May I ask an innocent question: Who are the "elect children"? By the context of the doctrines of John Calvin and other similar minded reformers, "Elect infants" are a specific group or subset. Some of the additions to this thread imply that there is not distinction between "elect infants" and the "elect". How should we proceed with an infant who is near the so-called age of accountability (the Jews recognized this is bar-mitzvah) and he is not of the "elect"? Do we extend God's grace to him, even though God knows he will not accept?
Furthermore, was the Bible only written to the elect? Did Jesus only die for the elect? Did He only love the elect and thus is the "Kosmos" of John 3:16 only the elect?
Can only the elect receive Christ? What are they receiving if they are already chosen of God? When we preach to the lost for their salvation, should we have it in the back of our minds that many that are hearing are incapable from the foundation of the earth to receive the message of saving grace? If salvation is by grace, then it must have been exercised only once when God chose the elect. Their acceptance would only be a formality.
Perhaps some of you have heard this description and you may likely call it an Armininiast compromise: That God's choice in the begining was to set down the plan of salvation and that all who would accept it would become the elect. They were chosen in that the plan for their salvation was in place and God foresaw their own agreement to enter "the plan". The stumbling block for the "freewill people" is predestination. The passage in Romans seems to be an argument in favor of predestination. That certain vessels were created by God for the sole purpose of destruction in order to bring Him glory, but other vessels to receive His full mercy and provision. You would most likely say that Arminiasts are the group who answer to God, "...why hast thou made me thus?..."
I am not of the "freewill" belief in that I recognize that since Adam's fall into sin, sin infected ALL men from birth. We begin on the wrong side of the fence, ALL of us (John 3:18) "...he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of only begotten Son of God..."
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Gal 3:22 22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
Unless most of you beleive that the "elect" start out on the proper side of the fence, "they (we)" just do not know it yet until we appropriate it by making our spirit conscious of the fact.
Be kind to me now...dont' load the guns of Navarone....I am not Arminian, nor Calvinist, nor Lutheran, nor King Jamesian, nor John MacArthurian, I am a Christian. I follow Christ and hold His words above those other noble, yet fallible men.
I am curious, did Calvin's teachings need reforming or did he speak infallibly?
