As
a parent I have witnessed the miraculous birth of my children. To stand over
them as they lay sleeping I can’t imagine anything that would keep them out of
heaven if God chose to take them in their infancy. At that young age they have done
nothing to deserve hell besides being “born in sin” (Psalm 51:5). God is a just
God and he can do anything He wants to do, but in my finite mind I cannot wrap
my mind around a loving God sending an infant to hell despite their sinfulness
and inability to make a choice. We have experienced the death of an unborn
child through miscarriage and we hope that God in his love and affection for
children covered that baby’s sins by the blood of Christ and we will see our child
again. “Zwingli took the position that all children of believers dying in
infancy are saved, for they were born within the covenant of believing parents.”[1]
I have no biblical support to his position although my wife and I are believers
and that gives us hope, but we know and understand what the Scripture says when
it comes to salvation (Romans 10:13). I also find comfort in knowing what David
went through as he mourned the loss of his infant son in 2 Samuel 12. He
himself held to a belief that when his child died he would join the child in Heaven.
The Scriptures aren’t clear and gives no definite answer to this question. I
would have to agree with the majority of Christians today “who believe that
babies are not guilty of any explicit sin, and therefore, it would be unjust
for God not to save them.” [2]
I would also hope that in all his wisdom Charles Spurgeon got it right when he
said “that he believed that infants who die go to heaven, not on the basis of
any outward ritual, but because God mercifully laid their sins on Christ.”[3]
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