Q&A Friday’s have been on a bit of a summer break. This is due in large part to me trying to add several additional items to my plate in effort to get things done this summer. However, I am going to jump back in here with a theological cannonball. Here goes.
Do babies who die go to heaven?
[deep breath] I don’t know. The reason that I do not know is because I do not think the Bible answers this specific question. I do have an answer though, as we work through this.
There are basically two strong positions on this:
.1. Babies who die go directly to heaven. This is due to God’s foreordained electing purpose. Often time’s folks will say with certainty that babies go to heaven as they point to the reaction of David to his son’s death in 2 Sam. 12.19-23. David was extremely upset while the child was alive and sick. He fasted, he wept, he was inconsolable, however, and upon the child’s death David bounces up, cleans up and heads to the temple to worship. The onlookers were astonished by this change in behavior. You can follow the exchange here:
2 Samuel 12:21-23 21 Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept; but when the child died, you arose and ate food.” 22 He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows, the LORD may be gracious to me, that the child may live.’ 23 “But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”
The contention is that David realized that the child was dead and that he was not going to enjoy time with him in this life, however, he was encouraged and optimistic to spend at the certainty of seeing him in the life to come.
It is helpful to contrast the reaction of David here to this young son with that of his older and outright rebellious son Absalom:
2 Samuel 19:1-2 “Behold, the king is weeping and mourns for Absalom.” 2 The victory that day was turned to mourning for all the people, for the people heard it said that day, “The king is grieved for his son.”
2 Samuel 19:4 4 The king covered his face and cried out with a loud voice, “O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
The difference is clear. David mourns over Absalom but is optimistic over the baby.
I still find this to be inconclusive; it is helpful, but not as clear as some would hold it to be. I cannot look a grieving Dad and Mom in the face and say, “Your baby is most certainly in heaven…” based upon this narrative, maybe you can, but I cannot with a good conscience.
.2. Babies who die go to hell. This is hard to even write. We have a tender and sensitive spot for babies; they are cute, cuddly and smell so sweet. However, we know biblically that each and every little sweet baby is “by nature a child of wrath” (Eph. 2.3). All of humanity is rolled up into Adam, we are all imputed or charged with the offense of Adam, we are all, children included, depraved sinners (Rom. 5.12). Apart from salvation in Jesus Christ all of us remain condemned, as we are all, as David wrote, “I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” (Ps. 51.5).
I understand this logically but it is still somewhat of a deduction; for the Bible does not clearly address the issue of the eternal destination of children who die.
Some Bible teachers say that all of the babies are elect. This seems a little too easy for me. Would we conclude the same thing about the babies who were not spared in the raid upon Sihon the King of Heshbon (Deu. 3.6)?
Conclusion
I cannot give anyone a chapter and verse answer on the eternal destination of children who die, I can only give logical deductions, and even these I am not fully comfortable with, and I struggle with an admittedly strange tension.
So what do you say?
The great thing about our God is that he is good. So while I can look the grieving Dad and Mom in the eye and answer their question by saying I do not think the Bible definitively answers this question, but the Bible does definitively speak to the issue of God’s character. The Scripture says that God is “good and does good” (Ps. 119.68). He is the very source of goodness and everything that he does is good not because it is judged by some external standard of agreeable goodness but because God, who is good and defines good, did it.
So I can join my mourning brothers and sisters in their grief and encourage them to cast their entire selves upon the character of God. We need to delight in the God who is good and does what is right. We need to trust him, knowing that if God does something that is inconsistent with what we may or may not think ‘goodness’ is then we will, by his marvelous grace, be one day conformed into his image and find ourselves not only agreeing with God but also rejoicing and marveling at his beautiful character and resplendent goodness.
This is a difficult and oftentimes painful subject. It should never be approached with doctrinal indifference, personal insensitivity or hermeneutical inconsistency. We should find ourselves delighting in God and his goodness in all things, even tragedies.
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