Children of God before baptism?

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jenbrinker

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I recently heard a priest preach that we are not “children” of God until after our baptism. The catechism clearly states that one of the effects of baptism is to make the baptized individual a child of God. So who are people before baptism if they’re not children of God? Or who are people who never get baptized (even Protestant Christians) if they are also not children of God because of lack of baptism?
 
The “we are ALL God’s children” is good in a song lyric or a greeting card, but, it is not sound theology.

Under the law (before the death of Christ), circumcision is what marked one as a child of God. Under the new covenant, it is baptism. Water baptism, Trinitarian baptism is what is valid.

The Protestant who is validly baptized becomes a child of God.

We could update the song lyric or greeting card to say “we are ALL part of God’s creation”. The unbaptized are still unique individuals, due the dignity and respect owed to all mankind. They have an eternal soul that was created by God.
 
jenbrinker said:
So who are people before baptism if they’re not children of God? Or who are people who never get baptized (even Protestant Christians) if they are also not children of God because of lack of baptism?
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They are not members of the body of Christ. Different names have been used in different times and cultures: gentiles, pagans, heathens. Now we would probably simply say “unbelievers” or “non-Christians”.
 
All people are the children of God by nature. “Son, thou art always with me, and all my things are thine.” Luke 15:31. “For of his kind also we are.” Acts 17:28. (incidentally I just discovered that vs. 31 in proper translation clearly teaches universalism, but that’s somewhat off topic.) However, all may not yet be the children of God again by grace. “Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children.” There are different senses that children of God can be used.
 
“You were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you once lived following the age of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the desires of our flesh, following the wishes of the flesh and the impulses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved), raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” -Eph 2:1-7
 
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