Infant Salvation (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2 verse 5, where the apostle Paul said,.

But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio.

Infant Salvation and the Question of Baptized Babies

My name is Mike Abendroth, and I am your host today and most every other day unless Steve somehow railroads me. Takes over with a nine part series with Tony or somebody. We're talking about infants and do they go to heaven if they were to die?

So where do aborted babies die? Where do third world children go when they die? And it's a very tough topic. If you didn't catch last week's show, I'd encourage you to read it because I'm building upon truths I've already taught there.

I will say in some summary form that there's a time and place to talk about this. And it's usually not in the hospital when they take the baby off life support and hand the baby to the mom and dad and you're standing there.

So you have to be careful. All right, we're talking about baptized babies. Some have said that if you're a baptized baby, you do go to heaven. And if you're not a baptized baby, I don't mean you, but do baptized babies or unbaptized babies go to heaven and we're going back and forth.

In church history before Augustine, not many people discuss this. It was not really a common question like it is today. Augustine who had a proper view of original sin wrongly taught that you needed to be baptized to remove original sin.

When Augustine wrote in his city of God this quote, even the infants, not personally in their own life, but according to the common origin of the human race have all broken God's covenant in that one in whom all have sinned.

Augustine is correct. As we discussed last time in Romans five on No Compromise Radio. Augustine says, even the infants are according to the true belief born in sin, not actual but original so that we confess they have need of grace for the remission of sins.

That is correct as well. And if you are talking about the salvation of children, remember last week with shed, that implies and that infers what has happened before. And that is guilt of the children, damnation of the children, necessitates a desire to have them saved.

Augustine's conclusion, all baptized babies saved, all unbaptized babies lost and go to hell. He would have them suffer not as much, but they would still suffer. Gregory Nazianzus, Gregory the Great, also believe this from Augustine.

Some think that they've learned that from Ambrose. Peter Lombard later and the Genesis, Janus, Jansenists, there we go finally, Jansenists in Italy taught a view very similar. Second Scots Confession, 1580.

We abhor and detest the Pope's cruel judgment against infants dying without baptism. Now in the latter middle ages, the Roman Catholic Church was beginning to modify this doctrine, Augustinian doctrine.

And I think you probably will know this when I say it, limbus infantum, limbus infantum. And we would call that what? Limbo. So you've got a baptized baby, they would go to heaven, according to the Roman Catholic Church.

You've got unbaptized babies and they don't go to hell, they go to limbo. And the logic is, is consistent. If you believe that baptism washes away original sin, then you've got this limbo here. So unbaptized infants can't be going to heaven, but they can go to limbo.

Modern Catholic Dictionary, page 319 says, regarding the limbo of infants, it is an article of the Catholic faith that those who die without baptism and for whom the want of baptism has not been supplied in some other way cannot enter heaven.

And so Council of Trent says, this is our pronouncement, this is what we officially believe as a Roman Catholic. And of course, with the Roman Catholic Church, there are the official statements of Rome, and then there's everybody else, right?

The Roman Catholic hierarchy, as long as they teach and they hold secure what the church believes, the church loosely used there, then they allow all kinds of other people. Well, I don't believe that, I never heard that taught.

You'll hear regularly from Catholics, but in fact, there are documents and doctrines that Catholic leaders hold. So how do we define limbo for a Roman Catholic? Well, that was hard. Maybe it's a lack of seeing God in heaven.

It is the subtraction of the beatific vision. It's just depriving, they're not getting punished actively, they're just not receiving the full benefits of heaven. So no positive punishment. Aquinas, Thomas Aquinas, he thought, well, there could maybe even be some happiness in limbo.

Possibly it could be like the Garden of Eden before the fall, that that might be a possibility for the ox in terms of his view, Thomas the Ox, Aquinas. Maybe there's a part of hell that's not quite as bad and that's limbo, and maybe there's just a mysterious way God saves unbaptized infants, Aquinas hinted at that.

Gregory of Nyssa, infants who die immediately mature, they die immediately, then they mature, and are given the opportunity to trust Christ. So babies die, they stand before God as a mature thinking person.

Would you like to accept Christ now? Would you like to believe Christ or not? Well, what we do know from the Bible is there's no third place, there's no limbo. And when you read the Bible, Matthew 25, 46, for example, Jesus said, and these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Is there anything there about a middle place, a purgatory place, a limbo place, a lack of beatific vision place? Well, the answer is no. Revelation 20, verse 15, and if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Now, this isn't necessarily my belief, but here's what we do know, because there's only heaven and hell. If a baby doesn't go to heaven, there's only one other place to go, right? Okay, I'll flip it around to make it seem nicer.

If a baby doesn't go to hell, there's only one place that baby could go. And certainly when you look at Revelation chapter 22, verse five, along the lines of they're just deprived of the beatific vision, they don't get to see the face of God, they get to go to heaven, but they don't get all of the wonderful benefits.

Revelation 22, five, and night will be no more. They will need no lamp or sun for the Lord God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever. They will see his face, verse four, and his name will be on their foreheads.

So you get to see the face of God. If you're in heaven, you get to see the face of God. How great will that be? I talk about may his face shine upon you. That will be wonderful. Well, there are some Protestants in church history that have beliefs about infants who die and where they go.

That would be a mirror to Roman Catholicism. The Greek Orthodox Church, pretty much down the line when it comes to Augustine, although they've tried to make some modifications to it, according to Kurt Daniel.

High church Anglicans, maybe gonna do the same thing, but I don't have the documentation in front of me. Church of England, John Henry Blunt said, it can hardly, I think, be doubted that they do sustain a loss, talking about the babies, of whatever kind.

In the Institutes of a Christian Man, the Church of England declares, quote, in so much as infants and children dying in their infancy shall undoubtedly be saved thereby, i .e. by baptism, else not. In the last revision of the prayer book, it's read, it is certain by God's word that children which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved.

In other words, we are certain of the future happiness of the baptized, but have no assurance of the salvation of the unbaptized infant. The question must be left in obscurity. We have no sufficient warrant to go beyond the cautious statement of our church.

John Henry Blunt, 1870. You know what I find fascinating about that statement? Don't you want him to say, we have no sufficient warrant to go beyond the statement of scripture, but of our church. Luther, Lutheranism, same as Augustine, baptism washes away original sin.

Unbaptized babies not having regeneration that would be found in the waters of baptism. Yet see, Luther buried enough babies that he would have a pastoral hope, I think, predicated on the nature of God found in scripture, the attributes of God and his kindness and how he's a father to the orphan and he's a husband to the widow and just the merciful, kind nature of God found in scripture.

So Luther was hoping, he had a hope that unbaptized babies would go to heaven. And so see, you can feel, even someone like Luther realizes, all right, what about these babies? The canons of the Senate of Dort, 1619, as we move toward a more reformed view of this doctrine, this concept, this conundrum.

Canons of Dort say, since we are to judge of the will of God from his word, which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature, but in virtue of the covenant of grace in which they, together with their parents, are comprehended godly parents have no reason to doubt of their election, of the election and salvation of their children, whom it pleadseth God to call out of this life in their infancy.

And so the inferences, if you're an ungodly parent, no assurance. Lorraine Bettner. Most Calvinistic theologians have held that those who die in infancy are saved. The scriptures seem to teach plainly enough that the children of believers are saved, but they are silent or practically so in regard to those of the heathens.

The Westminster Confession does not pass judgment on the children of heathens who die before coming to years of accountability. Where the scriptures are silent, the Confession, too, preserves silence.

Bettner goes on. Our outstanding theologians, however mindful of the fact that God's tender mercies are over all his works, and depending on his mercy, widened as broadly as possible, have entertained a charitable hope, there's the Luther language again, that since these infants have never committed any actual sin themselves, their inherited sin, that is Adam's, would be pardoned and they would be saved on holy evangelical principles.

Regeneration, Faith, and Infant Capacity

Now, as we work through this issue, what about children when they die? If you're saved by grace through faith, grace alone through faith alone, the message about Christ received through faith, Romans 10, 17.

Do babies believe? Maybe there's a way we can work through this theologically that babies believe, and then if they believe, then that helps us because how does an unbeliever get to heaven? Could you be regenerated without unbelief?

Now, normally, the answer is no, right? You're regenerated and in response to regeneration, you immediately say, temporally, at the exact same time, you say, I believe. Logically, theologically, we have to be regenerate before we believe, because you can't have dead people believe, right?

So it's regeneration precedes faith. It must be, it has to be. Read 1 John 5, verse one, case closed. But now we want children to believe, or maybe they're granted faith after, because this is a baby we're talking about and it's very difficult.

Lutherans, saving faith is given through infant baptism. I have written to you, 1 John 2, 13, children, because you know the Father. Well, he's not talking about children, children there, is he? He's using a figure of speech.

Turretin, Reformed Pado-Baptist, seminal faith this is, it is an actual faith. W .G .T. Shedd said, the regenerate child, youth, and man believes and repents immediately. The regenerate infant believes and repents when his faculties will admit of the exercise and manifestation of faith and repentance.

In this latter instance, regeneration is potential or latent faith and regeneration. So similar to Turretin with the seminal faith, we have W .G .T. Shedd. Anabaptists, they would say, babies cannot come up with faith.

Faith comes through the Word of God and they can't understand the Word. And so how are babies made to believe in something when their mind doesn't even process that yet? A mystical way, some osmosis faith around and circumventing the mind.

How could that be? Well, infant faith, and we're gonna talk about these verses next, but some will say, well, John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit in the womb of Mary. What about Jeremiah, before I formed you?

So we'll have to talk about that. Daniel would say, John the Baptist proves that infants have the capacity for regeneration, but not necessarily faith. Now, it wasn't that long ago when Billy Graham was at the Oklahoma Memorial Service where there was the bombing there, and he was talking about the babies and the innocent children who died, innocent meaning before accountability when they're little tiny children.

And he talked about how the babies, the infants immediately went to God's presence in heaven. And there was someone who got after him later by saying that now Graham's got a new gospel. It's justification by youth alone.

So justification by infancy alone. So just, if you die, if you're a baby, that's all you need, you go to heaven. Of course, we all know that universalism is wrong. It's unbiblical, it's heretical. Is there universalism for infants that die?

What do we end up doing here? I think the thing that we have to do is we have to go to some Bible verses and then see what we can extract from those verses. Now, there's different sets of verses that we're gonna go through here on No Compromise Radio.

You can write me, by the way, at info at nocompromiseradio .com. New book is out, Things That Go Bump in the Church. Wrote that with Clint Archer and Byron Yawn. We're working on some follow-ups for those.

If this one goes well, we're gonna do episode two, Things That Go Bump in the Church, part two. We're also working on another top secret project. And then, hopefully, there's gonna be a couple more books coming out this year, as well, the Romans Commentary and some other.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at some verses that seem to indicate the salvation of infants who die in infancy. We're going to look at some verses that don't have anything to do with it, but people use anyway.

And then we'll look at some other verses as well. So we're just gonna try to look at the biblical corpus, the body of biblical truth. And figure out what to do. It's very tough, though, because along with Nathan Finn, who's a historical theology professor at Southeastern Seminary, he said, it's impossible to make an exegetical case for any of you with total accuracy.

That's the tough part. It would be so nice if there just was a Bible verse in there. Wouldn't that help? But God, in His wisdom, didn't give us those verses. And so we need to be content. Although we can study, you can still be content and study at the same time.

David’s Grief in 2 Samuel 12 and the Hope of Reunion

So the passage that you all know, that's probably the most well-known in this topic, is rightfully so well-known. It is 2 Samuel 12. So if you have your Bibles, open your Bibles to 2 Samuel 12. I'll read some verses.

And we're leading up to verse 23. But I think the account is important enough to give us some context that I should just read this when we get to the text. He's dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again?

I shall go to him, but he will not return to me. So let me read this first 22 verses so you can just get a flavor of what's going on and the response of David in it. And the Lord sent Nathan to David.

He came to him and said, there were two men in a certain city and one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought.

And he brought it up and he grew it up with him and his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man and he was unable to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest would come to him.

But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. And he said to Nathan, as the Lord Yahweh lives, the man who has done this deserves to die.

And he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity. Nathan said to David, you are the man. You're that rich man. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul.

And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight?

You've struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.

Thus says the Lord, behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before you and give them to your neighbor and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this son.

For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the son. David said to Nathan, I've sinned against the Lord. Nathan said to David, the Lord has also put away your sin. You shall not die.

Nevertheless, because of this deed, you shall have that you utterly scorned the Lord. The child who is born to you shall die. Then Nathan went to his house and the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah's wife bore to David.

And he became sick. David therefore sought God on behalf of the child and David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. And the elders of his house stood beside him to raise him from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them.

On the seventh day, the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead for they said, behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him, he did not listen to us.

How then can we say to him, the child is dead? He may do himself some harm. But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David understood that the child was dead. And David said to his servants, is the child dead?

They said, he is dead. Then David rose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes. And he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. He then went to his own house. And when he asked, they set food before him and he ate.

Then the servant said to him, what is this thing that you've done? You fasted and wept for the child while he's alive, but while the child's dead, you arose and ate food. He said, while the child was still alive, I fasted and wept for I said, who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live.

But now he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me. And David comforted his wife Bathsheba and went into her and lay with her. And she bore a son and called his name Solomon.

And the Lord loved him and sent a message by Nathan the prophet. So he called his name Jedidiah because of the Lord. Now, was this just David saying, I'm going to die. I'm just gonna die and I'm going to be with him.

He's not talking about a reunion in any way, shape or form. Is that it? David stops his crying, stops his weeping, stops his mourning, stops his bereaving because he's gonna die one day too? Or is it going to be because he's going to be reunited with his child?

How do you encourage someone? Well, you're gonna die too, David. That's gonna cause him to cry more, weep more, bereave more. So my name is Mike Ebendroth, this is No Compromise Radio. I want to say more about 2 Samuel 12, 23 next time, but I am out of time.

Israel, 2015, February 17th. You can write me at info at nocompromiseradio .com if you'd like to go to Israel with us. Go to noco90 .com for the YouTube. You can go to the Facebook, you can go all kinds of places for NoCo.

NoCo, No Compromise Radio, it's a lifestyle. Mike Ebendroth, nocompromiseradio .com.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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