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Originally Posted by Kevin  Thanks Pastor Kok. It was LC 167 that I was trying to recall. 
I don't know if I can fully grasp all that is meant in those few lines, but I do know that I feel a bit (OK a lot) uncomfortable when I hear people refer to the benefits of baptism in a way that makes it a "mere sign".
I have heard it said that the "benefits" of baptism to a covenant child is that "they get to come to church and hear the gospel preached." |
In a confessional sense, this is not quite accurate. I don't mean to pick nits but baptism signifies and seals benefits only to the elect even though they are promised to all who are baptized.
Understanding the more general sense in which you're using it, I think there's even more advantage to the child than merely hearing the Gospel in Church. I couldn't even write down the generic advantages that a child of believers might have but beyond advantages of the Church there are tons of temporal benefits. I have to be careful not to be prideful but my brothers and sister always note how happy our children are.
But, when I think about children in a congregation, I never group them according to regenerate and unregenerate although I understand the need for the thought experiment from a doctrinal standpoint. When we start talking about children, we've moved from the generic question about the unregenerate to examples of kids in our mind because it's almost impossible not to think of actual children when we're talking about them as a category.
Children of believers have a ton of advantages, then, in that they not only hear the preaching of the Word but also have parents who (hopefully) are training them from the first words they speak to call upon the name of the Lord. Let God be God with regard to His choice.