Relocating To Elfland

Adam was reared in a Reformed home. He was baptized as an infant, but he has been taught all his life (sometimes explicitly, but certainly implicitly) that it falls to him to demonstrate the genuineness of his standing in God’s covenant (whether it be a public profession of faith, some kind of “conversion experience,” or what have you). Because of this, the genuineness of his standing has always been a matter of uncertainty: will he prove himself to be truly one of God’s people? He spends his life watching those who are “really in” and is taught that, if he is one of God’s children, he will behave as they do. Now, in his adolescent years, he has all the normal questions and struggles that accompany the onset of adulthood. These questions and struggles serve to confirm his uncertainty about where he stands with God, and he feels like a hypocrite when he worships with God’s people, because he does not feel the faith and joy and desire for obedience that they apparently do. (In fact, deep down he resents his lack of freedom to enjoy the independent life he is already effectively living.) He has been reared in uncertainty, and the fruit is now an ugly doubt, which manifests itself increasingly as either despair or indifference.

Eve, too, was reared in a Reformed home. She was baptized as an infant, and she has been taught all her life (explicitly and implicitly) that God is her God and Father, that Christ is her Savior and King, and that she is loved with an everlasting love. She has also been taught that because she is so loved – precisely because of her standing in God’s covenant – she has the duty and privilege to embrace the blessings of her God and to live according to His good laws and wisdom. The genuineness of her standing has never been a matter of uncertainty – she has never been “looking in,” but has always known God’s people to be her people – and this has borne fruit in a sense of holy obligation. She understands the expectations of the covenant-bond, and embraces them. Now, in her adolescent years, she has all the normal questions and struggles that accompany the onset of adulthood, but she has the resources to work them out as a child of God. She is not her own, which is for her a source of comfort and purpose. And in the transparency of fellowship with her people, she finds assurance that struggle is inherent in all true discipleship.