Nonsense on the babies go to hell.
Job 3 and 16 and 17: “Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth”. Job said, “Let the day perish on which I was to be born and the night which said a boy is conceived! May that day be darkness.”
“Why was I not hidden like a stillborn child, like infants who never saw light?” Why didn’t I die in my mother’s womb? “There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest.”
Notice that key word: REST. What’s he saying? He’s saying, “I’d be better off if I miscarried. I would be better off if I were stillborn, so I wouldn’t have to face a troubling life—that I would enter immediately into,” what? “Rest.” “Rest.” Job understood that dying as an infant would bring one to rest and one would escape the pain of suffering. He certainly didn’t believe that infants that die go to hell and some eternal torment, but rather had the confidence that they enter into rest.
Job is the oldest book in the Bible and what most people had FOR a Bible before Moses wrote what we call the first 5 books.
But we can go on: In Ecclesiastes 6:3-5, Solomon laments. He laments that a stillborn child is better off than a person who lives a thousand years twice and doesn’t enjoy the right things. He says, “What’s the point of living two thousand years if you don’t ever enjoy true goodness? You’d be better off a stillborn child.”
What about sin? Total depravity? Are all babies born sinners? Yes!
Do all sinners go to hell?
NO!
John MacArther said it thusly:
How were you saved? By what? Grace! You say, “Well, if God just takes all the babies to heaven, that’s just grace!” Right! But how were you saved? By law? What do you want? Law for babies and grace for you? You had no more to do with your salvation than a helpless infant. That’s why the truest and purest theology is that theology which understands that salvation is by grace, and maybe that’s what Jesus had in mind in part when He said, “You who go to heaven, go to heaven as little children.” Is there a better illustration of a salvation by grace than the salvation of a helpless infant? Any true understanding of Scripture yields the reality that all salvation is by sovereign choice by God through grace based on nothing that the sinner merits, and is there a better illustration of that than saving lost infants? Does that magnify sovereignty? Does it magnify grace? Of course it does.
God chooses whom He will save. And God calls ALL. Some listen, some do not. The choice to go to hell belongs to you. Babies get full unconditional grace. No contradiction.
That, sir, is the best answer I’ve ever gotten for that issue/question.
It does not dovetail perfectly with what else I’ve been told, but it is substantial food for thought.
Thanks!
Awesome post Waywardson! I often listen to MacArthur too - at oneplace.com
To all those laughing closed-minded individuals, please see my links at post #12 in this thread if you want to see some truly awesome facts found in creation science. Think about this ~ Seashell fossils are found on the tops of all mountain ranges worldwide.
Here’s another cool link showing how pervasive the Noah’s Ark legend is with many varied cultures worldwide. Like you should expect for an event Biblically purported to have occurred some 4,500 years ago.
http://shipsonstamps.org/Topics/html/arche.htm
Please indulge me while I paraphrase back what I think you said and my thoughts:
According to Job, a baby's afterlife is a place of rest. This is not what we think of as Heaven.
What we think of as Heaven is simply too intense an environment for someone of the intellectual and spiritual level of an infant.
A baby would no more be comfortable in that Heaven than they would in the middle of a rock concert! Innocents get an age/developmentally appropriate afterlife, a place of warmth, love and comfort.
By contrast, one can look at any number of medieval paintings and see people being "driven into" Hell. A closer look reveals they are escaping into Hell! The terrible light and glory of God and Heaven is overwhelmingly fearful to most.
The highest complement one could give used to be to describe someone as "God fearing". The Bible is rife with examples of prophets and shepherds being terrified by the presence of the divine.
Given a choice most of us would be in a comfort zone with respect to the old God Himself, not so close that we would be overwhelmed and consumed, not so far that we would freeze alone in desolation.
The modern god is a good ol' boy, neutered and harmless, everybody's bud. The modern heaven is sort of a quiet party central, with no sense of purpose, but lots of lotus blossoms to eat.
From my understanding, Heaven -the old Heaven- will ultimately be populated by God, a host of Angels and a select few (144,000?) tough enough and spiritually prepared ex-humans who will have the wherewithal to defeat the Dragon. The rest of us don't make the cut, but will presumably be there for the following peace on earth.
Or not.