To: Tantumergo; OrthodoxPresbyterian
OP is far more eloquent than I am but you make a simple error. God has the wisdom, knowledge, mercy and love to decide who to fill with the Holy Spirit. It is His decision. It was God's will to fill John the Baptist and Jeremiah with His Spirit before they were born.
It is also God's privilege to know that if a 6-month fetus is going to be aborted to complete that child through the Holy Spirit to take him/her home to Him if that is what God desires. If it is not God's will to take that child home do you think that child would be redeemed by merit that he/she is a child?
The Calvinists believe this is consistent with God's working for all His creatures. God does not have one process for those who are below 5 years old and another who are over 12 and a somewhat process for those in between. John the Baptist does represents the "norm" because it is God who gives us our faith and his experience is consistent with all our experience. This is why Paul could say he was "set ... apart even from my mother's womb" (Gal 1:15) although he wasn't filled with God's Holy Spirit until many years later. John the Baptist conversion is JUST the same as Paul's. God does this for each of us who are chosen.
143 posted on
10/19/2004 9:11:05 AM PDT by
HarleyD
To: HarleyD
"It is also God's privilege to know that if a 6-month fetus is going to be aborted to complete that child through the Holy Spirit to take him/her home to Him if that is what God desires."
Yes, and God can fill donkeys with the Holy Spirit if He wants to, but the point I was getting at is that it is a huge leap of speculation to go from the example of the Baptist to suggest that all aborted babies or children who die in infancy will be dealt with by God in this way.
"If it is not God's will to take that child home do you think that child would be redeemed by merit that he/she is a child?"
Not at all - all men have been redeemed by Christ's saving work on the cross. However, to be saved, faith and baptism are necessary. How God chooses to deal with the unbaptised is His prerogative, and I am happy to let Him sort it out.
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