall from our head without the Father’s will.
• If we are repenting parents who hate sin, trust in Jesus Christ, and joy in the Holy Spirit .
• If we grieve mostly over selfish things or over things that grieve God.
• If our marriage reflects the Bridegroom-bride/Christchurch models of Ephesians 5.
• If we enjoy praying, talking, playing, vacationing, and being with our children.
• If we’re willing to deny ourselves for our children’s sake.
• If we discipline our children appropriately and with love, or inappropriately and in anger.
• How we approach our vocation—as a calling from God in which we strive to use our talents for His glory, or as a selfish endeavor in which we imbibe the world’s mentality of working for the weekend.
• How we treat those who offend us, spread rumors about us, or are our enemies.
• If we are kind, compassionate, and forgiving to others (Eph. 4:32), and spur them on to love and good deeds (Heb. 10:24).
• If we pray for others (James 5:16) and offer them hospitality without grumbling (1 Pet. 4:9).
• If we rejoice with those that rejoice and mourn with those that mourn (Rom. 12:15).
• How we honor those in authority over us, such as policemen, the government, and office-bearers.

As our children grow older, they become more astute at measuring our lives against the Beatitudes or the fruits of the Spirit. They will test Christianity in us, asking such questions as, Is the Christian life worth living? How we act as parents will be the most influential answers to this question.

Bringing the Gospel to Covenant Children in Dependency on the Spirit, Joel Beeke, pages 32-33

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My five year old is not saved. He is particularly reserved when talking about spiritual things, and rarely (if ever) brings up the topic.

I have a great desire to allow the Holy Spirit to draw David to Himself. I know how eager children are to please, and I have no desire for a false profession undergirded by parental statements such as “Of course you’re saved. I remember when…”.

I have watched David develop a sense of guilt. I have watched him in recent months double his effort to “be good” and “do right.” He’s learning all the right answers as we teach him the Word of God along with related catechism. From my human perspective, he is “ready” to be saved; however, I’ve not seen any fruit of repentance in his life, and he doesn’t seem concerned about his spiritual state.

Incidentally, I wonder whether teaching him that regeneration is God’s work alone might cause him to assume that there’s nothing he can do about salvation.

Several times in recent months I’ve brought up salvation, mostly to see how he perceives himself and to correct any misconceptions that he might have. But I’m afraid to push. I am fairly certain if I said, “Do you want to be saved now?” he would answer yes. Would that be genuine conversion? I already wonder how much of his responses are simply given because he perceives it is what I want to hear. His personality is not at all transparent, and I wonder, if the Holy Spirit were drawing David, would he tell me? I wouldn’t be at all surprised for David to say, “Oh, of course I’m saved, and here’s how I know and when it happened….” (I’ve told him “When you’re ready to be saved, then tell mommy or daddy so we can pray with you.” Maybe that’s just my motherly desire for control.)

Thankfully, I don’t have to agonize over my children’s salvation. I can take the matter before the throne of Grace. My heavenly Father is not absent or indifferent to my cry for wisdom and discernment.

God answers prayer quickly. As I was proofreading this post, I realize that it may be very helpful to show David (from examples in the Bible, among other ways) what repentance and conviction look like. I know children in general and David in particular often benefit when they’re given vocabulary to express how they’re feeling and thinking. I’m going to give this a matter of serious thought.Similar Posts:

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The thought occurred to me that a child who knows he is not saved, understands salvation, might not really consider himself God’s enemy.

Some might argue that a child of saved parents (a covenant child) is not an enemy of God, ever. Is a baby an enemy of God?

Then I wondered what Scriptures might be relevant. I’m drawing a blank, so maybe the question isn’t a valid one anyway. This is the only one I can find with a quick word search. I’ll have to do a bigger search.

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. James 4:4

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I’m still thinking about the role of the law in bringing someone to Christ, since I have three unbelievers living in my house.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. Galatians 3:24

Now an entire method of evangelism has been developed with this principle in mind, beginning at the ten commandments and progressing from there. The idea is, none of us have ever kept the law, none of us are ABLE to keep the law, the penalty for not keeping the law is death in hell, and the only one who has kept the law perfectly took my punishment for me, that is, Jesus Christ on the Cross.

So I’ve been thinking about this in the context of evangelizing my children. How do I present God’s law? How do I show them that the law reveals their inability to keep it?

Right now, we think David (who is nearly five and a half) understands the gospel. But he is still trying to be good enough, and he hasn’t expressed any desire to be saved. Now he’s a private person, so we want to probe without pushing. Several times we’ve clarified the position of our family members. That is, Mommy and Daddy are praying that David, Bethel, and Laurel will repent and accept Christ as their Savior.

My biggest concern is that they will grow up assuming that they are part of the “club” without ever facing the need for repentance and salvation. Pointing out that they are not yet saved seems somewhat abrupt and cruel (“You’re going to hell, kiddo, unless you get saved” yes, I’m exaggerating), but I don’t see any other way to prevent this assumption.

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David’s always been able to sit still, but he’s just this year started singing. Since we’ve started school, he’s been more interested in the hymn book (if it’s a low number). We have practiced several times at home, and I think that’s been helpful. I’m eager for when he’ll actually be able to start reading. I think I can tap into his interest in reading as he learns how to worship God.

But he’s still not saved and cannot truly worship. He’s trying very hard to be a good boy. He wants our approval, and is very happy when he is praised for good behavior.

I noticed yesterday that Bethel (turning four in December) is doing much better at sitting still during the service, although she still struggles with wiggles. She doesn’t sing at all, and she doesn’t understand much of what is going on. She just expressed a desire to go to children’s church instead of the nursery, so we’ll see how she does. Until recently, she struggled more than Laurel to sit still, so I’m encouraged to see her doing better. I’ve noticed that she also responds well to a smile and encouragement.

Laurel still is the biggest challenge. If I hold her, she rarely is still enough for me to think about what is going on in the service. She sometimes sings, is relatively quiet most of the time (but not always, and she still can be very distracting when she’s not quiet), and occasionally will let me help her follow music or reading. (David never would do this, so it is something new for me.)

All in all, they’re doing well. The biggest challenge right now is teaching them that our good efforts don’t make us right with God. That’s hard when we’re also teaching them that it pleases God when they obey and share. I still wrestle with this. I still see their efforts as an important development in their understanding of sin and salvation. Sooner or later, they’re going to understand they can’t win that battle.

I’ve enjoyed thinking about objectionable elements, but it’s taken focus, and so other things have not had as much attention. I got back on track over the weekend, but the laundry still needs attention. I really would like to spend a lot of time in the Bible, too. God is working in some areas that I’ll share on Wednesday.Similar Posts:

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