SERIES: Heaven and Hell
SERMON: Heaven for Those Who Cannot Believe?
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: This Sunday and next I want to address two related and yet very different topics by means of two questions: “Heaven for those who cannot believe?” and “Hell for those who have never heard?” We can avoid the second question, and many of us do, simply by selfishly refusing to worry about the teeming millions who have never heard the Gospel. But we can hardly avoid the first, for the death of an infant has touched nearly every one of our families. I want to ask a very personal question today with the purpose of showing you how relevant this issue really is: “How many of you have lost at least one infant—a child or a sibling–by miscarriage or accident or SIDS or through some other way? Will you raise your hand?”
Where are those children now? Are they in heaven? Can you be sure? Tragically, some today are asking, “Are the pre-born even children?” In last Tuesday’s newspaper there was a letter to the editor from Barbara Stocker of the Rationalist Society vigorously attacking the National Conference of Catholic bishops who recently issued a pastoral letter calling upon Catholic politicians to recognize that a pro-abortion stance is incompatible with their faith. She writes,
“Many of the issues the bishops are concerned with are based on Catholic theology, such as … the idea that a soul enters an embryo upon conception and therefore it is from that instant a person. Many theologies determine that a person is ensouled later and many people do not believe in the existence of a soul at all.”[i]
I, for one, applaud the Catholic bishops. Let me ask you, “Why does a woman grieve when she has an early miscarriage?” She doesn’t grieve when she loses her appendix. It’s because she knows instinctively that she has lost a child.
In Psalm 139 David writes,
“You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth (a poetical reference to the womb) your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
I don’t know how one can read those verses and not believe the fetus to be a child created by God. I’m not necessarily saying that every early miscarriage represents the death of a human being. Doctors speak of “blighted ova” that never develop any human characteristics. I’m frankly not certain how to view such situations, but in the case of many miscarriages and most abortions, there is clearly a human being developing, and that human life is interrupted. In the case of miscarriage, it is interrupted by an act of God for reasons known only to Him. In the case of abortion, life is interrupted by human beings for reasons that are generally selfish and short-sighted. But the question I want us to wrestle with today is not the moral issues surrounding how an infant dies, but rather the spiritual question, “What is the eternal destiny of these children?”
In my sermon title I refer to the pre-born as “those who cannot believe.” But even after birth, I think most of us would agree that saving faith in the biblical sense is not possible before a certain age, often referred to as “the age of accountability.” I do not know what that age is, but I am certain there is such a time. More than likely it is different for each individual. But clearly the category of those who cannot believe is even larger than the preborn, plus the very young, for it also includes those who are severely retarded. There are some who live to be decades old but cannot understand the simplest of concepts. They may be unable to fulfill the commandment of Scripture, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”
Is heaven available for these who cannot believe? The question has been debated for centuries, in part because the Scripture does not provide us very much information on the subject. I want us to examine four views that have been offered by scholars and theologians:
1. No answer is possible.
2. Only some are saved.
3. None are saved.
4. All are saved.
View #1: No answer is possible.
Agnosticism is very popular today. It has a certain intellectual aura to it, sometimes even a false humility. It is easy to say, “We simply don’t know enough to be dogmatic.” I must admit there’s something appealing to me about this view, in that I have always been a man of the Book, and I will have to admit that God has said relatively little about this subject. But as a pastor I find it unacceptable to say to a grieving mother whose little baby has just died of SIDS, “I’m sorry, but I just don’t know whether your child is in heaven or hell.” I do not say that, because I believe God hasgiven us sufficient information to decide. It’s not all I would like for it to be, but it’s sufficient. We will look at the Scriptural evidence a little later this morning.
View #2: Only some are saved.
Catholics, Anglicans, Episcopalians, and many others who practice infant baptism have traditionally held that some children who die in infancy will go to heaven, namely those who are baptized. In fact, the belief that baptism washes away original sin and allows the child to go to heaven if he dies in infancy has provided the motivation for many very nominal Christians to suddenly become very devout when having their infant children baptized. It has always been amazing to me how people with little use for the church and little concern for God will, nevertheless, turn to the church at birth, marriage, and death, or as one hack put it, “They want the church to hatch ‘em, match ‘em, and dispatch ‘em.”
The other side of this view, however, is that by the same logic, unbaptized infants are not assured of heaven. Indeed, St. Augustine stated clearly that unbaptized infants are damned, while another early church leader, Pelagius, was a little less dogmatic. He said, “Where they are not, I know (i.e., in heaven); where they are, I know not.” Over the centuries the Catholic church came up with an answer for Pelagius–namely a place called Limbo. Though not official dogma of the Church, Limbo was nevertheless widely believed to be a compartment of hell which allows for the damnation of unbaptized infants but at a considerably lesser level of punishment. Some even understood it to be a place somewhere between heaven and hell; thus the common expression that an uncertain situation “leaves one in limbo,” i.e., somewhere “ in between.”
In more recent years many faiths which practice infant baptism have begun to allow for what they call “the baptism of desire.” In other words, they allow for the salvation of the infant if the parents meantto baptize their child but didn’t get around to it before the child died. Some even make provision for the child of parents who had no intention of baptizing the child if the child itself would have desired baptism had he/she been old enough to express an opinion.
There are others who come to the same conclusion, namely that “only some are saved,” but base their opinion on a very different criterion than whether the child is baptized or not. They suggest that only those infants who have at least one believing parent are saved. This notion comes from a somewhat obscure reference in 1 Cor. 7 in which divorce is being discouraged as a way of dealing with mixed marriages, i.e., marriages between a believer and an unbeliever. Paul writes,
“If a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.”
Obviously, if we’re going to grasp Paul’s point, it’s important that we understand the terms “sanctify” and “holy” in these verses. Both come from the same Greek root, which means “to set apart for a special purpose.” I believe Paul is saying that when a new convert remains in a marriage with an unbelieving spouse, one of the benefits is that the spouse and any children in the home are “set apart.” I think that means they are exposed to the truth and have opportunities to hear and accept the Gospel that they might never have otherwise.
You know, we sometimes have the notion that if a believer has too much contact with unbelievers he’s going to be dragged down, but Paul’s view seems to be the opposite–believers can and should have a sanctifying effect upon the unbelievers to whom they are closely related. But I don’t think he is saying that children with one believing parent have a special status in the eyes of God and are therefore automatically saved should they die in infancy. A child doesn’t choose his parents, so why should his eternal destiny depend upon whether they are believers?
Still another group of those who believe only some are saved see the criterion as election. The Westminster Confession affirms that elect infants are saved but doesn’t address whether all infants who die are elect. One would assume not, since clearly not all infants who live to adulthood are among God’s elect.
Let me review quickly. Among those who believe that only some of those who can’t believe are saved, three different criteria are offered:
Only those who are baptized are saved.
Only those with at least one believing parent are saved.
Only those who are elect are saved.
The third major view is that
View #3: None are saved as infants.
This is a rare view today, but not unheard of. Last January I led a discussion on this topic at our National Ministerial Association meeting in Rockford. There were about 40 pastors in this seminar, and one shared that he and his wife, who was also present, had a stillborn child just months before. With considerable emotion he shared that he didn’t think the Scriptures were clear on infant salvation, and if the Scriptures were not clear he didn’t think he had any right to assume the salvation of his son or any other child. In fact, he said he assumed his child was lost. Now I admire his courage and honesty, but I must disagree with his conclusion, and I feel sorry for any grieving parents in his congregation. I believe the Scriptures do give us sufficient insight so that parents can be confident their deceased children are in heaven.
I should, however, briefly mention another view that fits under this third category, but is quite different from that of the pastor I just mentioned. J. Oliver Buswell, who served as President of Wheaton College and as dean at Covenant Seminary here in St. Louis, suggests in his two-volume theology, Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion, that no infants are saved as infants. However, he postulates that God supernaturally enlarges their intellect at death so they can believe in Jesus Christ. Presumably then, those who believe are saved and those who refuse to believe are lost. That seems fair enough, but since he offers no Scriptural basis, I think it wise to simply mention it and move on.
The final major view on the destiny of those who cannot believe is that …
View #4: All are saved.
This view can be found in all denominations today–Catholic and Protestant, Reformed and Arminian, liberal and conservative–but the reasons given by each group can be very different. Some hold this view because they are universalists, that is, they believe eventually everyone will go to heaven, and if everyone is saved, then certainly all infants who die in infancy are also saved. But that view is so out of line with Scripture that I don’t think we need to say anything further about it, but you would be amazed how many pastors in mainline churches are universalists.
Others hold that all who cannot believe will go to heaven because of what they call simple “fairness”–they can’t believe God would allow an “innocent” child to go to hell. The problem is the concept of an “innocent” child is found nowhere in the Scripture. On the contrary, the Bible teaches original sin and makes it clear there is no one righteous, not even one. Infants may not have committed personalsin, but they are tainted with a sin nature inherited from Adam.
But there are some of us who hold this view that all who cannot believe will go to heaven, not because we are universalists, nor because of the fairness issue, but because we believe the Bible teaches it. There is one Scripture passage which speaks directly to the salvation of children who die in infancy, plus several others that hint strongly in the same direction.
Turn with me, please, to 2 Samuel 12. King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and in an effort to cover that sin he ordered the murder or her husband Uriah. Because he was king, he thought he could get by with it, which he did for a while. The economy was good, so many of his subjects said, “So what?” He brought Bathsheba to his house and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the last verse of chapter 11 says, “the thing David had done displeased the Lord.”
God sent the prophet Nathan to confront him, and Nathan told David a story about a rich man who stole a pet lamb from a poor man. I want to pick up the reading in verse 5 of chapter 12:
David burned with anger against the man (in the story) and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes?…
“This is what the LORD says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.'”
Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”
Nathan replied, “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.”
After Nathan had gone home, the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them.
On the seventh day the child died. David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, “While the child was still living, we spoke to David but he would not listen to us. How can we tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate (namely kill himself).”
David noticed that his servants were whispering among themselves and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked.
“Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.”
Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.
His servants asked him, “Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!”
He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.””
There has been some debate about what David meant when he said, “I will go to him.” Some think he was saying no more than that he would someday die, too, or that he expected to be buried next to his son. But I find it instructive that whatever David meant, it was obviously very comforting to him. His uncontrollable grief is over. How can one account for that other than assuming David expected to see his little boy again in heaven?
In fact, it’s helpful to contrast David’s reaction to the death of his infant son with his reaction to the death of his beloved son Absalom, who died as a young man during a rebellion against God and against his father. He was terribly grief-stricken. We read in 2 Samuel 18:33, “The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said: ‘O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you–O Absalom, my son, my son!’” This reaction stands in stark contrast to the earlier reaction. David was confident he would see his infant son in heaven; he was apparently sure he would never see Absalom again.
Another passage that deserves careful attention is Matthew 18:1-6:
“At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
“And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
Now we must admit up front that this passage is not directly addressing the question of the destiny of children who die before the age of accountability. The children Jesus is talking about are alive, not dead. Nevertheless, I think there is something instructive here for our discussion. To illustrate the need for us to have simple trust and utter dependence on Him, Jesus uses a little child. In Mark’s parallel account Jesus takes the child into his arms, so it’s clear we’re dealing here with a very small child. The little girl or boy does not resist the attention given by Jesus, apparently seeing in Him a kindness and gentleness that immediately engenders trust.
Those who would enter the Kingdom, Jesus says, must have the same trusting attitude toward and dependence upon Him. In fact, no one will ever enter the Kingdom who does not have that attitude. Apparently the tender and receptive spirit which this very young child shows toward Jesus is viewed as equivalent to faith in Him. In fact, in verse 6 Jesus speaks of the little children as “these little ones who believe in me.”
Notice too what Jesus says in verse 14. After telling the story of the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to find the one that wandered off, He says, “In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.” At first glance this sounds a lot like a statement in 2 Peter 3:9 that refers to everyone, not just infants: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
We know not everyone will come to repentance. Likewise, one might argue, although Matthew tells us the Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost, perhaps some of them will be. But Peter uses a Greek term which refers to God’s “desire” while Matthew uses a different one that refers more often to His sovereign “will.” In other words, it seems Peter is saying God doesn’t desire that any human beings be lost, while Matthew is saying that God has willed that none of the little ones be lost.
Without dispute, Jesus places a high value upon little children, and one’s view of their eternal destiny must certainly take that into account. Of course, everything I have said about infants who die in infancy, whether before birth or after, can also be said of those who have never reached the age of accountability mentally.
But one key theological question remains:
If one must “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ” to be saved (Acts 16:31), what is the basis upon which those who cannot believe are admitted to heaven?
After all, the Scriptures clearly teach that all are sinners; in fact, we are conceived in sin (Ps. 51:5). We inherit a sin nature from our parents, and it doesn’t take most children very long to demonstrate it. Furthermore, the Scriptures make it clear there is no salvation apart from faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Consider just the following four verses:
(John 3:36) “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life”
(Acts 4:12) “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
(Acts 16:31) “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
(1 John 5:12) “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
How do we harmonize the salvation of infants who die in infancy with these verses that seem to require a conscious faith in Jesus Christ for salvation? Let me begin to answer that question with a common-sense observation, namely that the Bible was not written to infants or to the severely retarded. It was written to those who can understand its simple truths. To them God says, in effect, “Jesus is the way of salvation; you must receive Him as Savior and Lord.” I don’t think God ever demands something of us that is impossible to perform, such as conscious, intelligent faith would be for, say, a pre-born infant. But by the same token, those who cannot believe cannot disbelieve either, and John 3:36 goes on to say, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” There is no rational sense in which infants can be said to reject the Savior.
Of key importance is the question, “What is the part faith plays in anyone’s salvation?” I am troubled at how often I hear Christian people say they are “saved by faith.” No, we are not saved by faith. We are saved by grace through faith, Ephesians 2:8-9. Grace is the undeserved favor of God shown by the death of Christ for our sin. It is the Cross that saves; it’s the death of Christ that saves; it is grace that saves. Faith is only the channel through which God’s grace is mediated to those who hear the Gospel.
Now please follow me carefully. If it is the death of Jesus which provides salvation, and if His death was sufficient for all sin (and I certainly believe the Bible teaches that), then is there any reason why the benefits of His death cannot be applied to infants, if the normal channel through which salvation is applied, namely conscious faith, is impossible for them? I don’t think so. Since faith contributes nothing to our actual forgiveness but serves only as the channel for what Christ has accomplished, then faith’s absence in those who cannot exercise it does not hinder the sovereign God from accomplishing in them all He does for those who can and do believe.
Let me conclude with a few pastoral comments. A lot of what I have said today is philosophical, theological, and maybe more technical than some of you needed. But I felt it was necessary to lay out all the evidence so I could say what I am about to say with a clear conscience.
I believe your children who have died before the age of accountability, whether by miscarriage, accident, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or even, God forbid, by abortion, are safe in the arms of Jesus. They are safe not because of something you have done, like baptizing them, nor because you yourself have put your faith in Christ. I’m certainly glad if you have, but the Christian faith is not inherited; we are not Christians because we are born into a Christian family, we are only Christians if we have been born again. No, your child, for whom your arms once ached and perhaps still do, is safe in the arms of Jesus because Jesus died for that child.
In his book, One Minute After You Die, Erwin Lutzer, Pastor of Moody Church in Chicago, shares the story of a man whose daughter died not long after his wife died. He and the minister stood alone at the casket. The man grieved uncontrollably as he took the key and unlocked the casket to look upon the face of his child one last time. Then he closed the casket and handed the key to the keeper of the cemetery. On the way back the minister quoted Revelation 1:17-18 to the broken-hearted man. “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One, and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of hades.” The minister said, “You think the key to your little daughter’s casket is in the hands of the keeper of the cemetery. But the key is in the hands of the Son of God, and He will come some morning and use it.”[ii]
Bob Neudorf wrote a poem to his son who died before birth, entitled, “To My Baby” and with this I close:
Is it proper to cry
For a baby too small
For a coffin?
Yes, I think it is.
Does Jesus have
My too-small baby
In his tender arms?
Yes, I think He does.
There is so much I do not know
About you–my child–
He, she? Quiet or restless?
Will I recognize
Someone I knew so little about,
Yet loved so much?
Yes, I think I will.
Ah, sweet, small child
Can I say
That loving you is like loving God?
Loving–yet not seeing,
Holding–yet not touching,
Caressing–yet separated by the chasm of time.
No tombstone marks your sojourn,
And only God recorded your name.
The banquet was not canceled,
Just moved. Just moved.
Yet a tear remains
Where baby should have been.[iii]
Friends, the same grace that saves a child in infancy is available to you. But God requires those of us who are able, to exercise a positive, active faith in His Son: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
Prayer: Father, will you heal the pain and dry the tears of those who have lost little ones. Help them to trust the perfect sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross. May we trust Him, not only for our children, but also for ourselves.
Appendices (thoughts that did not make it into the sermon):
1. My own choice not to practice infant baptism is based on two points. First, there is not a single clear example of infant baptism in the Bible, and second, whatever efficacy pertains to the sacrament or ordinance of baptism, the infant would clearly be receiving that benefit because of another person’s faith, namely his parents’, not his own.
2. Where are aborted babies now? Some would ask, “Are the pre-born even children?” In Thursday’s newspaper George Will wrote a commentary that I really don’t have time to read this morning, but I can’t avoid it:
“Where Route 71 crosses over Payton Drive, at the bottom of the steeply sloping embankment, two boys, who were playing nearby, found the boxes. The boys bicycled home and said they had found boxes of “babies.”
Do not be impatient with the imprecision of their language. They have not read the apposite Supreme Court opinions. So when they stumbled on the boxes stuffed with 54 fetuses, which looked a lot like babies, they jumped to conclusions. Besides, young boys are apt to believe their eyes rather than the Supreme Court.
The first count came to a lot less than 54. Forgive the counters’ imprecision. Many fetuses had been dismembered—hands, arms, legs, heads jumbled together—by the abortionist’s vigor. An accurate count required a lot of sorting out.
The fetuses had been dumped here, about 30 miles east of Los Angeles, on March 14, 1997, by a trucker who may not have known what the Los Angeles abortion clinic had hired him to dispose of. He later served 71 days in jail for the improper disposal of medical waste. Society must be strict about its important standards.
What local authorities dealt with as a problem of solid waste disposal struck a few local residents as rather more troubling than that. They started talking to each other, and one thing led to another, and to the formation of Cradles of Love, which had the modest purpose of providing a burial for the 54 babies…. They asked the coroner to give them the fetuses. Then the American Civil Liberties Union was heard from.
It professed itself scandalized by this threat to … what? The ACLU frequently works itself into lathers of anxiety about threats to the separation of church and state. It is difficult, however, to identify any person whose civil liberties were going to be menaced if the fetuses were (these are the ACLU’s words) “released to the church groups for the express purpose of holding religious services.” The ACLU said it opposed “facilitation” of services by a public official.
The ACLU’s attack on the constitutionally protected right to the free exercise of religion failed to intimidate, and in October the babies were buried in a plot provided at no charge by a cemetery in nearby Riverside. Each baby was given a name by a participating church group. Each name was engraved on a brass plate that was affixed to each of the 54 small, white, wooden caskets made, at no charge, by a volunteer who took three days off from work to do it. Fifty clergy and four persons active in the right-to-life movement carried the caskets….
The ACLU trembled for the Constitution.
We hear much about the few “extremists” in the right-to-life movement. But the vast majority of the movement’s members are like the kindly, peaceable people here, who were minding their own business until some of the results of the abortion culture tumbled down a roadside embankment and into their lives.
Which is not to say that this episode was untainted by ugly extremism. It would be nice if the media, which are nothing if not diligent in documenting and deploring right-to-life extremism, could bring themselves to disapprove the extremism of the ACLU, which here attempted a bullying nastiness unredeemed by any connection to a civic purpose.”
3. There is little doubt that David lacked some of the knowledge of the afterlife we have, for most of our information comes from the New Testament. But all you need is the Twenty-Third Psalm to prove he knew and believed God’s people would live consciously after death in the joy of His presence, for he ended that great Psalm with these words: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Clearly David was comforted in the hope and confidence that he would someday be with his infant son in heaven.
DATE: December 6, 1998
Tags:
Heaven
Hell
Salvation of infants
Age of accountability
[i] Barbara Stocker, “Letters to the Editor,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, December 1, 1998.
[ii] Erwin Lutzer, One Minute After You Die, 75-76.
[iii] Bob Neudorf, “To My Baby,” The Alliance Witness, September 16, 1987, 14.