Featured Can a 6 year old child be saved ?

As a little child...

I find this subject interesting. I'm just brainstorming here... not making any hard and fast truth claims: It seems odd the way that we seem to deny that children can get saved without the knowledge and supervision of an adult. Jesus used a child to describe how an adult must come to God, yet, when we have a child come to Jesus just as Jesus prescribes for an adult then we seem to discount the reliability of that child's motives or abilities... What is there that a child must understand to enter a relationship with Jesus that would invalidate her existing faith in Him? Wouldn't we all find it odd to explain to her that she must come to Jesus as a child? This would seem to confuse the issue... If a child comes to faith in Jesus there is no need for an adult to approve or verify before that child is actually saved. However, it seems the problem is moreso that we cannot know their heart, but, we do know that they can misunderstand, be tricked, and be misled. I'm just concerned that if a child has a genuine experience with Jesus that we adults are careful that we don't cloud the issue, create doubt, etc.

Maybe we are more properly to address these issues as if the ideas of assurance and abiding were the issue instead of genuine conversion. Again, I'm just brainstorming here... not making any hard and fast truth claims.

 

"Some people expect almost infinite wisdom in a child before they can believe him to be the subject of divine grace. . . . I never could see anything in Scripture to support this theory, but then Scripture was not so much cared for as the judgment of the deep-experienced people, and the general opinion that it was well to summer and winter all converts before admitting them into the sacred enclosures of the church. Now, if any of you still have an idea in your head hostile to the conversion of children, try and get rid of it, for it is as wrong as wrong can be." —Charles Spurgeon

"to convert children as children, and to regard them as being as much believers as their seniors, is regarded as absurd. To this supposed absurdity I cling with all my heart." —Charles Spurgeon

"I will say broadly that I have more confidence in the spiritual life of the children that I have received into this church than I have in the spiritual condition of the adults thus received." —Charles Spurgeon

"Let the child avow its faith in Christ and, if you have not confessed Him in Baptism, yourself, stand rebuked that a child is ready to obey its Lord while you are not!" —Charles Spurgeon

"It is said by some that children cannot understand the great mysteries of religion. . . . Away with such priestcraft! . . . He who receives things simply, as a child, will often have ideas which the man who is prone to make a syllogism of everything will never attain unto." —Charles Spurgeon

 

Perhaps a better question is: Can a six year old child be lost?

 

Jesus saved me when I was 3. John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit from the womb. God saves His elect at the moment He ordained. This is why we proclaim the Gospel wherever we can. We do not know who they are. The early church certainly didn't expect Paul to be converted.

For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.

Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

 

Frankly I don't think a six year old child has the foggiest idea as to what constitutes sin and the affront of sin to God. Understanding that I should not disobey mommy and daddy is not knowledge of sin!

 

I don't think so. What about you?

 

Absolutely.

 

Thanks OR, yes, i do think that there are 6 year olds that are/may be weary and heavy laden. I don't think that it is the case that because one IS 6 years old that it is expected that they should be weary and heavy laden. Maybe we could agree on some form of the idea wherein a 6 year old would qualify as being described by Jesus' words "weary and heavy laden", no?

 

Can a 6 year old lie? Can a 6 year old reason? Can a 6 year old labour?

Go back a few years and you wil discover just how much a 6 year old did in his life. I remember children working in the mines in Wales in the 40's.

I have seen children of all ages develop differently, and some very responsibly. For example, when a family was devastated by the bombs during the war, the children often took over the family care. There was no social assistance then.

What I am saying is that children have the innate ability to respond mentally to given situations. We often underestimate the capacity of a child to understand.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Jim,

I always enjoy your response even if I humbly disagree. I understand that often very young children can arise to a temporal need. However, I believe there is a vast difference between responding to necessity and understanding sin and the affront of sin to God.