The issue: Infants die, and it would be comforting to know if infants are saved.
Complications:
- The doctrine of original sin declares that people are sinful from birth. (See Psalm 51).
- The idea of infants in Hell is depressing, and seems unfair or cruel.
- The Bible gives no passage directly regarding infant salvation.
Here are a few positions that I have heard, but do not believe:
- Just as God elects whom he will save (Romans 9), some of these include infants. (Common among some Calvinists)
- Infants lack the forgiveness of Jesus, and will automatically go to Hell.
- God maintains an “age of accountability,” before which all children are saved. (Common among Baptists)
- Infants who are baptized will probably be saved. (From what I gather, this is what some Lutherans believe).
While the Bible does not directly address the status of infants and salvation, I think there are a few Biblical inferences that can give grieving parents hope without denying the doctrine of original sin.
Romans 5
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.
While Adam’s sinful nature has been imputed to us, death spread because men sin, as is fitting with their nature. Keep in mind while David in Psalm 51 testifies, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,” he is explaining why he commits sin, not making the statement that having a birth that brought him forth in sin caused him death.
Now I would base most of my thoughts here from verse 13 of Romans 5, where Paul says that sin is not counted where there is no law. To be sure, I don’t believe that this law is the Torah, but rather the conscience that we received upon eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and therefore all men have the law written on their hearts (Romans 2:14). So, the question would become, “Is the law present in an infant?” I don’t think it is. I will go on to show why.
Romans 7
7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
Now this is some interesting talk. Again, Paul mentions that apart from the law sin lies dead, but what really strikes me is verse 9 where Paul firmly asserts that he actually was alive at one point, until the law came and produced death. So how was Paul alive at one point if, like David, he was conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity? I would suggest it is because the law comes to a human as they gain a conscience. Thus is seems fitting that the infants and some of the mentally handicapped, though born with original sin, have not died because they have no law.
It is for this reason that I believe that all infants will go to Heaven, as well as others who have not yet received the law written on their hearts.
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Could you also say that infants and some mentally handicapped lack the ability to critically observe their surroundings and therefore to some extent can not perceive the things that have been made? If they have not developed to that point it could therefore could be argued that they can not perceive their surroundings, can not honor God or give thanks to him, and can not become futile in their thinking because their thinking is infantile, still developing.
I think that is a valid point, in fact, that is the reason John Piper gives for why he believes infants are saved. I think though, that answer may leave you with some conceptual holes as to how you would understand original sin.
This problem was why the church eventually became so insistant on infant baptism (which the Baptists later rejected). They were worried that Adam’s original sin damned their infants from birth.
I think you’re right on the money. The New Covenant is not law, law, law, but grace, grace, grace. Infants and those handicapped (by the curse) are not able to percieve sin. It would be unjust and unloving of God to condemn these people.
Ben,
thanks for posting this! It is very good and deals with a very hard question. Thanks!
What you posted sounds right, but isn’t it the same as the “age of accountability?”
At some point, as you say, “the law comes to a human as they gain a conscience,” then wouldn’t they at that time be accountable?
If you don’t agree with the “age of accountability,” why not?
Just wondering,
Chris
The reason I disagree with the idea of an age of accountability is because age and accountability have nothing necessarily to do with your spiritual life or death.
It is not the age that makes you accountable as much as it is if the law is written on your heart.
Also, the whole statement seems to me to have a subtle undertone that implies that you might be able to earn salvation on your own, because you weren’t accountable back then.
So no infants go to hell? I find that pretty reasonable. But does anyone really go to hell? Lets take your argument to its natural conclusion:
If there is even a remote chance that someone will go to hell, and there is no chance that an infant or child will go to hell, wouldn’t the nicest thing you could do for a child would be to kill it? We would be securing the child’s salvation. If people really do go to hell, but infants who die are automatically saved, then Planned Parenthood has done the world a great service.
There are a few problems with this reduction:
1) God has in straight foreword words forbidden the murder of people, period. Even though I believe that the children will be saved, to kill the child would be an incredibly wicked thing, blatantly disobedient to God. I think that the aborted infants of Planned Parenthood are the modern day equivalents of children sacrificed to Molech in the days of ancient Israel. (http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Molech)
2) You could turn around and say that by the same logic, since Heaven is far greater than earth, we would be doing a great service to gas large groups of Christians, since they will go to Heaven anyway.
As for your question about if people go to Hell, I think that an honest look at the Bible says that yes, there will be people in Hell.
Just to be clear, I’m not advocating that we kill anyone
. I’m merely starting with your faulty premise on hell and taking it to its logical conclusion. Given the premise of hell and that children escape it, killing children before they are too old to go to hell would be a very generous and noble act.
And I completely agree that the Bible says there is a hell. But that Bible says a lot of other really barbaric things that we disregard. (Just read Leviticus or Deuteronomy.)
I have read Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and would agree that, on some level, some of the things can appear to be barbaric, but they really were demonstrations of God’s wrath and God’s laws, in different contexts.
To be clear, I do not believe that most of the rules and judgments in Leviticus and Deuteronomy are to be followed today, but this is not just because we have outgrown them, but because we are not under ancient Israel’s priestly and judicial system, but instead under the new covenant.
Jesus believed in Hell, and talked about it frequently, especially in regard to it being a judgment for sin. Thus it is not something to disappear through the change of justice systems or covenants. Thankfully, God has created forgiveness, so that those who trust in Jesus Christ crucified and raised, and repent of their sins will be saved, so that our judgment will have fallen on Jesus and not on us.
The Old Testament presents a view of life that so cruel and evil that not even fundamentalist Christians will take it at face value. The owning and beating of slaves is permitted, Joshua’s killing of women and children in a foreign nation is demanded by God, etc. My Sunday school teacher used to tell us that Jesus pretty much said that was all wrong. But then I started reading the Bible for myself. Nowhere in the New or Old Testament does it say something like, “After Jesus has come, thou shall outlaw slavery, enact war conventions that forbid killing of civilians, establish 3 branches of democratic government, and basically you can just disregard all the barbarism I recommended earlier.”
It is not that Jesus says it was wrong, it is that it was under a different covenant.
Jesus said things like
Matthew 5:17
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
The reason we aren’t held to rituals of priestly cleanliness is because Jesus has become the high priest and has made the believers clean. Sure a lot of the things that happened in the Old Testament seem a little out there to 21st century western society, but when taken holistically in context of the full spectrum of the Bible, the pieces come together.
This task is too much for a comment box, and I am not exactly the best Biblical scholar in the world, so I am going to leave it there.
I think we’re talking about two different things here. You’re talking about culture and customs (holidays, language, clothing, etc). I’m talking about morality.
Truth and morality are absolute. Something is either right or wrong. For example, I hope we could agree that genocide is always wrong. In Joshua 6, the Bible states that God, Joshua, and his army commit genocide:
“They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.” Joshua 6:21
The reason I addressed the rituals which you are calling cultural and custom is because many of them are commanded in the books of Moses, they were not just matters of preference.
Your comments have gotten off topic from this thread, so I don’t want to carry on like this in the comments. I have read the book of Joshua, and God was commanding judgment for idolatry and giving the Jews what he has promised. This is not genocide, but judgment.
Good post and comments… although my brain is having trouble comprehending it all.
Hello, Joe. I have thought about this . . . I am not sure if I believe that Infants would go to heaven. Wouldn’t it be the greatest evangelistic tool if everyone who is going to be born can go to heaven just by being killed? It is not that I take pleasure of infants being killed. It is just would disregard the sacriface of Jesus Christ. God wouldn’t need to die for us if we could go to heaven. Also, I have pondered about abortion.
If Satan is mastering this agenda of killing our children through abortion, what is his reason?
If these newborns were go to heaven and the same time as Satan killing these newborns, Satan is helping God.
I am very doubtful about the salvation of those babies. However, we can fight against this evil act that we are having in America. It may cost our lives, but we are saved.
Not the infants.
Hi Chase, (actually my name is Ben, Joe is a character from my recent post),
Here is some food for thought from that idea: Satan wants to kill Christians too. We know that we would go to Heaven, so why would Satan want to do that? He apparently does want that though. Satan is hateful and he loves death.
Jesus would not have needed to die if Adam and Eve hadn’t sinned, but because God would be glorified through Christ crucified, he ordained that Adam and Eve sin and be redeemed. This does not acquit them of personal guilt, because what people mean for evil, God means for good.
This isn’t a question of whether or not babies have sinned, because they have, but it is really more of a question of whether their sin is “counted” or not (Romans 5). Sin is not counted where there is no law.
Consider salvation in the Old Testament. Jesus had not yet come, but salvation was still not gained by works, but by faith in the promise. What promise is this? That the offspring of Abraham would be the Father of many nations. The offspring there is singular, and it is talking about Christ. So Jews who had not yet heard about Jesus were saved by faith in the promise. We even read in Hebrews that if Jesus crucifixion needed to be repeated, it would need to have been repeated over and over since the beginning of the world. Therefore we know that the blood of Jesus was what paid for Old Testament sins too, and it was still by faith.
Could not something similar be going on here? Perhaps (“perhaps” means that this part is my opinion not something to stamp as doctrine), Jesus’ blood pays for the “uncounted” sins of infants too.
This whole thing is totally absurd. How just is it that human beings “unfortunate” enough to die in infancy should be be spared God’s judgement and spend an eternity in Paradise!! Anyway the very idea of punishment without end for those who don’t believe is sheer tripe. Yes Jesus loves you, but you’d better obey his Gospel or he’ll make sure you’ll suffer for the rest of eternity!!
@Ian
If you have no belief in divine judgment, then it doesn’t really make sense to talk about what is fair and what isn’t when it comes to judgment.
Divine judgment is when God delivers perfect retribution for your ways. It’s not just God reacting to your rejection of the gospel, but God punishing you for the things you are guilty of in a way that is fair, namely, eternally. Evil is that serious.
Gospel is not a matter of obedience but a matter of news. The good news is not something that you do, but something that you trust: Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead according to the scriptures. If you reject this gospel, then you have rejected your only way of escape from your own sins that are your own fault.
It is God’s kindness that offers the whole world forgiveness, so to mock and reject God’s kindness is double wrong, since you scorn the one who has never been anything but kind to you, though you have spent your whole life sinning against him.
The day of grace is still at hand, and as long as you’re alive Jesus still offers you forgiveness. Repent and believe and your sins will be washed away. If not, hope that your day of grace extends until you do.
I have an autistic son, and I have always been concerned with this topic. I try to teach him about God, but I have no way of knowing if he understands anything about the gospel, or if he is simply reciting the responses I have taught, since he is mostly non-verbal. I’ve read many responses, but this is the first one that has ever given me any degree of comfort that if my efforts to teach my son fail, God will still prevail on his behalf. Thank you so much!