Vos on Infant Baptism

Polanus1561

Polanus1561

Puritan Board Senior
"baptism as a means of grace can only begin to work directly for the child itself, when the child begins to understand something about it. And then it must be assumed that it works in entirely the same way as baptism for adults. That working starts with the conscious exercise of faith and leads back to the conscious exercise of faith. But to that end, it is necessary that the child learn to understand the meaning of his baptism. Here two factors are always working together: sealing coming from God, and faith worked by God, which makes the sealing personal for us. Baptism is a seal of God apart from faith, but it only gains sealing power for our own consciousness as our faith is occupied with it." - G. Vos, Reformed Dogmatics Book 5 191-192
 
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Hello John, what if the baptized infant has, by God's grace, been made aware of the Lord's presence before "the child begins to understand something about it"? The infant is regenerated yet not able to communicate his being alive unto God at that time.
 
What is the source of this quote? And is that Johannes G. Vos or or Geerhardus Vos?
 
Jerusalem Blade said:
Hello John, what if the baptized infant has, by God's grace, been made aware of the Lord's presence before "the child begins to understand something about it"? The infant is regenerated yet not able to communicate his being alive unto God at that time.
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Baptism must mean the same thing for all children of believers, elect or not.
Some would say Baptism conveys grace, or seals a grace within elect infants.

page 183 of the same
"The promises of God are sealed as promises in the widest sense, entirely apart from the question whether or not a subjective appropriation of the promises has already begun. God says to the children who are baptized: “I, God, will be your God; yes, I am your God.” b) The well-founded expectation can be entertained that the children will appropriate the promises for themselves with the use of their understanding, and therefore the demand of the covenant to do that can also be addressed to them."

This is really how the Presbyterians understand it. Vos in his dogmatics unpacks the diverse views within Dutch Reformed (Kuyper, Witsius).
 
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