I don't want that you should believe anything in regard to your calvinism.
Where's the scripture that PROVES that ALL INFANTS WHO DIE AT BIRTH are ELECTED TO SALVATION RATHER THAN TO DAMNATION?
I don't believe that there is a single scripture which proves it, per se.
I believe, instead, that there are a number of Scriptures which evidence it.
GOOD NEWS FROM THE REDEEMER
JUNE 28, 1997 RADIO MESSAGE #171
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.
Calvinists know that God has Elected to Himself, whomever He has seen fit. David, in 2 Samuel 12:23, stated with confidence that He would join his infant son in Heaven -- and this confidence was recorded as theological fact, in infallible Scripture.
How was David confident that his son, who died in infancy, was Saved... unless he was confident that those who die in infancy are Saved?? If He were not confident of this, He could not have made the statement. And if his confidence were not correct, God would not have permitted it to be recorded as infallible Scripture.
But I will freely admit that this is inferential reasoning, not explicit. If there were a specific verse which stated that "All who die in infancy are saved", Calvinists would be as quick to cite it as Arminians.
Historically, the only group of which I am aware who taught the opposite -- that infants who died in infancy were Damned -- are the Free-Will Petrobrussians.
Any response to #769?
Any response to #777?
Thanks.