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Refreshment in Refuge

    by Gina Burgess

All babies go to Heaven
Date Posted: November 29, 2020

Or Blameless vs Guiltless Or Age of Accountability

There are so many women out there (almost 50 million of them) who are agonizing about the fate of their aborted babies. There are also many parents agonizing over where their little darling who died went—Heaven or Hell? There are many verses in the Bible which give us comfort concerning where these children now reside, and where future children will go who die untimely deaths. Babies and young children go to heaven if they die because God has chosen to have mercy upon them.

Paul tells us positively that All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Absolutely all have sinned and fall short. This includes little babies and little children do fall short of the glory of God because of the legacy Adam and Eve handed down: deliberate disobedience.

However, in God’s mercy and with Paul’s eloquent teaching we learn that the Law as set down by Moses was to specifically convict of sin. As I'm sure you know any conscience can be numbed by constant justification and rationalization. Except, babies and children only understand their immediate environment. I'm hungry. Feed me! I'm thirsty. I'm dirty or wet or just uncomfortable. I'm tired. Their world is filled with I...Me...Mine. As soon as their horizon broadens to incorporate understanding the difference between right and wrong only then can they begin to understand choices and free will.

Paul also addressed the problem of divided parents, one believing and the other an unbeliever. He said that the Believer should stay with the unbeliever for through the Believer the other was sanctified. What he meant was, there was always hope the other would become a Believer. 1 Corinthians 7:16. It isn’t an automatic saving of the unbelieving spouse or of the children because we read in John 3:15-18 that saving grace comes to individuals and is a deeply personal thing. Yet, there is always hope because of God’s great influence and through prayer.

However, the whole point here is freedom of choice (what a wonderful thing to be discussing here on Memorial Day weekend!) God emphasizes all throughout the New Testament (and even in the Old Testament) how crucial it is to salvation for a person to not only hear but to believe and to trust in Him. Babies don't have a clue how to believe in anything. Nor do they trust. How can they when they don't even have the strength to do much more than eat, sleep and cry. They could never understand Mommy doesn’t have enough money to buy more milk and that is why they are hungry. They just know they are hungry. They do not understand the evilness of some perverted person or parent who abuses them, they just know they hurt.

The whole point here is freedom of choice. When we believe in Jesus we are freely choosing to trust Him. A baby or small child has no such choices. They have to drink the milk given to them; accept the clothes put on them; sleep in the brand of diapers put on them; sit in the car seat they are put in; go where their mother drives them; listen to the kind of music the mother (or father or brother etc. desires) everything others choose for them. Babies must even accept whether they live or die through the choice of others...

They live in a world of no choice whereas older children, teens, young adults, adults all live in a world of choices. We choose to believe Jesus or we choose not to believe. (And here's the sticky part) We choose to live a godly, Christian life or we choose to be a Sunday Christian. Life is all about choices.

Someone once asked, “Was personal faith the issue or personal adherence to the Law important in circumcision? Was circumcision made of NO effect upon a child simply because the one being circumcised was not a conscious or willful participant on the 8th day of his birth? Or was it the faith and following of the Law by his parents that made the difference?”

Circumcision was the outward sign of what was supposed to be the circumcised heart which is what God was looking for all along. However, it was Paul that said we no longer live under the Law because living under the Law means death. We are saved by Grace. Loose paraphrase of Romans 6:14-15 but I shall quote Galatians 2:21 for your reading pleasure I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

Solomon said it best when he said that to raise a child up in the Lord the apple would not fall far from the tree. In fact it was a matter of Law for the father to raise the children up in the Lord. The act of dedicating an infant to the Lord was a matter of Law

re: Exodus 13:2 “Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether man or animal.” It was symbolic of Jesus being the Firstfruits sacrifice in atonement for our sin. AND the Firstfruits Resurrection. But what of a second child or fifth child?

Consider these verses in scripture which indicate God’s deep mercy concerning why children who do not understand right from wrong are considered blameless and why they automatically have entrance into heaven when they die untimely deaths.

God had pity on the innocents of Nineveh.
Jonah href="https://pro.studylight.org/study-desk.html?t=amp&s=0&sr=1&q=Jonah+4%3A10">Jonah 4:10 And Jehovah said, You have had pity on the plant for which you had not labored, nor made it grow, which was the son of a night and perished the son of a night, 11 and should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city in which are more than a hundred and twenty thousand of mankind who do not know between the right and the left hand, and many cattle?

That is mercy for those who had no choice and who had no cognitive abilities beyond their own needs. They did not know their right hand from their left hand which is one of the very basic details we learn as children when putting on our shoes and our clothes.

Another passage confirms babies arrive in Heaven when they die which David asserts. David said that he would go to his son. 2 Samuel 12:22 And he said, While the boy was alive, I fasted and wept. For I said, Who knows? Jehovah may be gracious to me and the boy may stay alive. 23And now he has died. Why this, that I should fast? Am I able to bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.

Young children are blameless because they must be able to discern the difference between good and evil, yet they do not when they don't even know their right hand from their left hand.

Isaiah href="https://pro.studylight.org/study-desk.html?t=amp&s=0&sr=1&q=Isaiah+7%3A16">Isaiah 7:16 He shall eat curds and honey until He knows to refuse the evil and choose the good.
Isaiah 7:16 For before the boy shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you hate will be forsaken before both her kings.

The passage shows us beyond doubt the difference between blameless and sinful.

When an individual knows the difference between good and evil and deliberately, on purpose, with specific intent chooses evil, that is the moment when blamelessness leaves them and when they become accountable for their actions. That is the instant of accountability when sin is acknowledged and chosen above obedience.

This prophecy in Isaiah 7 was about Jesus. It states that even Jesus went through a time when He did not know His right hand from His left, or the difference between good and evil. He had to learn it and He is the only One to ever live to have always chosen the good over the evil. That is sinlessness.

Blameless is when a person has no abilities to choose. This is the "innocence of a baby or a young child.

It is possible to be Blameless, but Guilty as a cognitive individual. When a person chooses Jesus as LORD and accepts Him as Savior, that person become blameless forever because Jesus took the sin and the blame upon Himself. We are all guilty of sin because we can never live life without choosing evil at some point in our lives. We know it is impossible to live without breaking a commandment, and breaking one is breaking them all. However, Jesus paid it all and all to Him we owe. Sin left a crimson stain and yet, He cleansed us white as snow. Freedom from Sin's grasp and the sting of Death sure feels Great!

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Biography Information:

Gina Burgess has taught Sunday School and Discipleship Training for almost three decades. (Don't tell her that makes her old.) She earned her Master's in Communication in 2013.

She is the author of several books including: When Christians Hurt Christians, The Crowns of the Believers and others available in online bookstores. She authors several columns, using her God-given talent to shine a light in a dark world. You can browse her blog at Refreshment In Refuge.

If you'd like to take a look at some Christian fiction and Christian non-fiction book reviews check out Gina's book reviews at Upon

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