Children in worship is an important theme in sacred scriptures. Children are an assumed part of the covenant worship of God. a Their absence in worship would be a form of re-building the walls of partition. The wall erected to keep people out was torn down to bring people in. The absence of children in worship service revives the old cursed wall (Gal. 3:28).
The Christian faith has always been genealogical. It has always been about blood. Both major testaments function with this hermeneutical principle. But there is a fine qualification to keep in mind. This genealogy traces back to the first church formed in the Garden of Eden. The Church, which began in seed form, and which became pentecostalized b in Acts two, is a true family. Her blood is divine. Jesus bled for her and the Spirit bled drops of fire into that Church, and from that blood formed one holy, catholic, and apostolic body. This newly formed community comes together as one when she worships. She ceases to be a collection of families, but one family. She receives a new identity.
Children enter into this body through the same door that everyone else enters through: baptism. In baptism, children receive the ritualized mark of the Spirit. The Spirit bleeds red drops of fire on her head and empowers the infant to grow in grace and truth. The child is then educated in the ethics of Yahweh (Deut. 6). He shares the same heritage (Ps. 127-128) and the same blood (Acts 2). He becomes a qualified member of this new creation. He does not wait to be qualified, but becomes qualified through fire. Pentecost, then, is the coming together of water and fire.
Children become a necessary furniture piece in the new house of God. She is a little temple joined with many temples forming one holy temple wherein the Spirit dwells. She becomes a warrior; a warrior who depends heavily on more experienced warriors, but a warrior nevertheless. She is ready to follow in the train of the apostles without ever being able to utter her first word. God, the Spirit, gives her speech. God makes the dumb to speak, and He makes babes to cry out (Ps. 8). God’s noble army of men and boys, matron and maid is not composed of polished servants, but of servants that are being polished by the grace of the gospel in the community of faith.
Why children in worship? Because little pebbles become great stones. Because little seeds become great trees. Because little voices still frighten the enemies of God. God is perfectly capable of translating any language in the world. But when he translates the language of nursing infants into praise, He says, “this is very good.”
“Because little voices still frighten the enemies of God.” I love that. Thanks for this post, Uri.
Great blog! Our Church started including the children in worship early on and it’s been a great means for blessing.
This is terrible theology.
“The Spirit bleeds red drops of fire on his head and empowers the infant to grow in grace and truth.”
So baptism is another gospel, that circumvents the cutting of flesh (the heart)? Faith comes by *hearing*, not by baptism. If the Ethics of the Covenant are bypassed, this by definition is Covenant sorcery. As you know, this is the attempt to procure the blessings of God without obedience to His Word. Remember, we are in the New Covenant now, post-Pentecost. Things changed. If there is no cutting of the heart, there is no Spirit, and if there is no Spirit, there is no regeneration. It’s exactly what Paul condemns, the magic of Jannes and Jambres who stood against Moses.
Mike, there is no substance to anything you say here. You are simply repeating your presuppositions; a type of fear hermeneutic: if you don’t subscribe to my method, then you are committing the unpardonable hermeneutical sin. This type of isolated, self-aggrandizing theologizing is a form of idolatry. I encourage you to abandon it.
No, baptism is not another gospel, baptism is very much gospel. Water/flood/newness/spirit/new world/new creation/faith: all things are given here. You can’t simply skip redemptive history to the parts that suit your interpretation. Redemption is from glory to glory, not abandoning one glory for another. Our New Covenant hermeneutic should be a glorifying of past covenants or eras. You don’t erase a previous phase of history, you build on it. There is no sorcery, there is only grace; grace to weak and helpless; grace to the undeserving; grace to the new voices of the Edenic choir. You want a regenerative theology that does away with past glory, so you can invent a new one. It won’t work, not here and not anywhere else. Baptism is no magic. Baptism is the incorporation of one to another so that the one can one another one another. This is not magic. It’s biblical theology.