Posted on 10/15/2004 1:04:27 AM PDT by OrthodoxPresbyterian
Are persons who die in infancy saved? Holy Scriptures do not directly address this subject. But various indirect declarations give us every reason to rest assured that they are indeed saved.
The goodness of God suggests the salvation of those who die in infancy. We read in Job 38:41 that He provides food for newborn ravens when they cry unto Him. Surely He will not turn a deaf ear to the cries of infants and permit them to be cast from His presence! We read in Psalm 145:15f that He provides food for "every living thing," even the most loathsome of creatures. Surely He will provide salvation for those made in His own image who die in infancy!
In various passages, the number of the redeemed in glory is so large as to suggest the salvation of those persons who died in infancy. For example, they are described in Revelation 7:9 as "a great multitude which no man could number." It is thought by many theologians that the number of souls in glory will be greater than that of the souls in the regions of the damned on the grounds that Christ must have the preeminence. This certainly will be true if the number of the redeemed in glory will include all those who died in infancy and childhood, which was a vast part of humanity in former times when a great percentage of children did not live long enough to reach adulthood. This number would also include the untold millions who today are snatched from their mothers' wombs and sacrificed by abortionists.
In Ezekiel 16:21, God called the children sacrificed to heathen gods "My children": "you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire." God's children are received in glory, not consigned to hell.
In Jonah 4:11, we read that God had great pity on the citizens of Nineveh, especially upon its "more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left." Such pity suggests these infants would be received into glory if they died in infancy.
In Mark 10:14, Jesus Christ said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." He then admonished adults in the next verse, "Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it."
In 2 Samuel 12:23, David expressed his own assurance that his own departed infant was received into heaven, and that he himself would later be forever reunited with him there: "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me."
The great question before us not is not whether persons dying in infancy are saved and received into glory. Holy Scriptures would seem to assure us that they indeed are. Rather, the question before us should be whether the parents and loved ones of those who die in infancy will be reunited with them in glory.
How are persons who die in infancy saved?
Arminians err when they aver that persons dying in infancy are saved because of their supposed innocence. Arminians are driven to this view because of a fatal flaw in their scheme of salvation. Arminians believe that God has done all He can to save sinners, and that the success of His desire and endeavor rests solely upon those sinners exercising their supposed "free will" in making what they call a "decision for Christ." Arminians declare that if sinners do not make such a conscious and deliberate decision to let God save them, God cannot do so.
This Arminian heresy mercilessly shuts the door of salvation to infants who are in every way incapable of their own will to make a "decision for Christ." Arminians admit this fatal flaw to their scheme of salvation, but they are not willing to concede that persons dying in infancy are forever lost and damned. Arminians therefore must devise another scheme by which God saves infants, thereby averring that God saves adults in one way, and infants in another.
This Arminian dilemma is compounded for Campbellites, the disciples of Alexander Campbell (1788-1866). Campbellites are not only Arminian, but also among the most strident proponents of the heresy of baptismal regeneration. They emphatically deny that anyone can be saved apart from baptism. This Campbellite heresy also mercilessly shuts the door of salvation to unbaptized infants — unless another scheme of salvation can be devised for them.
Arminians generally believe the scheme for the salvation for infants involves their innocence and/or the fact that they have not reached the age of accountability – whatever that is!
This Arminian scheme for the salvation of infants contradicts Holy Scriptures in at least two ways. First, it denies that God has but one plan for salvation, and posits instead that He saves adults in one way and infants in another.
Second, this Arminian scheme for the salvation of infants denies the Biblical doctrine of the sinfulness of the whole human race, including infants.
Romans 5:12-19 teaches us that we all, infants included, sinned and died in the fall of Adam, the first man.
Job (14:4) declared the sinfulness of infants when he said, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one!"
The psalmist David declared the sinfulness of infants when he, speaking for us all, said in Psalm 51:5, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me."
And he poignantly declared the sinfulness of infants when he said in Psalm 58:3, "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies."
Solomon includes infants when he teaches us in Ecclesiastes 7:20 that "there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin."
And Jesus Christ includes infants when He teaches us in John 3:1-7 that "That which is born of the flesh is flesh" and in need of being "born again" by the Holy Spirit if he or she is to see or enter God's kingdom.
Another flaw of the Arminian view is that it in reality denies infant salvation. There is no need of salvation for those who are innocent! "Infant salvation" is a misnomer for Arminians.
Roman Catholics err when they aver that persons dying in infancy are saved if they are baptized. One of the first great heresies to plague the church of Christ was the mistaken belief that salvation is obtained through baptism. Since those who embraced this heresy wished to prevent their children from dying unbaptized, and therefore unsaved, they baptized them as soon as they were born. Scriptures deny both the heresy of baptismal regeneration and of the baptism of infants.
Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church emphatically declares that infants and young children dying unbaptized are forbidden to enter heaven. According to the article "Infants, Unbaptized" in A Catholic Dictionary, "The Church has always taught that unbaptized children are excluded from heaven .... Heaven is a reward in no way due to their human nature as such."
Calvinists rightly teach that persons dying in infancy are saved in the same manner as are saved adults. God has only one plan of salvation. It teaches that sinners are saved by God's free and sovereign grace in Jesus Christ, totally apart from any works of righteousness they perform or any supposed virtue in them. Everyone who is saved — including all persons dying in infancy — is saved through being elected to salvation by God the Father, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and regenerated or born again by the Holy Spirit (as set forth in preceding messages).
Calvinists believe persons dying in infancy are saved in this manner. Contrary to the slanders of Arminians and Romanists, Calvinists do not believe any persons dying in infancy are damned.
One of the most glorious aspects of the Calvinist doctrine of infant salvation is that it magnifies the goodness and grace of God in salvation and in no way contradicts Holy Scriptures. To the contrary, Arminianism denies the need of God's grace for the salvation of infants. And Romanism exalts the work of parents in having their infants baptized, and bars from heaven the departed infants of those parents who did not do so.
We Calvinists alone can rightly assure the parents and friends of departed infants that they are saved and received into glory.
But we also exhort these same parents and friends to trust in Jesus Christ for their own salvation. None but such persons can say with assurance the words of David regarding his own departed infant, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me."
Most Calvinists whole-heartedly affirm that all persons dying in infancy are saved, even though they acknowledge the Bible has no definitive doctrine on this subject. Some Calvinists will go only so far as to acknowledge that the Bible definitely teaches that at least some persons dying in infancy are saved. But no representative Calvinist theologian declares that any person dying in infancy is damned. (See the preceding message, #171.)
Arminians nevertheless deliberately misrepresent Calvinists as believing persons dying in infancy are damned. Let the following quotations from some of the most renown Calvinists suffice to show that the Arminian accusation is false.
John Calvin, the sixteenth-century Reformer for whom Calvinism is named, asserted, "I do not doubt that the infants whom the Lord gathers together from this life are regenerated by a secret operation of the Holy Ghost." And "he speaks of the exemption of infants from the grace of salvation 'as an idea not free from execrable blasphemy'" (cited by Augustus Strong in Systematic Theology). He furthermore declared that "to say that the countless mortals taken from life while yet infants are precipitated from their mothers' arms into eternal death is a blasphemy to be universally detested" (quoted in Presbyterian and Reformed Review, Oct. 1890: pp.634-51).
Charles Hodge was a 19th-century professor of theology at Princeton Seminary, which was in those days a foremost American bastion of Calvinism. He wrote: "All who die in infancy are saved. This is inferred from what the Bible teaches of the analogy between Adam and Christ. 'As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.' (Rom. v.18,19.) We have no right to put any limit on these general terms, except what the Bible itself places upon them. The Scriptures nowhere exclude any class of infants, baptized or unbaptized, born in Christian or in heathen lands, of believing or unbelieving parents, from the benefits of the redemption of Christ. All the descendants of Adam, except Christ, are under condemnation; all the descendants of Adam, except those of whom it is expressly revealed that they cannot inherit the kingdom of God, are saved. This appears to be the clear meaning of the Apostle, and therefore he does not hesitate to say that where sin abounded, grace has much more abounded, that the benefits of redemption far exceed the evils of the fall; that the number of the saved far exceeds the number of the lost" (Systematic Theology, vol.I, p.26)
John Newton, author of the favorite hymn "Amazing Grace," became a Calvinistic Anglican minister in 1764, serving the English parishes in Olney, Buckinghamshire, and London. In a letter to a friend he wrote, "Nor can I doubt, in my private judgment, that [infants] are included in the election of grace. Perhaps those who die in infancy, are the exceeding great multitude of all people, nations, and languages mentioned, Revelations, vii.9, in distinction from the visible body of professing believers, who were marked in the foreheads, and openly known to be the Lord's" (The Works of John Newton, vol.VI, p.182)
Alvah Hovey was a 19th-century American Baptist who served many years in Newton Theological Institution, and edited The American Commentary. He wrote in one of his books: "Though the sacred writers say nothing in respect to the future condition of those who die in infancy, one can scarcely err in deriving from this silence a favorable conclusion. That no prophet or apostle, that no devout father or mother, should have expressed any solicitude as to those who die before they are able to discern good from evil is surprising, unless such solicitude was prevented by the Spirit of God. There are no instances of prayer for children taken away in infancy. The Savior nowhere teaches that they are in danger of being lost. We therefore heartily and confidently believe that they are redeemed by the blood of Christ and sanctified by His Spirit, so that when they enter the unseen world they will be found with the saints" (Biblical Eschatology, pp.170f).
Lorraine Boettner was a 20th-Century Presbyterian who taught Bible for eight years in Pikeville College, Kentucky. In his book The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination he wrote at some length in defense of the Calvinist doctrine of infant salvation. We here quote from his remarks: "Calvinists, of course, hold that the doctrine of original sin applies to infants as well as to adults. Like all other sons of Adam, infants are truly culpable because of race sin and might be justly punished for it. Their 'salvation' is real. It is possible only through the grace of Christ and is as truly unmerited as is that of adults. Instead of minimizing the demerit and punishment due to them for original sin, Calvinism magnifies the mercy of God in their salvation. Their salvation means something, for it is the deliverance of guilty souls from eternal woe. And it is costly, for it was paid for by the suffering of Christ on the cross. Those who take the other view of original sin, namely, that it is not properly sin and does not deserve eternal punishment, make the evil from which infants are 'saved' to be very small, and consequently the love and gratitude which they owe to God to be small also.
"... Calvinism ... extends saving grace far beyond the boundaries of the visible church. If it is true that all of those who die in infancy, in heathen as well as in Christian lands, are saved, then more than half of the human race up to the present time has been among the elect."
B.B. Warfield, born in Kentucky in 1851, was along with Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck one of the three most outstanding Reformed theologians in his day. He wrote concerning those who die in infancy: "Their destiny is determined irrespective of their choice, by an unconditional decree of God, suspended for its execution on no act of their own; and their salvation is wrought by an unconditional application of the grace of Christ to their souls, through the immediate and irresistible operation of the Holy Spirit prior to and apart from any action of their own proper wills... And if death in infancy does depend on God's providence, it is assuredly God in His providence who selects this vast multitude to be made participants of His unconditional salvation.... This is but to say that they are unconditionally predestinated to salvation from the foundation of the world" (quoted in Boettner's book).
Charles Haddon Spurgeon is perhaps the most-widely recognized name among Calvinists next to John Calvin. He served many years in the 19th-century as pastor in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England. He preached on September 29, 1861, a message entitled "Infant Salvation" (#411 in Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit). In this message, Mr. Spurgeon not only convincingly proved from Holy Scriptures the belief of Calvinists that all persons dying in infancy are saved, but also soundly rebuked those Arminians and others who wrongly accuse us otherwise:
"It has been wickedly, lyingly, and slanderously said of Calvinists, that we believe that some little children perish. Those who make the accusation know that their charge is false. I cannot even dare to hope, though I would wish to do so, that they ignorantly misrepresent us. They wickedly repeat what has been denied a thousand times, what they know is not true.... I know of no exception, but we all hope and believe that all persons dying in infancy are elect. Dr. Gill, who has been looked upon in late times as being a very standard of Calvinism, not to say of ultra-Calvinism, himself never hints for a moment the supposition that any infant has perished, but affirms of it that it is a dark and mysterious subject, but that it is his belief, and he thinks he has Scripture to warrant it, that they who have fallen asleep in infancy have not perished, but have been numbered with the chosen of God, and so have entered into eternal rest. We have never taught the contrary, and when the charge is brought, I repudiate it and say, 'You may have said so, we never did, and you know we never did. If you dare to repeat the slander again, let the lie stand in scarlet on your very cheek if you be capable of a blush.' We have never dreamed of such a thing. With very few and rare exceptions, so rare that I never heard of them except from the lips of slanderers, we have never imagined that infants dying as infants have perished, but we have believed that they enter into the paradise of God."
Whom will you believe: Calvinists speaking for themselves? or Arminians deliberately misrepresenting them?
I would imagine, that since God created what we know of as logic and contradiction, then it's quite possible for Him to act in a way, that to us, appears illogical or contradictory.
From what I have heard, there is only one that has allegedly come back from the dead. If you can name some others, I will try to check it out. While, I believe that God can bring back the dead, I just don't believe He has.
No, but God did repent according to the OT. So you tell me.
God isn't logical?
Sooo, you (Baptists?) make "sense" of God? And whose logic does God use? If you look at anything we humans make, does it even resemble anything which God created? Does the Creation make "sense" to you? Is that how "logically" you would have created the Universe?
Get off your high horse and deified humanism of the West, where we humans even have a "right" to life! Really? How is that logical? How can something you can't keep be your right? God's thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. Do not flatter yourself that your logic is the key to "understanding" God's Wisdom.
The definition of faith does not include logic or understanding. No need to have a PhD to be faithful. The best we can hope (NT definition of faith) for is to find that narrow path to God, and it's ain't logic that will get you there.
Rather than trying to find the logic of man in the Scripture, seek the Spirit.
A) I'm not arguing that the trials were fair; perhaps some were?
B) Matt 5:18
Whoa. Off on a tangent. Go back to my post #326. I hold that some infants are saved, some are not. You were going to take me to task for my heresy of predestination before we hauled down this well trod path.
He obviously knew what He would do beforehand; it only looked, to us, like he "changed his mind". Mal 3:6 For I [am] the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Sooo, you (Baptists?) make "sense" of God?In a limited way, yes. God is rational; agreed? His creation (us) will have some of His attributes. As to the rest of your questions in this paragraph, in order: His; No; In part, yes; No, I'd have botched it.
Next paragraph, you must have me confused with another.
Rather than trying to find the logic of man in the Scripture, seek the Spirit.
and the Spirit filled Christian seeks to understand; Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
God is a rational Being.
The great thinkers say that God doesn't go against logic, He goes outside of logic. On this point, I think we agree, to some extent.
From what I have heard, there is only one that has allegedly come back from the dead. If you can name some others, I will try to check it out. While, I believe that God can bring back the dead, I just don't believe He has.
Well, if you don't believe Jesus was raised on the third day; it would be a waste of my time to list the others who were brought back to life. (none to my knowledge since the time of the Apostles.)
And His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts! So, is God subject to logic of Creation or is he outside of the laws of this world?
Have you ever looked at the world around you and the sky above? Does any of that make "sense" to you? Is it rational to have billions of galaxies spinning in endless vacuum?
We don't know if God thinks. We don't know how God designs and creates. Whatever it is, it's not our reason for sure. It's not our logic. God is not bound by created relationships of the physical world.
We know God through faith, not through reason. God is a Mystery that is not ours to solve. God gave us the ability to know love and mercy and justice -- things you cannot find in nature, or logically arrive at.
I find predestination and talk of "selects" disgusting and disturbing. Predestination makes a mockery of the promise of the resurrection.
I've found a study of the doctrine of imputations is helpful in this topic.
There are real and judicial imputations spoken of throughout Scripture.
One type of imputation is the placement of soul life into an infant at its birth. Concurrent with that imputation of life is an imputation of condemnation upon the person because of their old sin nature(also referred to as original sin, Adamic sin, OSN, or sin nature) inherited geneologically from Adam.
This is very important, because one must be condemned before they may be saved.
The doctrine leads us to conclude that if the person has never had the opportunity to consider or place faith in Christ, then God the Father is free to save them by grace alone without infringing upon any other divine characteristics. This would also apply to infants, idiots, and possibly the isolated heathen not yet considering the creation and the Creator.
Phrased another way, when a baby dies, God could not save him if He had to wait for the first personal sin of the baby. Instead, God condemns the baby at birth as a matter of grace due to the imputation of Adam's original sin causing a biological sin nature. Then if the baby dies, at anytime after death and prior to being afforded a chance at hearing and understanding the gospel, God is free to save him, i.e. unencumbered by His own Holiness, ..to save him through grace.
Please explain to me the difference between going 'against logic' and going 'outside' logic. For humans, how is this difference presented?
Agree entirely! We can only know of Him, we can't know entirely. It seems as though we're not in disagreement about the big things, we just don't agree on the small things.
So, is God subject to logic of Creation or is he outside of the laws of this world?
God is not subject to anything we can comprehend. Only His own Being must He not contradict.
Have you ever looked at the world around you and the sky above? Does any of that make "sense" to you? Is it rational to have billions of galaxies spinning in endless vacuum?
Yes. Some. Why not?
Ah. You're a Universalist.
it's quite possible for Him to act in a way, that to us, appears illogical or contradictory.
Against logic: "All lawyers are liars. I am a lawyer."
Outside logic: Gen 1:3 "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light."
"logic" itself was 'recognized' by us humans; and our understanding is flawed.
1Corinthians 13:9-12 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
Isn't our understanding yet still as children?
Next to God, it's probably less than childlike....we aren't even in the same game.
We couldn't even begin to contradict Him, even if it were possible!
Yes. Some. Why not?
Because we don't design anything even close. As far as we can tell, the entire Creation is going around in circles! No beginning and no end! Do our houses, clothes, machines, or roads look anylthing like His Creation? I don't think so. So, if His design "makes sense" to you -- you are above and beyond all human beings.
baby kitten, still with closed eyes?
You need to rethink.
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
1Peter 4:7 But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.
If there were no begining to God's creation, if there is no end; the universe is un-caused, and time is without meaning. God alone is un-caused. He created and sustains the universe.
protazoa
You need to stay within context. I never denied that Creation took place or even hinted that Creation will not end.
What I said was that the Creation was designed in such a way that it is always moving, going nowhere, spinning around in circles without a starting point and without a finishing point (in this motion), and that we don't make things run around in circles! In fact, "running around in circles" (which includes the entire Universe) is a derogatory remark in the English language -- implying a waste of time!
My point was that we don't think, create or do anything like God, and that saying that God's Creation "makes sense" is an insult to God's wisdom.
"makes sense" to a limited extent. As in a child mixing colors of paint. We can understand which colors need to be mixed with which other, to get a third color. We have no concept of light, reflection of different wavelengths, the chemical composition of the paint... The limited part we do understand, "makes sense". The whole of God's creation; no way. Is the current context clear enough, or shall I try once more?
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