I was thinking today about the "age of accountability" theory propounded to explain what happens to infants when they die. I've read a lot of different opinions, and I think the opponents of this "age of accountability" are correct in that as we are born in sin, we (1) can sin even as little babies, and thus (2) deserve hell. Yet on the other hand, there is a sufficient basis in scripture to assume that there is an "age of understanding", at which a child becomes old enough to, as it says in Isaiah 7, "refuse evil and choose good". There is a tension, then, between these two facts about human (and baby) nature that the Bible does not clearly resolve.
However, I think we can find the answer. I think our evidence for one view or another lies in God's nature, as revealed in scripture. God is just, but God is merciful. He does not deal with us as we deserve. James 2:13 says "[M]ercy triumphs over judgment."
The more I know God, the more I find a basis for believing that, as it says in James, His love wins out over justice--God's love is higher, deeper, broader and wider than anything we know of--and because of this I see the answer to my question to be an easy one.
I think those who try to answer the question by dealing with the technical aspects of the Law make a mistake. Do we deserve to die? Yes. Does God give us what we deserve? No! He satisfies His justice by paying the price Himself--and His love and grace is then free to work on us.
Is my God a god who sends babies to Hell?--babies who do not even know enough to "refuse the evil and choose the good"? NO. I don't have to see it spelled out in scripture to know--I simply have to know the character of Him who is my Redeemer.
However, I think we can find the answer. I think our evidence for one view or another lies in God's nature, as revealed in scripture. God is just, but God is merciful. He does not deal with us as we deserve. James 2:13 says "[M]ercy triumphs over judgment."
The more I know God, the more I find a basis for believing that, as it says in James, His love wins out over justice--God's love is higher, deeper, broader and wider than anything we know of--and because of this I see the answer to my question to be an easy one.
I think those who try to answer the question by dealing with the technical aspects of the Law make a mistake. Do we deserve to die? Yes. Does God give us what we deserve? No! He satisfies His justice by paying the price Himself--and His love and grace is then free to work on us.
Is my God a god who sends babies to Hell?--babies who do not even know enough to "refuse the evil and choose the good"? NO. I don't have to see it spelled out in scripture to know--I simply have to know the character of Him who is my Redeemer.
9 Comments:
To me these are incomprehensible ramblings, but if that "explanation" satisfies you then that's fine.
Keep praying!
Betty Williamson
Seattle
Well, I'm sorry you can't make heads or tails of what I said--it makes sense to ME, obviously ;)
Betty, if these are ramblings, than what is your belief on infants when they die? Or do you beleive that everyone goes to heaven when they die?
www.pezdaddy.com
Born into sin simply means we have to do a tour in the physical realm of existence. Most souls must pass through the physical world to learn separation from our maker.We are to learn of it, not become it or be attached to it. As a child learns it is not its mother but an individual soul, we learn of darkness yet we are light. Some wish to remain in the darkness and never return to the source, then we find evil.
Jamie, where do you get these "interesting" people who like to give you a hard time?
One thing you need to remember is that God's justice and mercy are not at war with one another, and He has never been an angry, vengeful God who metamorphosed into a kind, loving deity at the advent of Christ. Both His love and His mercy are, and always have been, integral to His character.
Also, when we think of God as being loving, we must be careful that our sentimental ideas of love don't cloud the reality of what God's love is. For example, because He loves us, He gives us trials to purify us and sanctify us. We would prefer (and even sometimes argue) that these trials are not loving, but mean. Your last commenter would probably even say such suffering is cruel. But when God performs His purposes, it is always in the context of His love, even when sending people to Hell, as love is integral to His character. Just today I was reading in Matthew when Jesus talked of those who in their good intentions think they have the ticket to heaven, but He tells them "Depart from Me," and they are not allowed to enter the kingdom of Heaven. I give this as an example because many think of Jesus as loving and "non-judgemental" (I know that you do not have this inappropriate view, Jamie), but He, as well as God the Father, is a Judge and does send people to Hell, even though He is also forgiving of those who repent.
I think that understanding covenant is helpful, to see how God deals with people in the context of family and church relationships. When a child is born into a believing household, it has traditionally been held that should that child die, it has been sanctified by its believing parents, and that God typically puts believing children into such a household, and if a child dies in infancy, the parents should be able to have assurance that the child is with God. He can do the same for children from an unbelieving household, of course, but the assurance of that child's salvation is not there as it would be if the family had been Christian.
My friend Sora just had a miscarriage. She posted this excerpt from the Canons of Dordt, one of the confessions of faith which came from the Reformation:
"Since we must make judgments about God's will from his Word, which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature but by virtue of the gracious covenant in which they together with their parents are included, godly parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children whom God calls out of this life in infancy."
Oops...in the second paragraph I meant to say, God's justice and mercy are both integral to His character.
Thanks for commenting, Mrs. Friedrich :)
I appreciate your thoughts--I pretty much agree with them. Although it seems to me that God's love and His justice are rather at odds with each other. I mean that in the sense that, while God would like to lavish His love on us, and have fellowship with us--justice demands that we die instead. Thus He had to satisfy His justice first by the payment of our debt before He could fully expend His love on us. Of course, I suppose it could be pointed out that it was His love that caused Him to pay our debt in the first place...
I guess what I was trying to say was that (1) perfect justice demands that babies are sent to hell, being born with a sin nature, but (2) God's mercy is greater than justice, hence I don't believe He will send babies there.
Well, perhaps I'm splitting hairs, but I think that God's perfect righteousness AND justice necessitate that sin be paid for. Without Christ's paying the price for our rebellion, I see it as necessary that we ourselves pay the price.
Hence, God's perfect and just righteousness demands that sinners pay the price--unless someone else will pay the price for them.
Well, first of all, I don't mean "pay" for sin as in "a punishment". I'm thinking more along the lines of "the wages of sin is death". Why? I don't know--that's what God said.
If that wasn't the case, then what was the point of the sacrifices in the Old Testament? God told the Israelites to bring "substitution sacrifices"--an animal's blood in exchange for the guilty person's. That's a picture of what Christ had to do for us--our substitution. So...why? That seems to be more the nature of sin, and the fact that it takes sacrifice to expurge its effects.
Thoughts? If death wasn't needed to "pay the wages of sin", then what did Christ die for?
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