Of Youth and Eternity

Do you ever wonder where infants or children go if they pass early from this life? Without assurance of the answer, it may be a painful question, especially to a parent who has suffered the loss of a child. Though knowing the answer may not quench the grief, being able to know with certainty that the child is safe in Heaven would surely be a great comfort.

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Beyond a source of consolation, the answer is critically important  to parent and non-parent alike because it reflects what kind of God we serve, and our perspective of Him. If the answer is that God would put babies in hell…could you really desire to serve a God like that? Could you reconcile it with the fact He is a loving Father to those who place their faith in Him?  But if the answer is that babies go to Heaven...how much differently we might think of Him! How much comfort and trust we might gain in knowing the mercy and goodness of God.

Babies….don’t go to heaven?? 

Some of the arguments I have heard which challenge the idea that all babies go to heaven use verses such as these to defend the unthinkable -

Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. - Job 5:7

For vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt. - Job 11:12 

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. - Psalm 51:5 

In other words, the argument is that since we were born in sin, like unto Adam, if we die at any age, even in the womb, the child/baby is inherently sinful and in just as much danger of hellfire until they come to salvation. For many, the solution to this horrible thought is the practice of infant baptism. Except there are two problems with this -