Chapter 1: Children as Gifts from God
1. That children are an immeasurable treasure is something the Spirit of God, speaking through David, makes clear: “Lo, children are the heritage of the Lord; the fruit of the womb His reward; as arrows in the hand, so are children. Blessed is the man who has filled his quiver with them; he shall not be confounded” (Ps 127). Notice how David declares those who receive children from God to be truly happy.
2. The same truth is evident in the fact that God, when He wants to express His love toward us, calls us His children, as though no more excellent name existed by which to draw us close.
3. Moreover, He is deeply angered by those who hand their children over to Moloch (Lev 20:2; Jer 32:35). It is also worth our most serious reflection that God, even with respect to the children of idolatrous parents, calls them children born to Him, making clear that they are born not for ourselves but for God. As God’s own offspring, they deserve our deepest reverence (Ezek 23:37).
4. This is why Malachi calls children “the seed of God,” from which comes the offspring of God (Mal 2:15; Acts 17:29).
5. For this reason, when the eternal Son of God took on human flesh, He not only chose to share in the nature of children, but genuinely delighted in them. He took them in His arms as little brothers and sisters, carried them, kissed them, and blessed them (Mark 10:16).
6. Beyond this, He issued a severe warning against anyone who would harm them, even in the smallest way. He commanded that children be treated with the same respect due to Himself, and He pronounced harsh penalties on anyone who caused even the least of them to stumble (Matt 18:5-6).
7. If you want to understand why He took such delight in little children, and why He commanded us so firmly to treat them with care and respect, there are many reasons to consider. First, if children seem unimportant to you right now, don’t look at what they are in this moment; look at what they may and should become, according to God’s intention for them. You will see them not only as the future inhabitants of the world, the possessors of the earth, and God’s representatives among His creatures after we have gone, but also as equal sharers with us in the inheritance of Christ: a royal priesthood, a chosen people, companions of angels, judges of devils, the joy of heaven, the terror of hell, and heirs of the most glorious dignities across all the ages of eternity. What could possibly be more excellent than that?
8. Philip Melanchthon, that man of blessed memory, once walked into an ordinary school, looked out over the students gathered there, and opened with these words: “Hail, reverend pastors, doctors, licentiates, superintendents! Hail, most noble, most prudent, most learned lords, consuls, praetors, judges, prefects, chancellors, secretaries, magistrates, professors, etc.!”
When some of the bystanders smiled at this, he replied: “I am not jesting; my speech is serious; for I look on these little boys, not as they now are, but with a view to the purpose in the Divine mind, on account of which they are delivered to us for instruction. For assuredly some such will come forth from among the number, although there may be an intermixture of chaff among them as there is among wheat.” That was the spirited address of a remarkably wise man.
But why shouldn’t we declare with equal confidence those same glorious things about all children of Christian parents? After all, Christ himself, who made known the eternal purposes of God, has said that “of such is the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14).
9. If we consider even the present condition of children, it becomes immediately clear why they are of immeasurable value in God’s sight, and why they should be no less precious to their parents. They are valuable to God, first of all, because they are innocent in every respect except for original sin. They have not yet defaced the image of God in themselves through actual wrongdoing, and they are “unable to discern between good and evil, between the right hand and the left.” That God takes this into account is made abundantly clear both by His words to Jonah (Jonah 4:11) and by numerous other passages of Scripture.
10. Second, children are the purest and most dearly purchased possession of Christ. Christ came to seek the lost, and He is called the Savior of all, except those who shut themselves out from sharing in His merits through unbelief and impenitence. Children still have a rightful claim to that purchased salvation, since they have not yet rejected Christ, and “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” These are the purchased from among men, that they may be first-fruits unto God and the Lamb; having not yet defiled themselves with the allurements of sin; but they follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth (Rev 14:4). And so that they may continue following Him, they need to be guided, as if by the hand, through a faithful upbringing.
11. Finally, God embraces children with such overflowing love that they become a unique instrument of divine glory, as Scripture testifies: “From the lips of infants and sucklings thou hast perfected praise, because of thine enemies; that thou mayest destroy the enemy and the avenger” (Ps 8:2). How God’s glory could be increased through children is not immediately obvious to our understanding, but God, who perceives all things, knows it to be so and declares it plainly.
12. That children should be dearer and more precious to parents than gold, silver, pearls, or gems becomes clear when you compare these two kinds of gifts from God. Gold, silver, and similar things are lifeless, being only somewhat harder and purer than the clay we walk on, while infants are living images of the living God.
13. Second, gold and silver are elementary objects brought into being by God’s command, while children are creatures whose very formation prompted the all-holy Trinity to take special counsel, shaping them with His own fingers.
14. Third, gold and silver are fleeting and temporary; children are an eternal inheritance. Though children yield to death, they don’t return to nothing or simply cease to exist. They pass out of a mortal body into immortal regions. This is why, when God restored Job’s wealth and possessions to double what He had taken away, He gave Job no more children than he had before: seven sons and three daughters. Yet this was precisely the double, because the first set of children had not perished; they had simply gone ahead to God.
15. Fourth, gold and silver come out of the earth, but children come from our own substance. Being a part of ourselves, they deserve to be loved by us at least as much as we love ourselves. This is why God has planted in the nature of all living things such a powerful affection toward their young that parents will sometimes choose their children’s safety over their own. If anyone transfers that kind of devotion to gold and silver instead, God judges them guilty of idolatry.
16. Fifth, gold and silver pass from one person to another as though they belong to no one in particular, but are common to all. Children, by contrast, are a unique possession, divinely assigned to their parents. No one in the world can strip parents of that right or take that inheritance from them, because it descends from heaven and cannot be transferred to another.
17. Sixth, although gold and silver are gifts from God, they are not the kind of gifts over which He has promised angelic protection from heaven. In fact, Satan most often entangles himself with gold and silver, using them as nets and snares to trap the unwary, drawing them as if with thongs toward greed, arrogance, and extravagance. The care of little children, by contrast, is always entrusted to angelic guardianship, as the Lord Himself declares (Matt 18:10). This means that whoever has infants in his home can be certain that angels are present there as well. Whoever takes a small child in his arms can be assured that he is holding angels. And whoever lies down beside an infant in the dead of night can rest in the firm consolation that both of them are so protected that the spirit of darkness cannot draw near. These are no small matters.
18. Seventh, gold, silver, and other material possessions cannot win us God’s love, nor can they shield us from His anger the way infants can. God loves children so deeply that He will sometimes, for their sake, extend mercy to their parents. Nineveh offers a striking example: because the city was full of young children, God spared their parents from the judgment He had threatened (Jonah 4:11).
19. Eighth, human life does not consist in the abundance of one’s possessions, as our Lord plainly states (Luke 12:15). Without God’s blessing, food does not nourish, a medicinal plaster does not heal, and clothing does not warm (Wis 16:12, 26). But His blessing is always present with children and on their behalf, so that they may be sustained. If God generously feeds the young ravens when they cry out to Him, how much more will He not care for infants, who bear His own image?
This is why Luther wisely observed: “We do not nourish our infants but they nourish us; for because of those innocents God supplies necessities, and we aged sinners partake with them.”
20. Finally, silver, gold, and precious gems teach us nothing beyond what other created things do: they reveal the wisdom, power, and generosity of God. But infants are given to us as a mirror in which we can see modesty, courtesy, kindness, harmony, and other Christian virtues reflected back at us. The Lord himself made this clear: “Unless ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18:3). Since God has willed that children should serve as our teachers, we believe we owe them our most careful and devoted attention.
