Infants are the test case for grace. Infants become believers, and thus part of the church, through the gift of grace bestowed on them by baptism. Grace is the divine act of compassion given to those who are weak and unable to find God by their own efforts or works. What would better describe a newborn infant than that he or she is weak and incapacitated? Yet, exactly such as these are the ones whom the God of all grace has determined to save through the work of His only begotten Son. Sometimes moderns think that adults are the paradigmatic case for grace. This presupposition arises not from an understanding of grace as a gratuitous gift from God, but from the presupposition that humans need to provide God some sign of their inclination toward Him, that they are seeking Him, that they are worthy of grace, or that have opened their hearts to Him. Such views are prevalent in American evangelicalism, and yet have more in common with classic doctrines of prevenient grace as taught by the Roman Catholic Church. Prevenient grace is the grace which disposes the person toward God. Prevenient grace is a contradiction of grace. Earned grace is never grace (Rm 4:4).
This is an excerpt from Dr. Scott Murray's devotion for July 20, 2009. Read the entire devotion here.
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