Do All Babies Really Go to Heaven When They Die? Pt. 2 | An Interview with Conley Owens

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

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We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we're joined again by Pastor Conley Owens to help us answer the age -old question, do all babies really go to heaven when they die?

01:47

And so obviously this is the part two to the episode that we let out last week where we answered a pretty difficult question, and one that we all agreed is honestly pretty neglected throughout the evangelical world in general.

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It's just something that I think most, even faithful pastors, really try and distance themselves from because it's such a difficult topic to talk about.

02:16

It's so emotionally charged. Towards the end of the last episode, we spent a lot of time talking about some of the different arguments that we hear.

02:27

Conley, basically your position in all of this was that some babies go to heaven under extremely specific circumstances, but the reality is that most babies who die, whether it's in the womb or three years old, five years old, whatever, they don't just automatically go to heaven just because they're a child, right?

02:57

That's correct, yes. Yeah, and so that's your position. Towards the end of the last episode, we spent some time just talking about, hey, what are some arguments that people give to try and prove that children actually do go to heaven, right?

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And we were kind of given arguments that were coming from more of an Arminian sort of understanding of the

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Bible, that type of theology. The difficulty with that is just sometimes when you're talking about an

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Arminian understanding of the Bible, it kind of feels like you're picking on your little brother a little bit.

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When you're refuting their arguments, it's just like there's just not much they're going to be able to do to really stop you.

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There's not a whole lot there when it comes to their understanding of some of these things, and so that's probably not fair to do.

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So I figured the better place to start this time would be like, all right, why don't we take some of the guys from our own camp, why don't we pick on someone our own size here and look at some of the things.

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We're not picking on anyone. This is Conley. We're making Conley. You're right. Conley, it's time to pick on someone your own size, man.

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We take no responsibility for this episode at all. This is all Conley. So why don't we look at some of those guys and say, hey, what are they saying specifically about these things, and what are our thoughts on their stances and their explanations for why they think that children do go to heaven when they die?

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Because as we talked about last episode, Conley, and you pointed this out a few times, even

04:53

Reformed Christians, most Reformed Christians think this way. So why don't we start there, and Conley, just give us some of the things that you've heard

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Reformed guys say, and then let us know your thoughts on them. Sure.

05:10

Yeah. I mean, we can start off with the objection that because Romans 5, 13 through 14 says that for sin was indeed in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law, that because the children don't know the law yet, they can't be held accountable to the law.

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There is no sin imputed to them. So sure, they may have sinned, but they're not held guilty on account of that sin because the sin is not imputed to them.

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So that's one that I've heard occasionally. The thing is, in context there, it's talking about people's recognition of the law.

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It's talking about why God gave the law, and Paul talks about in Romans 7 how without the command to not covet, he wouldn't have known the depth of his sin.

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And so God gives the law so that we all recognize it because as it says in Romans 1, we're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness.

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So none of this, when it's talking about imputing sin or imputing guilt, well, it speaks of sin specifically.

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When it talks about imputing sin, it's not saying that God does not impute sin to us.

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He doesn't count us as sinners if we don't know. Rather, it's saying that man doesn't consider himself a sinner without the law being made clear to him while he's suppressing that truth and unrighteousness.

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So I think that's the primary thing that's going on there is people count that imputation. You know, there's a lot of times theological words are used in the

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Bible or words that we have adopted as part of our systematic theologies and people read them with those definitions.

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So you see impute and you immediately think, okay, that's talking about God crediting this sin to someone.

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You know, a good example of that would be justification. The Bible uses the word justification a lot. We've got a pretty good definition of that as being made right with God.

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Yeah, but then you come to James 2 and suddenly justification's not being used exactly in the same way.

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And so if you take that word justification and think that we're using a textbook definition of it every single time, you're going to end up being confused and the same is true with the word impute.

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The same thing happens with sanctification in general. I mean, almost all the Westminster theological terms at various points are suffering from the same kind of problem that if you read those terms as if they're terminus technicus or technical terms, in every instance you're going to be led astray.

07:47

Right, yeah, the Bible's not a textbook. I mean, it gives us everything we need, but it's not written as a textbook so that each word always means the exact same thing.

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Well, and that's something that people, just in terms of word study fallacies in general as they're approaching the

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Bible, a lot of people are making those kind of mistakes where they think that any time a corny

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Greek word shows up, it's going to show up in the same way in every single instance, and that's just simply not the way that language works.

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You know, you can just think about a word like trunk in English and you ask yourself, well, what is the meaning of the word trunk? And it's like, well,

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I have no idea. It depends, you know. You're talking about an elephant or a tree or a car or something you carry something in, and you just have no idea.

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But people frequently make that kind of assumption with language in general, and that betrays kind of just a lack of sophistication as to how language works.

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But what other objections do you have? Yeah, I'll throw in there that I had someone in a Bible study recently that was trying to pull out lexicons on me, and this was a

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Bible study that wasn't part of a— it wasn't in a church setting. It was in a work setting. So they didn't know how much familiarity

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I have with Greek, which is frankly not that much, but I have taken multiple Greek classes. I'm in my third

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Greek class at this point, and they're making a lot of the arguments that you're describing, and I'm trying to explain, that's not how you do this.

09:11

Right, right. Yeah, it's hard to get it through to people a lot of times. You can't just look at words that way.

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What is the Amplify Bible that gives you a list of all the possible range of meanings, and then people just go through that and pick the one they want at any given time?

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Or they include all of them, right? That's another thing. I once heard a preacher preach on— there was something where it said, this is a good word, and he looked at all the definitions for kalos and just imported all of them into the meaning.

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It's just the standard Greek word for good, but he made it mean everything the word good can possibly mean in every context.

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Well, people do that with Ecclesiastes, too, with the word for vanity at that point, where they import into that word every single sense of the word that can possibly be.

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It's a problem. But anyways, continue. Go ahead. One more objection that people often make is that they look at the words of Ezekiel and the words of Jeremiah, where it talks about people saying that our fathers ate sour grapes and our teeth are set on edge, and that it shouldn't be the case that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children.

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Well, first of all, I think it's important to observe that in the very next chapter of Jeremiah, it says,

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You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of the fathers to their children after them. So that language, coming from the second commandment, talking about sins being visited on subsequent generations, the consequences of sins, and the same thing with good deeds, those who are righteous, the effects of their righteousness having ripple effects to thousands of generations after them.

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Given that Jeremiah speaks of these things in context of a new covenant that God is giving,

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I think the right way for us to understand this is not that it's saying that there are never consequences on children, given their parents' actions, but rather that anytime a child repents, anytime any person repents,

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God is faithful to honor that repentance. But anytime someone continues in sin, following as their parents have sinned, then they will suffer the judgment on sin as well.

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Now, when it comes to original sin, Adam's sin... That's where there's a weird objection coming from like Reformed people.

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It's weird in that Reformed people should have a doctrine of original guilt. And so if you have a doctrine of original guilt, then you're basically putting this argument forward.

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This is basically a Pelagian argument. It really is. We're talking about generational retribution.

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We're talking about consequences. These are not talking about original sin. They're not talking about the covenantal imputation of guilt given

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Adam's sin. If you throw that away, like I said last time, you're throwing away also the imputation of Christ's righteousness because it's that same mechanism of being counted in Adam or being counted in Christ whereby we have salvation.

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Now, from Reformed folks who are trying to maintain some sort of notion of original guilt as it relates to this topic.

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If you're not familiar with those terms, original guilt is just the idea that we inherit not only just a sinful orientation as a result of Adam's sin, but we actually inherit the actual guilt of that act.

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And that's obviously demonstrated in the fact that we all die. It's the point that a man wants to die and after that it's judgment.

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We live in a fallen world. There's obviously entailments of Adam's act in the garden.

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But as I'm saying, a lot of Reformed people, they will basically try to adopt some sort of hybrid view as it relates to this, the imputation of Adam's guilt.

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I was reading through Jesse Johnson's article on, let's see if I can figure out what the name of that was.

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What happens to an infant when they die? He had a series on that and he gave Old Testament answers and New Testament answers.

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But one of the things that he was mentioning essentially is that it's almost some sort of hybrid position there where infants can inherit the guilt of Adam's sin only as it relates to the temporal, but then not as it relates to the eternal consequences of that.

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So what kind of response would you give to that kind of Reformed objection? I don't know how explicitly he said that too, but that seems to be the implication of what he's saying.

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There are consequences for being a sinner temporally, even as an infant, but not eternally.

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Yeah, why would it be right, if God treats children as innocent, as truly innocent in light of eternal judgment, why would it be right for him to take their life early at all?

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Why would it be right for anyone to suffer if they are innocent? You know, if you come into this world innocent, why should you ever be subject to suffering?

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Or pain. Yeah, or pain, right? The only person who ever suffered innocently was

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Jesus Christ, and he did so voluntarily. He chose to be sent by his Father and suffer pain in this world.

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Children and everyone who grows up in this world, the reason why we suffer pain is because we are indeed sinful.

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It is because of our guilt before God, even as infants. Well, that's what's so weird about the objection, so that kind of objection, you know, if you take that principle, like the children should never suffer from the

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Father's choices, and you turn it into, like if you absolutize it, you bring it all out to the end, like there's no, like if that's true, then it seems like you have no mechanism for saying that children should ever die, should ever be sick, should ever suffer, should have any pain.

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If that's what those passages are saying, it doesn't seem to make sense to try to carve out just a special exception as it relates to eternal things, but not as it relates to temporal things.

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But do you have any other thoughts related to that? No, I think that's exactly right. Yeah, God doesn't set up those distinctions.

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Yeah, every sin deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this life and in the one to come.

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That's the Westminster Shorter Catechism right there. Yeah, it is the case that all sin, and that includes

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Adam's sin that's imputed to us, that is credited to us. So if you're trying to make that some sort of carve -out at that point, do you consider that to be a denial of the doctrine of original guilt?

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I do, yes. Yeah, I get that people are inconsistent and they still want to hold on to that, but it is implicitly a denial.

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Maybe you can elaborate. Why is it implicitly a denial? Because if you...

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What if someone were to say, hey, I believe in original guilt.

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I'm just being nuanced. Right. Well, if you believe in original guilt that is so powerless that God wouldn't actually hold it against you in a court of law, what does it even mean?

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What is guilt at that point if you can't be counted guilty in court on account of it? It's just not guilt anymore.

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I don't know what else you call it, but... What else do you have, like reform objections?

16:59

I mean, a related one to that one that you just mentioned, it's been said by some, or at least one, that we're saved by grace, but damned by works, right?

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Or judged on the basis of our works. So you see all these passages in Scripture that talk about God's judgment on Judgment Day being according to the works that we've done on the body, whether good or evil.

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And so a lot of people will look at that and they'll say, okay, so I get that there's this thing about original sin, but that original sin never comes up on Judgment Day, right?

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We're only judged according to our works, and if children don't have evil works, then they're free here in this regard.

17:42

I just don't... I just don't get that at all. I mean, I know

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I said this last time, but I don't understand how anyone who has been around children can look at children and say, yep, there is no sin there.

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I mean, even in the womb, right?

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They're having thoughts. Now are they the same kind of thoughts that we're having as fully developed adults?

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Probably not, but they are having thoughts, and the reality is that they are human. They are human in the womb, and so you know...

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And apart from faith, thoughts are sinful. Right, right, and so I don't know how you look at all of that.

18:28

Spell that out, Conley. Yeah, so Hebrews 11 .6 says that without faith it is impossible to please

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God. Romans 14 .23 says that anything that does not proceed from faith is sin. So if you have thoughts that are not that...

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You're thinking about yourself, you're thinking about your world around you, even if your world around you is very small, it's just the encasing around you in the womb.

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It's still the case that those thoughts are supposed to honor God by recognizing Him as above all things.

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And the Bible tells us that our natural state is to not honor Him as God. And therefore, even a child's very small thoughts are sinful in the eyes of God because they are not honoring

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God as God. And I want to point out, too, that I think it seems like the

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Reformed Christian, their understanding of whether or not children are sinful is not consistent.

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It seems like some people are saying they're not. They're just not sinful.

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And then it seems like there's another portion of this camp that's saying well, they are sinful.

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And they're probably feeling the tension that you're bringing up Conley. So they are sinful but then they don't either...

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The explanation is either they're only sinful as far as they've inherited from Adam or they're sinful in their own actions as well as what they've inherited from Adam.

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But then they don't know that they're sinful. And so because they don't know they're sinful, then they can't be held accountable for those things.

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And that kind of gets us back into the whole you know... Sin is not imputed where there is no law.

20:19

Right, right. And I understand we already talked about that. But I'm more just trying to make the distinction as not only do

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I not understand how anyone can say hey, kids aren't sinful. But then it seems like even

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Reformed Christians who out of all of the Reformed Christians who don't believe who believe that children go to heaven all of them, they don't even agree on whether or not children are sinful or not.

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And so that's pretty concerning if you're talking about hey, where do they go for eternity?

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And you can't even agree on are they sinful or not. And I've been kind of flabbergasted.

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You didn't mention the names of the people who are saying some of these things.

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But I have been just kind of flabbergasted at the people at who it is that's saying some of these things.

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Yeah, it's up to you whether or not you want to mention names. But these are people that you would not expect to be saying these things. Absolutely not.

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No, no. But yeah, I guess I won't say them right now, but it isn't it's very jarring,

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I guess. So one of the things that Jesse Johnson in that article I mentioned was saying.

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Tim's like, yeah anyways, Jesse Johnson. No, no, I'm responding to you. Yeah, yeah.

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I'm happy to mention names. But one of the things he was saying is he's basically saying it's not that they're not sinful.

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Children are not sinful. But they fall into sin like you might fall into gravity is kind of his point.

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So they fall into sin like they might fall into gravity, whereas adults when they sin, it's heavy -handed.

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So that's basically the distinction they're making. So it's not that Yeah, you've got the intentional sins and you've got the high -handed sins.

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Why don't we just call them mortal and venial while we're at it? Yeah, for anyone who doesn't get that, those are the

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Roman Catholic distinctions. Yeah, and that's essentially what this comes down to. You're going to start making distinctions between sins in this way and,

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I mean, you all had an episode recently. You all recognize that some sins are more heinous than others, but that doesn't mean that there are some sins that deserve death and other sins that don't deserve death.

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They all deserve death. And we just to round this out a little, we've said that this episode and the last, that actual sins are happening far earlier than people imagine.

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Most likely in the womb as the child's having thoughts. But even if you didn't have that, if you have guilt,

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Adam's guilt that we have and we must bear, but you don't make that a guilt that can make you guilty in court, it's not real guilt.

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It doesn't have any meaning. In this example with Jesse Johnson, this seems like a case where you have this doctrine of original corruption so that someone is orientated towards sin, like you said, but not in a way that that orientation itself is such a corruption that God would count it as guilt or that Adam's sin is counted towards you.

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So there's just three types of guilt here that are not being counted. Right.

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And that's what the only way that that makes sense again, even though they're reformed, the only way that that makes sense to me is if you're treating sin only as if it's some sort of volitional act of a libertarian free will or something along those lines.

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That's the assumption that seems to undergird that kind of project, to say that you can be oriented towards sin, but it doesn't count unless you have knowledgeable intentional volitional high -handed rebellion.

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But then it doesn't really pass the smell test as far as that goes, and it doesn't really feel very

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Calvinistic. Yeah, it's only when you're pushing the boundaries beyond your total depravity or something.

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It really doesn't make sense. Alright. What else do you have, Conley? Yeah, Conley, I know you're holding back, man.

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I know you're holding back. Based off of what we were talking about before we started recording, I know you're holding back.

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My favorite one. I'll read this quote. This is from another thinker who

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I won't name. Sam Storms. I wasn't going to say it just because I didn't know he said it.

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But Tim is like, throw him right under there. Throw him right under there. He qualifies this.

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He goes ahead and says he recognizes this is a subjective argument. However, he goes ahead and makes the argument.

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He says, given our understanding of God's character as presented in Scripture, does he appear as the kind of God who would eternally condemn infants on no other ground than infant election of Adam's transgression or Adam's transgression?

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Again, this is subjective and perhaps a sentimental question, but it deserves an answer, nonetheless. So my response is it doesn't deserve an answer.

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It deserves a rebuke. This is the kind of thing where Paul would say, who are you, oh man, to answer back to God?

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We don't get to make God in our image and say, is God really the kind of God that would do this?

25:47

I think he'd be more like me and give a free pass to these little infants.

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I feel like this is a very dangerous way of thinking about Scripture. In so many other categories, we are very ready to say, hey, you can't think about this in terms of your feelings.

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You've got to think about this in the terms of what Scripture actually says. And he says, okay, but we know

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God is love, so let me take my picture of love and describe to you what I think it should look like.

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It's a very backwards way of considering what God's actions are. Yeah, and I think that's kind of what has been so jarring for me is one of the things that I appreciate so much about many of the

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Reformed Christian teachers out there is their willingness on so many other topics to say, hey, look, it doesn't matter how we feel when we're reading the

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Bible. It doesn't matter how we feel. It matters what the Bible says, because we know that God's Word is true, and we know that ultimately

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God's ways are higher than our ways. I mean, who could counsel God? Certainly not man.

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His wisdom far exceeds our own, and it's not even close to close.

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And that's what I've appreciated so much about Reformed Christians in general, which is why it's so jarring to see them completely throw that out the window.

27:29

It really does seem like the guys who do think that all babies go to heaven, if you could just take some of their quotes.

27:42

I said on the last episode that I had read that I had been reading through the book that John MacArthur wrote.

27:51

I still can't remember the name of it. Safe in the Arms of God. Yeah, Safe in the

27:57

Arms of God. I think you could probably just take some of those quotes, some of the quotes out of that book, and just cover up the name who said it, and you really couldn't tell it apart from a charismatic person trying to interpret the

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Bible. I'm looking at this Jesse Johnson article, and I think

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I'll probably just end up linking this to the episode so people can look at it themselves, too. Even just looking at this

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Jesse Johnson article, point four says,

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God refers to children... This is an argument for why children go to heaven if they die.

28:51

God refers to children in pagan families who are murdered as innocents in Jeremiah chapter 19 verse 4.

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That just sounds like a poor... Just reading that one sentence sounds like a...

29:09

This looks like... I hesitate to say this, but it really does look like the same exact sort of hermeneutical approach that you would see a prosperity gospel teacher take to try and prove that the promises made to Israel in the

29:28

Old Testament apply to Christians and apply to Christians in the exact same way. Tim, when he showed me this article...

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Tim showed me this article, and I was scrolling through it, kind of skimming through all these points. I think there's like...

29:46

How many are there here? Sixteen? At the very bottom, I didn't know who wrote it.

29:52

He just sent it to me and I was reading it. At the very bottom it said,

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The Master Seminary. I was like, what? This is coming from The Master Seminary?

30:05

Are you kidding me? You can read point by point and refute these instantly.

30:13

I think that's kind of what's disappointing. I say all that just to say it really does seem like, for whatever reason, when it comes to this topic, this is the topic that even for reformed

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Christians, you are just simply not allowed to read the Bible and understand the

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Bible and take the Bible for what it says. Instead, you are supposed to be informed primarily by your emotions.

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Obviously, who wants to think about children who didn't even get a chance because their mothers hated them so much that they went and sought out an abortion and murdered their baby in the womb and now that baby is in hell.

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No one wants to think about that, but then the reality is that's what's happening. At least for most babies, according to what the

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Bible is saying. No one wants to think about that, but then the reality is that's just how all this works.

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It's hard to imagine that there is some sort of age of accountability. It's hard to imagine that children just don't sin now apparently.

31:37

I can't wrap my head around these things and really it is quite surprising. I feel like we should just play a game sometime where it's like take the quote from the

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Reformed guy and black out the name and guess who said this. Reformed or Arminian.

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Reformed or Arminian, I think we would all fail probably. If you look at Arminian books on this topic,

32:01

I believe his name is Adam Hargrave. He has one. Very Pelagian, but then

32:06

I read the books from Calvinist thinkers and it's they're making the same arguments.

32:14

It's wild. Something you brought up Harrison that will transition is something I wanted to ask

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Conley about here. Harrison, your operating assumption is that the weight of Scripture would lead us to be very pessimistic about the reality that very many infants at all would be saved.

32:34

One of the things, Conley, you're making a case not just for agnosticism at this point.

32:41

Meaning, you're making a case, you can make different kinds of cases here.

32:46

In terms of my own posture towards this issue, I'm kind of I would be more, I think, in agnostic middle ground than probably both of you here.

32:58

I got more like a principled agnostic on this question. Meaning, if you force me to defend the universal salvation of infants,

33:08

I'm going to just say I can't make it work. I can't go there. Then, as I'm reading the

33:16

Bible, it seems like there's so many positive passages that I can go to about the nature of salvation and the exclusivity of salvation that I'm going to have a very hard time

33:31

I'm going to have a very hard time defending the position of universal salvation of infants.

33:37

I don't think the Bible teaches that at all. But then, if you ask me to make the case on the other end,

33:44

I'm going to be a little more tentative about it. But both of you are very confident. Both of you.

33:52

I'm more agnostic. I'm more in the middle. When you say agnostic, you mean maybe all infants are saved.

33:59

That all infants dying in infancy are saved. It's possible you just couldn't show it from Scripture. Yeah, I'm happy to be surprised.

34:08

Or that's a possibility that they all...

34:13

In my mind, it could... Maybe it could be that that's just a surprise or something.

34:20

If there is a concept of an elect infant, so to speak. If you say, hey, there's a concept of an elect infant, then maybe

34:28

I just... Okay, maybe they're all elect. God just decided to elect them all.

34:36

I'm open to that possibility. I don't think it's likely, but I'm open to it. I'm more adopting kind of a middle ground posture.

34:42

But then, Conley, you're going further than that. You're saying... Harrison, you're definitely going further than that. Yeah, I am.

34:50

You're saying no, that would be unbiblical to expect a high percentage of infants, so we need to adopt more of a probably not, hardly any of them kind of posture.

35:04

Yeah, I'm not going to make too strong statements about ratios, but certainly, yeah, I think there's 100 %...

35:11

Less than more. Yeah, it's less than all of them. Definitely. Less than... But you would say probably few too, right?

35:16

You're saying few. Yeah. But at that point, I'm speaking less confidently. Oh, okay.

35:22

All right. But go ahead and make your case. What would push you over from just, hey, the

35:29

Bible doesn't say... And I think that the Bible says things on the opposite, which should encourage pessimism.

35:36

I'm just... You know, and maybe just emotionally just saying, I'm going to adopt a middle ground, neutral posture.

35:42

But what would push you over to be more pessimistic about it? More pessimistic? I'm not sure.

35:50

I mean, you'd have to have a positive statement from Scripture about these ratios. That certainly would help.

35:56

No, but you're making a case that universal salvation of infants is not biblical. So make that case.

36:02

What is the case that that's not right? I could just say, hey, it doesn't say that, so I can't be confident about it.

36:09

But you're saying, no, it doesn't say that. You're going to the next step. It doesn't say that, so make that case.

36:15

Right. So if you... I'm inclined to agree on your case. For those listening in and haven't listened to the last episode,

36:24

I would recommend zooming in all the way to the end where I summarize my case based on the doctrine of election.

36:30

I think that the doctrine of election, as presented in Scripture, just absolutely disallows for the salvation of all infants.

36:37

Particularly because, one, if all infants dying in infancy were saved, then it would no longer be the case that God is choosing the few rather than the many.

36:47

And we talked about some statistics on that, but the Scripture is clear that not many, not the majority of people are saved.

36:55

Rather, there's a few. There's a narrow door. And also that man can't manipulate

37:00

God and election. And there are a lot of people who believe this, and you believe specifically that all infants dying in infancy are saved.

37:09

And if that's the case, they can manipulate God's election by killing someone, by killing an infant.

37:18

And basically, these things that Scripture says are absolutely not true would become true in the case that all infants are elect.

37:26

All infants dying in infancy are elect. Those things being that there are—the

37:31

Bible says that the way to life is narrow, and few will find it, and that's a percentage, right?

37:37

And if so many babies are dying in miscarriages, then essentially, we're throwing off the percentages that are found there.

37:48

So it can't be all of them because that would tip the scales, right? Right, absolutely.

37:53

And then the even stronger one is that man cannot force God's hand just by natural means.

37:59

But this is something where we would have natural means by which we could determine the election of someone.

38:06

I wonder—related to that issue, because I've talked with people who disagree on this topic, and I've listened to the episode and weren't persuaded, but then one of the points

38:14

I brought up as it related to that very topic is that it seems to me that it's very hard to prove that they would all— all the arguments that people are going to make on the basis of the universal salvation of infants, they're all inferences that you're drawing, and they're not direct statements, right?

38:37

I mean, they're basically all inferences that you're going to draw, but it seems like that God could have made this issue crystal clear.

38:45

He could have made it as crystal clear as he makes if you repent of your sins and believe the good news, you will be saved, and how will they hear unless they have a preacher and all that, right?

38:56

Like the gospel to power God's salvation, all that. I mean, you have crystal clear statements in the Bible of how you get saved and the exclusivity of salvation and how that works, but there doesn't seem to be anything comparable as it relates to the salvation of infants.

39:08

But then it seems to me that if that was presented with absolute crystal clarity, people would abuse it, right?

39:18

Yeah, it's true. It's absolutely true. I mean, I'm sure you've had some throughout church history, you know, postpartum mother who has determined that, you know, this world's an evil place and she wanted to spare her children from, you know, all the pain that's coming and, you know, drown them in the bathtub or something like that.

39:37

But then it seems to me that there's some... If this is...

39:43

This isn't the kind of thing that maybe God would reveal, maybe. If he could tell you a way to work the system, we're sinful enough that we would work it.

39:53

We'd try. We would try. So, you know, I wonder if maybe if there is something like that, would

40:00

God even reveal it? Sure. So you're suggesting that maybe it's true and there's a reason why

40:06

God didn't make it explicit in scripture. Maybe it's true that all infants dying in infancy are saved. Well, I mean, it seems like if he wanted to make that, if that was something he wanted us to know, it seems like we would abuse it to our heart's content.

40:20

And so, you know, I can understand why it wouldn't be revealed, but I don't actually think it's right. Right. I don't think it's right, but I mean, it's just not the kind of thing that you would...

40:31

Here's how you game the system, guys. Just kill them all. There's a very similar question around whether those who grow up on an island never hear the gospel, whether or not they'll be saved.

40:43

And a very common evangelical answer to that is, oh, you know, if they were never given a chance, yeah, of course they'll go to heaven.

40:51

Oh, this is even what C .S. Lewis more or less says in Mere Christianity. And so I've heard people say, well, you know, if that were the case, we shouldn't send missionaries, we should send wall -building teams around the islands so that the gospel never gets to them, and they never hear the gospel and be held accountable for it.

41:09

It seems strange that Jesus would say, hey, go and make disciples of all the nations if that means that's just going to increase their guilt the whole time.

41:18

Well, I mean, and then Paul makes that very case. The reason why they're not going to hear unless someone is sent.

41:26

So we need to send people, which seems to close that door. And I would say that the same kind of closing the door happens here.

41:33

But I don't think many people are actually all that confident of it. And this is something I brought up too.

41:38

I don't think anyone's really like—anyone on the other side, I don't know that they're absolutely confident of it.

41:45

So, I mean, think about it this way, and I want you to critique this kind of line of reasoning. I mean, if someone really believed that they could kill a baby and the baby would automatically go to heaven, isn't that the ultimate self -sacrifice?

42:00

And isn't that the ultimate selflessness? If you could damn yourself for eternity in order to save all of your family, why not do it?

42:12

Right? And are you selfish for not doing it? But then

42:19

I don't know that anyone actually believes it, right? So the person I was talking with as it related to this point,

42:24

I would say, well, if you really believe it, they're like, I think it's more probable than not. I'm like, but if you really believed it, wouldn't you just go ahead and take them out?

42:32

He's like, well, no, I'm not going to hell for them. But, you know, we talked about this last time, what

42:44

Paul says in Romans 9, you know, that he would, he would gladly give up his own soul for the sake of his, for the sake of his people, but he can't.

42:51

Like, it's just not something that we can do. But, I mean, if we believe that, if you believe that, is that morally wrong not to?

43:00

Right. Yeah, exactly. That's my question. It is, it does put you in a moral paradox of sorts where, you know, the thing that is most beneficial to other people would actually be sinful.

43:11

And so, yeah, it just goes against, you know, everything that we see about self -sacrificial ethics in Scripture.

43:17

So, it's, yeah, it's an odd one. I guess if there's any response to that, it's like, well,

43:23

I need to be, like, you know, I'm picking on it, but I mean, I guess the other side could say, well, we love

43:30

God first, right? And then we love our neighbors second. And you have to keep these things in priority. So, as much as, you know, like, me dishonoring

43:38

God is worse than me, like, sacrificing for my neighbors. So, we'll give them a way out. Yeah, I think that,

43:44

I don't think people are usually thinking that clearly about it. And if that's their answer, they probably often don't act in accord with that in other circumstances where you give them moral gray areas.

43:55

So, that's, yeah, it's, I think people just aren't thinking consistently on this. It's very easy to not think consistently on it, and you kind of have to.

44:04

In order to, basically, there's some cognitive dissonance going on, and you just have to preserve it as best you can by trying to keep these two truths far apart, that God says certain things about salvation, but I really want all the little bitty babies to go to heaven.

44:18

All right, well, let the little children come to me. Come on. Jesus liked little kids, so what do you got, man?

44:24

Jesus loved the kids. He wanted the kids to come, and then of heaven, you know, heaven would be filled with, you know, such as these, right?

44:33

So, what do you got? Right, yeah, so aren't all the little kids going to heaven? Mark and Luke expand on what

44:40

Matthew says, and he says, truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall not enter it.

44:47

So, there you have a statement that we have to receive the kingdom of heaven like a little child.

44:53

So, an analogy is being made to a child, and what is that? Like, it's not their ignorance. God's not commending ignorance.

45:00

You know, He's commending trust. And so, we're to trust like a child trusts, but the child isn't necessarily trusting in God or in the kingdom of God.

45:11

So, you know, making an analogy from one kind of trust to another kind of trust is not saying that children have the kind of trust that actually save.

45:20

It's just that they have a very similar kind of trust that we are to emulate. It's just a picture. It's just a picture of what trust looks like.

45:27

Alright, well, related to that then, a question I did have. So, Conley, you articulated a category for infant salvation.

45:35

So, it could be that there are some electing infants. I think you mentioned David, John the

45:41

Baptist, Jesus, obviously. Well... Yeah, it's different because he's not saved from anything.

45:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I caught it. Yeah, but there does seem to be some supernatural assistance in his human nature to his faith given the words of Psalm 22.

45:59

Alright, so what does infant faith look like? I think this is a hang up for people.

46:06

I mean, it's not as if an infant can pray a prayer or walk an hour, ask

46:12

Jesus into her heart. Raise their hand. Raise their hand. Nod. I see that hand.

46:19

I see that. If you hear me blink, you know, three times and I see that blink.

46:30

So, but the child can't do any of those things. So, what does salvation or what does faith look like?

46:38

Because most of the typical ways we understand these things are not parallel here.

46:44

Yeah, so it's worth calling out that one of the arguments I made last time was that there's no such thing as a faithless justification.

46:53

You know, that faith is a sole instrument of justification. We are only made right with God through faith, and we need to have if a child is saved in infancy, it is through faith.

47:06

Now, most of the people that I have heard who take my position don't actually say this.

47:14

I don't know. I haven't heard that many people who also hold my position talk about this, so maybe it's not that many of a sampling, not that large of a sampling size that I have to go with.

47:24

But a lot of people believe that, yeah, not all infants dying in infancy are saved, but some are, and they import them into heaven without any kind of justification or faith.

47:35

That's not all happening post -mortem. So I think it's worth pointing that out. But what does this infant faith look like?

47:43

First of all, I think it's important to recognize in Scripture that you have saving faith in the Old Testament that does not look like knowing exactly who

47:51

Jesus is or that he dies on the cross or that he's resurrected, because you have all kinds of people who are putting their trust in a

47:57

Messiah without knowing all those details. Galatians 3 talks about the gospel preached beforehand to Abraham, and he doesn't have all those details.

48:05

The gospel is initially given in Genesis 3 .15, and you have if you walk through the next couple of chapters and you see the way people name others, whenever those names are explained, like Noah, this is the one who will give us rest, or even

48:20

Eve, that she would be the mother of all the living, it shows that people have an anticipation of salvation through the

48:25

Son. So that's just kind of a setup to say that what we think of necessary saving faith right now, like you need a whole creed, that is not what saving faith has looked like throughout the history of humanity.

48:41

So that gives us some room to realize that, okay, saving faith doesn't have to be as developed as we think of it.

48:48

And so what saving faith would look like for a child is, yes, it would require God giving them miraculously some special ability to understand their sin, some special ability to understand their need for a

49:02

Savior, and some special ability to understand that a Savior will be given. So it's not something that a child can have naturally, but it just doesn't have to be as developed as we might think of it.

49:14

So it looks like that. It looks like a real faith and a real

49:20

Savior, but it does not have to be detailed. Sure. What about, like, so the idea that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the

49:31

Word of God, and the Gospels of Power of God and the Salvation, how does that relate to just the idea of some sort of elect infant scheme?

49:40

So what you're criticizing is you're criticizing the idea that, like in an Arminian kind of framework, there's no faith given whatsoever, right?

49:48

Yeah, so there's no faith given whatsoever, it's just if you have a Pelagian scheme, if you have some kind of, or even with some of our

50:00

Calvinist kind of friends, it seems like there's a refusal to impute sin, right?

50:06

Right. So you're criticizing those kind of views, and you're arguing that, no, there needs to be a faith that's given, right?

50:15

Faith is the instrument of justification that's given. So you can't skip that step. But then how does that relate to just some of the passages which typically describe how faith is given?

50:27

Right, that is the normative means. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?

50:33

Because they are needed. Without someone preaching the

50:38

Gospel, under normative circumstances, no one would hear. However, given the examples we have in Scripture, like for example,

50:47

John the Baptist, who leaps with joy in his mother's womb in the presence of his Savior, there is a category for God miraculously imparting this knowledge to both children and others who are unable to hear the external preaching of the

51:05

Word, to communicate to them whatever truth is necessary for them to believe.

51:11

That Gospel that I described, that faith, even without all the specific details.

51:19

Fair enough. And, you know, I guess, hearing you talk about that,

51:26

I guess there is a part of me, so I'll admit, Conley, that this is probably the one part of your position that I have a hard time fully embracing.

51:37

You know? And, you know, it's just because of passages like what we're talking about now, where probably just these passages in general that are, you know, like Jesus is telling us, like, hey, you know, go and make disciples, right?

51:58

You know, I think God tells us, or Paul tells us that we are allowed to partake in the ministry of reconciliation, right?

52:11

God's allowing us to partake in that. We don't, we understand that ultimately

52:18

God is the one who is giving faith to people, right? So no individual can share the gospel with someone, have them come to salvation, and then say, see, look what

52:28

I did. Right? We all understand that it's God giving the faith there, but then it does seem like at least, yeah, like the normative way is to say, well, people come to salvation when they hear the word of God preached, right?

52:47

When they hear the gospel preached and proclaimed. And so it's kind of hard to wrap my head around the idea that there are infants who

53:02

God does save, not because I don't think he couldn't do it. I think he could. It just,

53:08

I have a harder time thinking that he actually says he does it anywhere, right?

53:14

Probably at best for me, I think the closest

53:21

I can get, at least right now, to your position is possibly saying, okay, for John the

53:32

Baptist, for David, you have extremely, extremely specific circumstances that are heavily,

53:43

I mean, we're talking about prophecy being fulfilled here. These are extremely significant characters in the story of salvation, right?

53:54

In God's plan of redemption, right? And they have very integral parts to play, and so God is treating them in a different way than he treats those who are not a part of the specific prophecies he's fulfilling.

54:15

So I think the closest I can get in my mind is there, possibly, to say, okay,

54:22

John the Baptist, David, obviously not Jesus. Jesus didn't need salvation.

54:28

Maybe I can see that, but then I have a hard time going to the...

54:35

There are, albeit probably few, there are others who are not significant characters in the redemption narrative who are, by the grace of God, given faith even perhaps in the womb, right?

54:59

And I guess part of what makes it hard, really, to even accept that John the

55:05

Baptist and David were given faith from the womb is the fact that they actually did grow up.

55:13

So it's easy to say, it's easy to look at that and say, hey, it's easy to say they're elect, and God knows that these two particular people will grow up to be adults who can hear...

55:35

Well, and I guess for John the Baptist, he's interacting with Jesus and God has revealed who

55:45

Jesus is to him, but then for David, he's just understanding that, like you said earlier, there is a

55:52

Messiah. He doesn't necessarily know the name of the person who would be the

55:58

Messiah, but then he understands there is a Messiah that will come from his line. And so you have these two guys who are elect, and they grow up to be adults who can understand the

56:12

Gospel. And so I guess I'm having a hard time coming to terms fully with that idea, although I do think it is interesting to think about, and I haven't heard that position before that you're presenting.

56:29

So what are your thoughts? Yeah, so I think I made it pretty clear in the last episode that I'm not positively stating that there are any in this era that have been saved in infancy, right?

56:42

Because I think you had asked me that, and I had said, yeah, it might be that there have been none since John the Baptist. I'm just saying that I do believe that John the

56:50

Baptist is a case of salvation and infancy, therefore God is capable of it. While I'm a cessationist and I don't believe in continuing gifts,

57:00

I do think that this falls under the realm of miracles that could continue.

57:06

And so, yeah, I have no reason to reject that this could still happen today.

57:12

So that's kind of my position, which I think lines up with what you've been saying. There's just a, you know, maybe

57:19

I'm coming off as stating more positively than I really am, you know, that there are any in this era. Yeah, I think for me, probably where I'm at with it is more of the, like, it could be possible, but I'm not sure

57:34

I'm convinced that it, well, I mean, obviously God can do whatever He wants. I just mean, like, with what

57:41

God has revealed to us, it could be possible, but I'm not sure that it is, even with John the

57:48

Baptist and David. I think the tension is, the tension is related to, you know, how are they calling them who they've not heard and how will they hear unless someone is sent.

57:58

And so you, if you just absolutize that, don't treat it as normative, then you have a real struggle, you know, as it relates to these sorts of things.

58:08

And, you know, part of the point is, I think part of the point of that passage is to, like, it feels like the point is to absolutize it, like, in that, like, how will they calling them who they've not heard, you know, implied answer is no, you know, they won't, you know, so then it feels like it's meant to be that, and then, but then you really have to, the only way to make, to harmonize them then at that point is you have to treat the filling of the

58:35

Holy Spirit at that point as functional, so He's going to be filled from the Holy Spirit, from His mother's womb, like, meaning appointed to ministry, not necessarily in a salvific sense, and then, you know, the leap for joy is just, you know, it could just be a sign at that point,

58:52

I guess, well, it could be that God in His sovereignty made the baby leap for joy, it's not like an understanding joy, it's just joy.

59:04

Like, He just triggered that reaction to be a sign to Elizabeth to realize what's happening, you know, and she's just calling it joy.

59:13

Well, yeah, because it feels like joy in your stomach, your happy stomach. Right, but she's filled with the

59:18

Spirit, so I take her statement about it as having more, you know, interpretive weight. Yeah, so then, well, yeah, so then you basically, so then basically, you know, the way out is just to say, well, the other one's just a normative means, overwhelmingly, like the, how they're calling them unless they've heard, and how they hear unless someone has sent, then that's just treated as an overwhelmingly normative kind of, in the absence of some sort of rare, random, miraculous divine intervention, and that's, you know, we don't presume on God to do the miraculous, we content ourselves with the ordinary means that He's called us to do.

01:00:01

Right, and the way I think about this, too, is that I'm not suggesting that God does this in frontier contexts where the gospel has not been given.

01:00:11

I'm only talking about this in cases where the gospel has been given to an area and to a people, right, and then you have some people who are not capable of hearing.

01:00:20

A lot of people make the Muslim kind of, like, Jesus appearing to the Muslim personally kind of thing.

01:00:28

Yeah, that's a whole different issue, but yeah, can, yeah, does

01:00:35

God reveal Himself to those who have not even been reached by the preacher who

01:00:41

Romans 10 is talking about? Maybe, you know, I believe

01:00:46

God can move in miraculous ways to prepare people for that gospel, but not like I'm talking about.

01:00:54

These stories I hear in those contexts, I'm more inclined to believe them when they don't include, you know, someone, one, like, really seeing

01:01:05

Jesus and, you know, receiving this gospel, etc., because, like you said, you know, it is for the preachers to bring.

01:01:11

Sure. Alright, well, maybe you can wrap us up here, Conley, and give us some, so, thinking about the objections, maybe you can summarize the objections that, summarize the case that people are making for the universal salvation of infants, and then, you know, on both, like, whether you're going, like, a plagian route, whether you're going a reformed route, maybe you can summarize the arguments they're making, and then just give, like, a summary, kind of, here's what

01:01:43

I think is short -sighted about those. Does that make sense? Yeah. I think almost everything we've looked at, almost everything, comes down to basically saying that original sin has no real power, right?

01:01:59

Original guilt does not actually have the power of guilt and condemnation. And that's pretty much everything boils down to, you think about, you know,

01:02:08

Sam Storm's quotes, that is he really the god that can condemn infants on no basis other than Adam's transgression?

01:02:15

You know, is he really a god who would count someone guilty on account of original guilt?

01:02:21

You know, this is what almost all of these arguments come back to. The idea of a rejection of original guilt, or the verdict that corresponds to original guilt.

01:02:33

Right. Like, the fact that it can actually make someone guilty, like, you know, it makes them guilty in some sense, but not in the sense where it could actually be held against them in a court of law, in God's divine court.

01:02:44

And you attribute, you would say that most of that is just, like, how can, you know, good

01:02:53

Calvinistic theologians be so persuaded by this? Yeah, exactly.

01:02:58

Well, that's the question I'm asking. You're supposed to answer that. Yeah. How can they?

01:03:03

I don't know. I mean, the answer is emotional persuasion. You know, this is a very emotional topic. People really want to make a category for, you know, all infants going to heaven.

01:03:13

And so they're willing to do, you know, what they've got to do to make it happen. And I think that's probably another set of what these objections are, is that infants are special.

01:03:23

Like, infants are very special to God, and therefore He will save them. So, like, for example, one verse in Matthew 18, 14, it says,

01:03:31

So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that any of these little ones should perish. And so you see

01:03:36

God's heart for children, and then you say, okay, so if that's the case, if it's not

01:03:42

His will that any should perish, none do perish. But the problem is, they do perish. Like, we talked about this already. You know, they do perish in this world.

01:03:50

And so, if that's not God's will, why does it happen? Because when it says it's not

01:03:55

God's will that any should perish, it's talking about His will in a particular kind of way, in a particular aspect.

01:04:02

It's not saying that it certainly won't be the case that He's decreed otherwise.

01:04:08

Well, isn't it weird that you have Psalms, I mean, it relates to that point, that we're,

01:04:14

I mean, you know, the Israelites are told to go into the Promised Land and dash the little ones on the rocks of judgment, and so then, how do you...

01:04:25

Like, I mean, I'm not embarrassed of those kind of passages. But the only way you can make sense of like, the people of God being means of judgment against the infants of a foreign nation is to have to, you have to have some category for original guilt in order to make sense of that.

01:04:43

But then why would why would it be any different to have a child, like an infant, killed as a means of God's judgment in a temporal way over and against an eternal way, right?

01:04:56

Right, yeah, exactly. So what is the rationale, like, wouldn't He be unjust to order that in the temporal realm?

01:05:05

Right, but not the internal realm, yeah. Yeah, what is the like, what is the rationale to say?

01:05:12

Because He's ordering it in the temporal realm. Right. And not just like natural, so you can't just blame it on natural evil, right?

01:05:18

So we talked about that with with our... But I think a lot of people do. I think a lot of people don't connect what happens to us in this life with sin.

01:05:27

You know, they'll take passages like Job, and I think I remember you talking about this on a recent episode. You know, they take passages like Job or the man born blind and they say that, okay, yeah, so, you know, bad things happen to good people and, you know, they're...

01:05:43

God's just as sorry about it as we are. Yeah, exactly. But that's not the case. I mean, even with Job, and even with the man born blind, these were done so that the power of God might be displayed in them.

01:05:56

These things were done for their good to lead them in a particular way.

01:06:03

It was because they were sinners and needed God's assistance in moving down that path of sanctification that He supplies these afflictions to His people.

01:06:14

And for those who are not His people, once again, it is because of sin that He brings these things upon them. So in both cases, it's because of sin.

01:06:23

I know that you looked into a lot of the church history stuff, so maybe this is a... Do you have any quotes you want to bring up to round us out?

01:06:31

Yeah, this is a great transition point because one of the things that I found, because a lot of people will misquote

01:06:38

Calvin, and by misquote I mean quote him out of context in ways where he looks like he's supporting a universal salvation of infants, where one of the things

01:06:48

I found is that, and unfortunately, I only have this in a translation of a

01:06:55

Latin document that I don't have the whole document for, but the official charges that were brought up against Cervetus that Calvin led, they particularly point out that, and I'll just go ahead and quote that.

01:07:09

So this is Calvin and 15 other Genevan pastors, excuse me, 14 other

01:07:14

Genevan pastors talking about Michael Cervetus. He dared condemn none of the infant offspring of Ninevites or barbarians to hell because, in his opinion, a merciful

01:07:26

Lord, who hath freely taken away the sins of the godless, would never so severely condemn those by whom no godless act has been committed, and who are most innocent images of God.

01:07:37

And further he infers that all who are taken from life as infants and children are exempt from eternal death though they be elsewhere called accursed.

01:07:46

And so here you have one of the chief arguments against Cervetus being that when infants are talked about as being, you know, how happy is he who dashes their heads against the rocks, etc.,

01:07:59

that he would condemn none of them to hell. So you have this example of Calvin and, you know, there's plenty of examples of others, too, from that era.

01:08:08

You know, Reformed theologians who would all say, at least the children of unbelievers, if not more than that, at least the children of unbelievers are assigned to hell.

01:08:21

Sure. Yeah, I mean, I think you can look at Augustine's Confessions, at the very least, and you know, him confessing the sins of his infancy, and that would be another example of a church father who would at least be, at that point, denying the idea of age of accountability.

01:08:41

Because, you know, if there's not an age of accountability, you don't have to go back. Or if there's an age, you don't have to go back there.

01:08:47

And just thinking more about this idea that children are special in the eyes of God, and therefore, if he doesn't want them to perish, they won't perish.

01:08:58

When does that love go away? You know, if God loves these little children in such a way, when does he stop loving them that way?

01:09:05

Is it around age 5? And then at 5 or 12, you know, he stops loving them, and he does start denying that they perish?

01:09:12

Like, you have this weird kind of conditional love that God has for infants, if this is your view of how he thinks of children.

01:09:20

Yeah, and you don't have any like, the only way to really make that make sense at all, if there is that kind of special adoptive kind of love that he has for them.

01:09:33

You really don't have a category for him acting in judgment upon them in history, you know? You basically have to,

01:09:41

I mean, if he loved them like that, right? And he wanted to protect them from all judgment, it seems like they wouldn't die in general, right?

01:09:50

Right, exactly. They wouldn't die in general, but then they wouldn't die as objects of God's temporal judgment as well, right?

01:10:01

Right, yeah. If he doesn't wish that they perish in any sense, then why do they perish in some sense?

01:10:07

Why do they perish in some sense? Whether indirectly or directly, it's all a part of his plan, right?

01:10:13

And so I think the only way you really make sense of it is just to say that death is just something that, I guess it must just be out of his control, right?

01:10:22

Right. Is that the alternative? I mean, a lot of people were talking about wouldn't go there, but that does seem to be the logical conclusion.

01:10:31

It must just be he's just as sad as, you know, the tornado death. His hand is forced, given, you know, the world we live in.

01:10:39

Yeah, when he tells them to, like the Israelites to exterminate entire peoples, right? His hand was forced.

01:10:48

I mean, at some point it's just like, well, maybe that's not a good place to go, you know?

01:10:55

But then I guess apparently he just gets really mad at them after they, you know, get to seven years old or something.

01:11:01

Is that basically right? Yeah, there's some point where that switch flips to where you have, you know, zero counting your guilt against you, and then suddenly, oh, yes.

01:11:10

Yeah, it definitely feels like, you know, like with so many other things that people make mistakes on when it comes to theology and what

01:11:20

God has actually told us. A lot of times it does seem like people don't really take the things that they believe and then think them all the way through to their logical conclusion.

01:11:34

But then, yeah, I think part of what led me to, you know, my position on all of this is just thinking about some of those questions and then just asking myself, like, okay, yeah, what's the age then, you know?

01:11:49

Like, how do we even know? That seems like something that we should probably, that God should probably have told us.

01:11:56

If we're gonna, you know, if I'm gonna raise my children, right, then I would like to know when's the, you know, at what age are they all of the sudden like, alright, now

01:12:09

I need to really be careful that I make sure they don't die, because because now, you know, if they die they're gonna go to hell and they weren't before.

01:12:17

And I think there's just so many questions like that that lead you to weird answers that don't seem to align with God's character and his nature that have, you know, pushed me to the position that I just don't think that, you know,

01:12:36

I think, you know, maybe perhaps like John the Baptist and David are special circumstances or something, but then, you know, the majority of children

01:12:45

I just, I think that they get held to the same judgment that everyone else gets held to, and so I think

01:12:54

I think that's kind of a good place to end on, the idea of like, alright, take them to their logical conclusions and they just don't they just don't work.

01:13:03

They lead you to weird conclusions that I don't think we would make in any other circumstance or any other topic or talking about any other type of people you know, we don't come to these conclusions, but then we want to when it comes to children, so Conley, you've done you've been so brave, man.

01:13:23

You've done two episodes now. You've been Bruce Jenner transitioning brave.

01:13:30

Okay. That's high praise right there.

01:13:36

So, brave and stunning. You've been the real brave, not just Maybe I'll regret it after I start getting emails after this episode,

01:13:47

I don't know. Well, we didn't tag your email on the last one, so People will find it.

01:13:53

They'll find a way. They'll find a way. I don't know, any Facebook post or anything, you've got to tag me in them so I can see the things people are saying in response.

01:14:02

Okay. Yeah, no, we really are appreciative of you being willing to come on and talk about this because like we said last time, this is important.

01:14:13

Anytime you talk about salvation, we need to I mean, that's one of the core aspects of Christianity is salvation and so we really need to commit ourselves to understanding what it is

01:14:28

God said when it comes to these things because there's so many implications that come from it. Before we go,

01:14:35

I forgot to do this last time but I want to make sure I do it this time.

01:14:41

Conley, before we get off, why don't you go ahead and just tell everyone who's listening where can they find more of you?

01:14:50

What are you working on right now? This is the part where you leave your email address so that people can

01:14:57

Like I said, people can easily find it if they want, but I'm a pastor at Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church so you can check out our church at sbrbc .org

01:15:05

and then also, please check out the episode I did earlier with Bible Dashed on the

01:15:12

Dorian Principle. It was about the commercialization of Christianity. I have a book called The Dorian Principle, A Biblical Response to the

01:15:21

Commercialization of Christianity, and you can check that out at thedorianprinciple .org Yeah, and that's a free book, right?

01:15:30

You can order it, you can read it online, and it's an audiobook, right? That's correct, yeah.

01:15:35

It's in a lot of different formats. EPUB, Kindle, PDF, just right on the website and also an audiobook.

01:15:43

And there's also a Facebook group. I'd really love it if more people joined the Facebook group. It's called Money in Ministry.

01:15:49

And so, yeah, we talk about the commercialization of Christianity there. You just said freely you received, freely give, but so many ministries are trying to sell you things rather than freely giving.

01:16:02

Right, okay. Well, again, thank you for coming on the show. And we want to take time too to thank all of you guys who are listening for the ways that you support us, for the ways that you interact with us.

01:16:12

That's a ton of fun to get to talk with you guys and comment back and forth on some of these things and hear your perspective and what your positions are on the various things that we talk about.

01:16:25

Our whole goal is to be able to equip you guys for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

01:16:34

Personally, I think that's a ton of fun and it's fun to get to hear back from a lot of you guys and hear how, hey, you like hearing from people who are willing to say these things.

01:16:48

Conley, you've definitely proven that you're willing to. You're Bible Bashed material.

01:16:54

You're Bible Bashed material. So, thank you, Conley. Thank you for all you guys that listen and we'll catch you on the next one.

01:17:19

Push back and potential topics for us to discuss in future episodes at BibleBashedPodcast at gmail .com

01:17:26

and consider supporting us through Patreon. If you would like to be Bible Bashed personally, then please know that we also offer free biblical counseling, which you can take advantage of by emailing us.

01:17:37

Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.