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

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the all the arguments that people are going to make on the basis of like the universal salvation of the infants they're all like inferences that you're drawing and they're not direct statements right there i mean they're basically all inferences that you're going to draw but it seems like that god could could have made this issue like crystal clear he could have made it as crystal clear as he makes you know if you repent of your sins and believe the good news you will be saved warning the following message may be offensive to some audiences these audiences may include but are not limited to professing christians who never read their bible sissies sodomites men with man buns those who approve of men with man buns man bun enablers white knights for men with man buns homemakers who have finished netflix but don't know how to meal plan and people who refer to their pets as fur babies your discretion is advised people are tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio message of christianity is that salvation is found in christ hope of salvation any hope of heaven the issue is that humanity is in sin and the wrath of almighty god is hanging over our head they will hear his words they will not act upon them and when the floods of divine judgment when the fires of wrath come they will be consumed and they will perish god wrapped himself in flesh condescended and became a man died on the cross for sin was resurrected on the third day has ascended to the right hand of the father where he sits now to make intercession for us jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words they will act upon them and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day their house will stand 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 we're your host harrison kerrigan 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 uh and and so obviously this is the part two uh to the episode that we let out last week where we answered a pretty difficult question and one that we you know all agreed is is honestly pretty neglected throughout the evangelical world in general it's just something that i think most even even you know uh faithful pastors really try and distance themselves from because it's such a difficult a topic to talk about it's so emotionally charged and uh towards the end of the last episode we spent a lot of time sort of talking about some of the different arguments that we hear conley basically your position in all of this was that some some babies go to heaven under extremely specific circumstances but the reality is that most most babies who die whether it you know whether it's uh in the womb or you know three years old five years old what whatever um they they don't just automatically go to heaven just because they're a child right that's correct yes yeah and and so so that's your position and where we towards the end of the last episode we spent some time just talking about hey what are some what are some arguments uh that people give to try and prove that that that children actually do go to heaven right and and we're kind of given arguments that we're coming from more of like a armenian sort of uh understanding of the bible that that type of theology and you know the difficulty with that is just sometimes when you're when you're talking about an armenian understanding of the bible it kind of feels like you're you're picking on your little brother a little bit like like 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 they just there's not a whole lot there when it comes to uh when it comes to their understanding of some of these things and so so that's probably not fair to do um so i figured the better place to start this time would be like all right why don't we take some of the some of the guys from our own camp why don't why don't we pick on someone our own size here uh and and look at some of the things that we're not picking on anyone this is connelly we're making connelly right connelly it's time to pick on someone your own size man um we we we take no responsibility for this episode at all this is this is all connelly so so why don't why don't we look at some of those guys and say like hey what are what are they saying specifically about these things and and what are our thoughts um on their stances and their explanations for why they think that uh that children do go to heaven when they die because as we talked about last episode connelly and you you pointed this out a few times um even even reformed christians most reformed christians think this way right and so so why don't we start there and and connelly uh just you know give us some of the things that you've heard uh reformed guys say and then and let us know your thoughts on them sure 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 uh the children don't know the law yet uh they can't be held accountable to the law there's 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 so that's that's uh one that i've heard occasionally the thing is in context there it's talking about people's recognition of the law it's talking about why god gave the law and paul talks about in uh romans 7 how uh without the command to not covet he wouldn't have known you know the depth of his sin and so god god gives the law so that we all recognize it because as it says in romans 1 we're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness so none of this when it's talking about imputing sin or imputing uh guilt well it speaks of sin specifically when it talks about imputing sin it's not saying that god does not impute sin to us he doesn't count us as sinners as 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 his truth that truth and unrighteousness right so i think that's the primary thing that's going on there's people count that imputation you know there's a lot of times theological words are used in the bible or words that we have adopted as part of our you know systematic theologies and people read them with those definitions so you see impute and you immediately think okay that's talking about god crediting this sin to someone you know a good example that would be justification right the bible used the word justification a lot we've got a pretty good definition of that of being made right with god yeah but then you come to james 2 and suddenly justification's not being used exactly in the same way right 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 the same thing happens with sanctification in general or a lot 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 as if they're terminus technicus or you know technical terms in every instance you're going to be led astray right yeah the bible's the bible's not a textbook i mean it gives us everything we need but it's not a it's not written as a textbook so that each word always means the exact same thing well and that's that's something that people um you know just in terms of word study fallacies in general as they're approaching the bible a lot of people are making those kind of mistakes where they think that anytime a you know a corny 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 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 i have no idea it depends you know you're talking about an elephant or a tree or a car or you know something you carry something in and you just have no idea and but people frequently make that kind of assumption with um language in general and that betrays kind of just a lack of sophistication as to how language works but what other objections you have yeah i'll throw in there that i had someone in a bible study recently that was trying to you know pull out lexicons on me and this is a this was a bible study that wasn't part of a um it wasn't in a church setting it was in a work setting so they didn't know how much familiarity i have with greek which is frankly not that much but i have taken multiple greek classes i'm in my third greek class at this point and you know they're making a lot of the arguments that you're describing and i'm trying to explain that's that's not how you do this they weren't yeah it's hard to get it through to people a lot of times you can't just you can't just look at words that way you know what is the amplified 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 or they include all of them right that's another thing is yeah you know i i once heard a preacher uh preach on um how there was something where it said this is a good word and he looked at all the definitions for kalos you know and just imported all of them into the meaning you know it's just a standard greek word for good but you know he made it mean everything the word good can possibly mean in every context well people do that with ecclesiastes too with the word you know um uh for vanity at that point where they import in into that word every single sense of the word that can possibly be and you know that it's it's a problem but anyways continue good uh 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 well first of all i think it's important to observe that in the very next chapter of jeremiah it says 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 right those who are righteous the effects of their righteousness uh having ripples effect ripple effects to thousands of generations after them given that jeremiah speaks of these things in context of a new covenant that god is giving i think the right way for us to understand this is not that it's saying that there are never consequences on children uh given their parents actions but rather that uh anytime a child repents anytime any person repents uh god is faithful to honor that repentance but anytime someone continues in sin following as their parents have sinned then uh they will suffer sin as they will suffer the judgment on sin as well now when it comes to original sin well that's where it's a weird this that's where it's a weird objection coming from like reformed people it's it's weird in that like 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 this is basically a pledge in argument so it really is yeah and so we're talking about generational retribution we're talking about consequences these are not talking about original sin right they're not talking about the covenantal imputation of guilt given adamson you know if you throw that away like i said last time you're throwing away also the imputation of christ righteousness because it's that same mechanism of being counted in adam or being counted in christ whereby uh you know we have salvation yeah now uh from reformed folks um who are trying to maintain some sort of notion of original guilt as it relates to this uh topic and you know if you're not familiar with those terms original guilt is just the idea that we inherit not only just a sinful um orientation as a result of adam's sin but we actually inherit the actual guilt of that act and that's obviously demonstrated in the fact that we all die you know it's the point that a man wants to die and after that's judgment we live in a fallen world there's obviously entailments of adam's and adam's act in the garden but you know as i'm saying a lot of um reformed people they will basically try to adopt some sort of hybrid view as it relates to the imputation of adam's guilt i was reading through jesse johnson's article on um let's see if i can figure out what the name of that was uh what happens to infant when they die he had a series on that and he gave old testament answers and new testament answers 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 kind of the temporal but then not as it relates to the eternal uh consequences of that so what kind of response would you give to that kind of reformed objection right yeah and i don't know how explicitly he said that too but it that seems to be the implication of what he's saying that yeah there are there are consequences for your for being a sinner temporally even as an infant but but not eternally um yeah why 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 uh to take their life early at all 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 the only pain yeah or pain right the only the only person who ever suffered innocently was jesus christ and he did so voluntarily you know he chose to be sent by his father and and suffer pain in this world uh children and everyone who grows up in this world uh the reason why we suffer pain is because we are indeed sinful it is because of our guilt before god even as infants well that's what's so weird about the objection so that that kind of objection um you know if you take that principle like the children should never suffer from the father's choices and you turn it into like if you absolutize it you bring it bring it all out to the end like there's no like if that's like if that's true then they're like it seems like you like if you have no mechanism for saying that children should ever die should ever be sick should ever suffer should have any pain uh if that's what those passages are saying um you 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 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 um yeah every yeah every sin deserves god's wrath and curse both in this life and in the one to come so that's the westminster shorter catechism right there so the yeah it is the case that all sin and that includes adamson 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 i do yes and yeah i get that people are inconsistent they still want to hold on to that but it is it is implicitly a denial why maybe you can elaborate why is it implicitly a denial because are you not allowed to make the what if someone were to say hey you're just it's i believe in original guilt 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 you know what what does it even mean like what is guilt at that point if if you can't be counted guilty in court on account of it like it's just not guilt anymore i don't know what else you call it but what else do you have godly like reform objections that you yeah oh i mean a related one to that one that you just mentioned uh it's it's been said by some or at least one that uh we're saved by grace but damned by works right or judged or judged on the basis of our work so you see all these passages in scripture that talk about um god's judgment on judgment day being according to the works that we've done in the body whether good or evil 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 we're only judged according to our works and if children don't have evil works and they're they're free here in this regard i i just don't i i just don't get that at all i mean i know 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 you know i mean uh even in the even um like in the womb right like i mean they're having thoughts now they're now are they the same kind of thoughts that you know we're having as fully fully developed adults probably not but they are having thoughts and the reality is that they are human they are human in the womb and and um and so you know and apart from faith thoughts are sinful right right and and so i don't know how you look at all of that and spell that out conley yeah so uh hebrews 11 6 says that without faith it is impossible to please god romans 14 23 says that anything that does not proceed from faith is sin so if you have if you have thoughts that are not uh that 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 just the encasing around you in the womb it's still the case that those thoughts are supposed to honor god by recognizing him as above all things 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 god as god and i i want to point out too that i think it it seems like uh the reformed christian their their understanding of whether or not children are sinful is not consistent like it seems like some people are saying uh they're not they're just not sinful and then it seems like there's another portion of this camp that's saying well they are sinful right and they're probably feeling the tension that you're bringing up conley um there so they are sinful but then they don't either the explanation is either you know they're only sinful as far as they've inherited from adam right or they're sinful in their own actions as well as what they've inherited from adam 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 and that kind of gets us back into the whole you know um sin is right right and i know i understand we already talked about that but i'm more just trying to make the distinction is not only do i not understand how anyone anyone can say hey kids aren't sinful but then it seems like even reformed christians who like all you know out of all of the reformed christians who don't believe the who who believe that children go to heaven all of them they don't even agree on whether or not children are sinful or not uh and and so it's that's pretty concerning you know if you're talking about like hey where do they go for eternity and you can't even agree on are they sinful or not and and i've been i've been kind of flabbergasted i you didn't mention the names you know of of the people who are saying some of these things but i i have been i mean just kind of flabbergasted at the people at who it is that's saying you know saying some of these things yeah it's up to you whether or not you want to mention names but these are these are people that you would not expect to be saying these absolutely not not when no no um but yeah i i guess i won't say them right now but um it is it isn't it's very um jarring i guess so one of the things jesse johnson in that article i mentioned was saying tim's like yeah anyways jesse johnson no no no no i i'm i'm responding to you uh yeah yeah the uh 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 uh children not sinful they're but they fall into sin like you might fall into gravity it's kind of his point so they fall into sin like they might fall into gravity whereas adults when they sin it's heavy -handed yeah so that's basically the distinction they're making so they don't it's not that um yeah you've got the intentional sins and you've got the you know the high -handed sins and right so what what's your response 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 roman catholic distinctions um yeah and that's and that's essentially what this comes down to you're gonna start making distinctions between sins in this way and uh 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 uh there are some sins that deserve death and other sins that don't deserve death like they all deserve death and we just yeah we just uh to round this out a little you know yeah we've said that this episode and last that actual sins are happening far earlier than people imagine you most likely in the womb as the child's having thoughts and but even if you didn't have that if you have guilt adam's guilt that we have and we we must bear but you don't make that a guilt that can make you guilty in court it's not real guilt like it doesn't it doesn't have any meaning and in this this example with jesse johnson this seems like a case where you have this doctrine of so that someone is um is orientated towards sin like you said but not but not in a way that that orientation itself is such a corruption that god would count it as guilt or that adam sin is counted towards you so there's just there's three types of guilt here that are not being counted right well and that's what um the only way that that makes sense again you know even though they're reformed like the only way 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 so like that's that's the assumption that seems to undergird that kind of project right to say that you can be oriented towards sin but it doesn't count unless you know you have like knowledgeable intentional volitional high -handed rebellion but then i mean it doesn't really pass um the smell test as far as that goes and it doesn't really feel very calvinistic but yeah it's only when you're like pushing the boundaries beyond your total depravity or something i yeah it really doesn't make sense all right but what else you have godly yeah currently i i know you're holding back man i know you're holding back based off of what we were talking about before we started recording i know you're holding back so yeah so my favorite one my favorite one i'll read this quote this is from another uh thinker who i won't name uh sam storms i wasn't gonna say it just because i didn't i didn't know he said it so but tim is like throw him right under there throw him right under there okay so he qualifies this he goes he goes ahead and says he he recognizes this is the subjective argument however he goes ahead and makes the argument and 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 again this is subjective and perhaps in the mental question but it deserves an answer nonetheless so so my response is it doesn't deserve an answer it deserves a rebuke you know this is the kind of thing where paul would say who are you oh man to answer back to god we don't get to make god in our image you know and say is god really the kind of god that would do this you know i think he'd be more like me and and give a free pass to to these um to these little infants this is i feel like this is a very dangerous way of thinking about scripture and in so many other categories you know we are very ready to say hey you can't think about this in terms of your feelings you've got to think about the terms of what scripture actually says and he says okay but you know we know god is love so let me take my picture of love and describe to you what i think it should look like you know it's it's uh yeah it's a very backwards way of considering what god's actions are yeah and i think that's kind of what what has been so jarring for me is um one of the things that i appreciate so much about uh many of the reformed christian teachers out there is you know their willingness on so many other topics to say hey look it doesn't matter how we feel when you know when we're when we're reading the 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 god's ways are higher than our ways right i mean who you know who could counsel god certainly not man you know his wisdom far exceeds our own and and it's not even it's not even close to close you know and and and that's what i've appreciated so much about reformed christians in general um which is why it's so jarring to see them kind of completely throw that out the window and i mean it really does it really does seem like uh the the guys who who do think that all babies go to heaven it really if you could just take some of their quotes you know like i said on the last episode that i had read um that i had been reading through the book that john mcarthur wrote um i i still can't i still can't remember the name of it um safe in the arms of god safe and yeah safe in the arms of god and and um you know 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 you know who who said it and you really you really couldn't tell it apart from you know like a charismatic you know like person trying to interpret the bible right and even looking i'm looking at this um uh this jesse johnson article and i think i'll probably just end up linking this to the episode so people can look at it themselves too but even even just looking at this jesse johnson article uh you know point um point four says god refers to children this is an argument for why children uh go to heaven if they die god refers to children and pagan families who are murdered as innocents in uh jeremiah chapter 19 verse 4 uh and that i mean that just sounds like a poor like just just reading that one sentence sounds like a you know this looks like like i mean i don't i hesitate to say this but it really does look like the same exact sort of hermeneutical approach that you would see like a prosperity gospel teacher take to try and prove that you know that the the promises made to israel and the old testament apply to christians and apply to christians in the exact same way i mean i was i was tim when he showed me this article not the tale yeah and and and tim showed me this article and i you know i was scrolling through it kind of skimming through all these points i think there's like how many are there here 16 and at the very bottom it's a i didn't know who wrote it he just he just sent it to me and i was reading it and um at the very bottom it said the master seminary and i was just i was like what this is this is coming from the master seminary are you kidding me i mean this is like you can read point by point and and refute these instantly you know and and so i think i think that's kind of what's disappointing and and 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 uh even for reformed christians you are just simply not allowed to read the bible and understand the bible and take the bible for what it says instead you are supposed to be informed primarily by your emotions right and because obviously like who wants to think about uh children you know who didn't even get a chance because their mothers hated them so much that they went and you know they they sought out an abortion and murdered their baby in the womb and now that baby is in hell right i mean no one wants to think about that but then the reality is like that's what's happening you know for or at least like for um you know at least for uh most you know most babies right according to what the bible is saying and so no one wants to think about that but then the reality is that's what i mean that's just how all this works you know it it's hard to it's hard to imagine that there is some sort of age of accountability or you know um it's it's hard to imagine that children just don't sin now apparently you know i i can't wrap my head around these things and really it is it is quite surprising i feel like we should just play a game sometime where it's like take the quote from the reformed guy and and black out the name and you know guess who said this you know and i don't think i think i think yeah reformed armenian i think we would all fail but we were formed yeah so look at that if you look at armenian books on this topic like um i believe his name is adam hargrave he has one and you know very pelagian but then you know i read the books from calvinist thinkers and it's uh same argument the same arguments yeah it was wild well something you brought up harrison that will transition is something i wanted to ask connelly about here so you know harrison your operating assumption is that um you know the weight of scripture would lead us to be very pessimistic about the reality that very many infants at all would be saved and one of the things connelly you're making a case not just like for agnosticism at this point so like meaning like you're making a case um like you can make different kinds of cases here so you know in terms of my own posture towards this issue i'm kind of i would be more i think in um you know uh agnostic middle ground and probably both of you here and i got more like a principled agnostic on this question meaning like if i'm if i if you force me to defend like the universal salvation of infants i'm going to just say i i can't make it work you know i can't i can't go there um and then you know as i'm reading the bible it seems like there's so many um positive passages that i can go to about the nature of salvation and the exclusivity of salvation that you know i i'm gonna have a very hard time um i'm gonna i'm gonna have a very hard time defending um the position of universal salvation of infants i don't i don't think the bible teaches that at all uh but then um you know if you ask me to say you know make the on the other end i'm gonna i'm gonna be a little more attentive about it but both of you are very confident okay but both of you i'm more agnostic i'm more in the middle but then so when you say when you say agnostic you mean maybe maybe all infants are saved 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 you know okay yeah or um like you know that's um that's a possibility that they all i mean in my mind it could you know maybe maybe it could be that that's just a surprise or something um that if there is like a concept of an elect infant so to speak right so if you say hey there's a concept of an elect infant then then maybe i just okay maybe maybe they're maybe they're all elect you know god just decided to elect them all um 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 but then connelly you're you're going further than that you're saying um then harrison you're definitely you're definitely going further than that you're you're saying um you're saying no that would be unbiblical to expect a high percentage of infants so we need to adopt more of a a um it's probably probably not hardly any of them kind of posture yeah i'm not gonna make two strong statements about ratios but certainly yeah i think there's 100 there's a yeah it's less than all of them definitely less than but you would say probably few too right you're saying oh yes yeah at that point but at that point i'm speaking less confidently oh okay all right all right so you all right but go ahead and make your case why um so what yes what would push you over from like uh just uh hey the bible doesn't say and i and i'm uh i think that the bible says things on the opposite which should encourage pessimism i'm just um you know and maybe just i'm emotionally just saying um adopt a middle ground neutral posture but what would push you over to be more pessimistic about it more pessimistic i'm uh i'm i'm not sure i mean you'd have to have a positive statement from scripture about about these ratios that certainly would help but no no but you're making a case that universal salvation of infants is not biblical so make that case what is the case that that's not right so i i can make it i could just say hey it doesn't say that so you i can't be confident about it but you're saying no it doesn't say that you're going the next step it doesn't say that so make that case right so if you uh which i'm inclined to agree on your case i'm inclined to agree yep for those listening in and haven't listened to the last episode i would recommend zooming in all the way to the end where i summarize my case based on the doctrine of election i think that the doctrine of election uh as presented in scripture just absolutely disallows for the salvation of all infants particularly because uh 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 um and we we talked about some statistics on that but the the scripture is clear that that not many not the majority of people are saved rather there's a few there's a narrow door and also that man can't manipulate 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 and if that's the case they can manipulate god's election by uh by killing someone by killing an infant and basically these things that scripture says are absolutely not true would become true in the case that all infants are elect all infants dying in infancy are elect those things being that um that there are the bible says that the way to life is narrow and and few will find it and that's a percentage right as a percentage and if so many babies are dying in miscarriages then essentially we're throwing off the percentages that are found there right yeah exactly so it can't be all of them because that would over that would tip the scales right right absolutely and then the the even stronger one is that man cannot force god's hand just by natural means but this is something where we would have natural means by which we could determine the election of of someone well i wonder you know i relate to that issue because i i've talked with people who disagree on this topic and you know i've listened to the episode and weren't persuaded uh but then one of the points i brought up as it related to that very topic is that like it seems to me that you know it's very hard to prove that they would all like the like all the all the arguments that people are going to make on the basis of like the universal salvation of infants they're all like inferences that you're drawing and they're not direct statements right they're they're i mean they're basically all inferences that you're going to draw but it seems like that god could could have made this issue like crystal clear he could have made it as crystal clear as he makes you know if you repent of your sins and believe the good news you will be saved and how will they hear unless they um have a you know a preacher and in all that right and like the gospel to power god's salvation all that i mean you have like 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 but then it seems to me that if that was presented with absolute crystal clear clarity clarity people would abuse it right yeah it's true i mean you have cult you have i mean i'm sure you've had like uh like some throughout church history you know uh postpartum mother who has determined that uh 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 drowned them in the bathtub or something like that and so but but then it seems to me that there's some um if this is uh this isn't the kind of thing that maybe god would reveal maybe if you could tell you a way to work the system we're sinful enough that we would we would work it we try yeah we would try so you know i wonder if maybe that you know if if there is something like that and we don't would god even reveal it sure so you're you're suggesting that maybe it's true and there's a reason why 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 make that if that was if that was something he wanted us to know it seems like we would we would abuse it to our heart's content and so you know i can understand why it wouldn't be revealed but i don't actually think it's i don't think it's right okay right yeah i don't think it's right but i mean it's just it's not the kind of thing that you would um yeah yeah here's how you game the system guys you know just kill them all you know there's a very similar question around whether those who you know grow up on an island never hear the gospel whether or not they'll be saved right 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 oh this is even what c .s

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lewis more or less says and um in mere christianity uh and so i've heard people say well you know if 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 it'd be held accountable yeah seems strange that jesus would say hey go and make disciples of all the nations if you know if that means that's just going to increase their guilt the whole time well i mean and then paul you know makes that very case like that the reason why we like they're not going to hear unless someone is sent right so we need to send people which seems to close that door and i would say that like the same kind of closing the door happens here but i don't think many people are actually all that confident of it um you know and this is something i brought up too i don't think anyone's really like anyone on the other side i don't know that they're absolutely confident of it so i mean think about this way and i want you to critique this kind of line of reasoning kindly i mean if someone really believed that they could kill some kill a baby and the baby would automatically go to heaven like isn't that like the ultimate like self -sacrifice and isn't that the ultimate like selflessness and like i mean like if you could if you could damn yourself for eternity in order to save all of your family like why not do it right like in in are you selfish for not doing it um like uh but then i don't know that anyone actually believes it right uh so the person i was talking with it you know as it related to this point i would say well if you really believe it like if you really believe and they you know 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 you know take him out you know he's like well no i'm not going to hell for them but i mean i mean yeah but you know we talked about this last time what paul says in romans 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 like it's just not something that we can do um but but i mean if we believe that if you believe that is that morally wrong not to right 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 uh sinful and so yeah it just goes against you know everything that we see about self -sacrificial ethics and scripture so it's uh yeah it's an odd one i guess i guess if there's any response to that it's like well i need to be like um you know i'm picking on it but i mean i guess the other side could say but we love god first right and then we love our neighbors second and you have to keep these things in priority so as much as uh you know um like me dishonoring god is worse than me sacrificing for my neighbors so we'll give them we'll give them a way out yeah i think that i don't think people are usually thinking that clearly about it and if that's 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 so that's true yeah it's uh i think people just aren't thinking consistently on this it's very easy to not think consistently on it and you you you kind of have to 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 all right well let the little children come to me what come on yeah this is like little kids so what do you got man jesus loved the kids he wanted the kids to come and then of heaven you know heaven um would be filled with you know um such as these right so what do you got right yeah so uh so all the little kids going to heaven uh mark and luke uh expand on what 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 so here you have a statement that we have to we have to receive the kingdom of heaven like a little child so analogies being made to a child and what is that like it's not their ignorance god's not commending ignorance you know he's commending trust and so we're to to trust like a child trusts but the child isn't necessarily trusting in god or in the kingdom of god 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 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 all right well related to that then um a question i did have so you uh connelly you articulated a um category for infant salvation so there there it could be that um there are some electing infants i think you mentioned david john the baptist um jesus obviously um well yeah that's different because he's not safe from anything yeah yeah yeah all right so i caught it yeah but there does seem to be some supernatural um assistance in his to his faith given the words of psalm 22 all right so what what does infant faith like look like so like i think this is a hang up for people um i mean you you know it's not as if an infant can pray a prayer or walk an hour ask jesus into her heart raise their hand you know nod i see that hand if you um if you um if you hear me blink you know uh three times and i see that blink uh all right so but the uh child can't do any of any of those things and so what what does salvation or what does faith look like um because most of the typical you know ways we understand these things are not parallel here yeah so it's worth calling out that uh one of the arguments i made last time was that there's no such thing as this as a faithless justification you know that faith is a sole instrument of justification we are only made right with god uh through faith and uh we need to have if a child is saved in infancy it is it is through faith now most of the people that i have heard who take my position don't actually don't actually say this and i don't know i haven't heard that many people who also hold my positions talk about this so maybe it's not that many of the sampling uh not that large of a sampling size that i have to go with but a lot of people uh believe that yeah not all infants dying in infancy are saved but some are and they import them into heaven without without any kind of justification or faith that that's all happening post -mortem so i think it's worth pointing that out but what does what does this infant faith look like 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 jesus is or that he dies on the cross or that he's resurrected right because you have all kinds of people who are putting their trust in a messiah without knowing all those details galatians 3 talks about the gospel preached beforehand to abraham and he doesn't have all those details 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 eve that she would be the mother of all the living it shows that people have an anticipation of a salvation through the son so that's just kind of a setup to say that what we think of of necessary saving faith right now like you know you need a whole creed that is not what saving faith has looked like throughout the histories of of humanity so that gives us some room to realize that okay saving faith doesn't have to be as developed as we think of it and so what saving faith would look like for a child is yes it would require god giving them uh miraculously some special ability to understand their sin some special ability to understand their need for a 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 so it it looks like that it looks like a real faith and a real savior but it does not have to be detailed sure enough well about like um so the the idea that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of god and the gospels of power god and the salvation uh how does that relate to just the idea of some sort of elect infant um scheme so what you're criticizing is you're criticizing the idea that um like in an arminian kind of framework there's no faith given whatsoever right right yeah so there's no faith given whatsoever it's just um if you have a pelagian scheme you know pelagian scheme if you have um you have some kind of um or even um with some of our calvinist kind of friends like it seems like there's like a refusal to impute sin right right right so uh you're criticizing those kind of views and you're arguing that no there needs to be like a faith kind of a faith that's given right faith is the instrument of justification that's given so you can't skip that step but then how does that relate to just you know some of the passages which you know typically describe how faith is given you know that right that is that is the normative means uh how how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news because they are needed uh without without someone preaching the gospel uh under normative circumstances no one would hear however given the examples we have in scripture like for example john the baptist who leaps with joy in his mother's 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 word to communicate to them whatever truth is necessary for them to believe that gospel that i described you know that that faith even without all the specific details fair enough and you know i guess um you know hearing you hearing you talk about that i guess there is a part of me so i'll admit connelly that this is probably like the one part of your position that i have a hard time fully embracing you know um and you know it's just it's just because of of passages like like what we're talking about now where probably probably where well just these passages passages in general that are you know like jesus is telling us like hey you know go and make disciples right um you know um i think um god you know god tells us or paul tells us that we are allowed to partake in the ministry of reconciliation right god is god's allowing us to partake in that we we don't you know there we understand that um ultimately god is the one who is giving faith to people right so so no individual can share the gospel with someone have them come to salvation and then say see look what i did right we we all understand that it's god giving the faith there but then it does seem it does seem like um like at least the yeah like the normative way is to say well people come to salvation when they hear the word of god preached right when they hear the gospel preached and proclaimed um and so so it's it's kind of hard to wrap my wrap my head around um the idea that that there are infants who god does save not because i don't think he couldn't do it i think he could it just i get i have a harder time thinking that he actually says he does does it anywhere right i get right probably at best for me um the i think the closest i can get at least right now to um to your position is is uh possibly saying like okay you know for john the baptist uh for david you have extremely extremely specific circumstances that are you know um that are heavily i mean they're we're talking about prophecy being fulfilled here you know these are extremely significant um characters and and the story of salvation right uh and god's plan of redemption right and they they have a they have very integral parts to play and so god is uh god is treating them you know in a different way than he treats uh those who are not a part of the of the specific prophecies he's fulfilling so i think i think the closest i can get in my mind is there possibly to say like okay john the baptist david you know obviously not jesus jesus didn't need salvation maybe i can see that but then i have a hard time going to the there are you know albeit you know probably few right uh there are others who are not significant characters in the in the redemption narrative um who who are by the grace of god given a uh given faith even even perhaps in the womb right um and and i guess part of what part of what makes it hard really to even accept that john the baptist and david uh were given you know faith from the womb is the fact that they actually did you know grow up so so it's easy to say right it's easy to look at that and say um that was preparatory for right they would do later right so like it's easy to say they're elect and and god knows that they these two particular people will grow up to be adults who can hear you know um here well and and i guess in both of their well for john the baptist you know um he's interacting with jesus uh and god has revealed what who jesus is to him but then for david he's just understanding that like you're like you said earlier there is a messiah he doesn't necessarily know you know the name of the person who would be the messiah right but then he understands there is a messiah that will come from his line um and so so you have these two guys who are elect and they grow up to be adults who can understand the gospel um and so so i guess i'm just i'm having a hard time coming to terms fully with with that idea although i do think it is interesting uh to think about and i haven't heard that position before that that you're presenting so so what are your what are your thoughts yeah so i think i made it pretty clear in the last episode that i i'm not positively stating that there are any in this era that have been saved in infancy right 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 okay i'm just saying that i do believe that john the baptist is a case of salvation infancy therefore god is capable of it um while i'm a cessationist and i don't believe in uh continuing uh gifts i do think that uh this falls under the realm of miracles that that could continue and so um yeah i have i have no reason to reject that this could still happen today so that's that's kind of my position which i think lines up with what you've been saying there's just uh you know maybe i'm coming off as stating more positively than i really am you know that there aren't any in this era yeah i think i think for me uh uh probably where i'm at with it is is more of the like it it could be possible but i'm not sure i'm i'm convinced that it um well i mean obviously god can do whatever he wants i just mean like with what god has revealed to us it could be possible but i'm i'm not sure that it that it is even with john the baptist and uh david i think the tension is um the tension is related to you know how they call them who they've not heard and how will they hear unless someone is sent and so you um 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 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 call on them who they've not heard the 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 holy spirit at that point is functional so he's going to be filled from the holy spirit um from his mother wound like meaning appointed to ministry uh not necessarily in a salvific sense and then right you know having the joy is just you know uh well it could just be a sign at that i guess well it could be that god is in his sovereignty made the baby leap for joy yeah it's not like an understanding joy it's just it's just joy like he just triggered that reaction to be assigned to elizabeth to realize what's happening you know so and she's just calling it joy well yeah because it feels like joy in your stomach you're happy but she's right but she's with the spirit so i i take her statement about it as having more you know interpretive weight yeah so then well yeah so then you basically um yeah so then basically um you know the way out is just to say well the other one's just a normative means uh overwhelmingly like the um how are they calling them unless they've heard and how they hear unless someone has sent then that's just treated as a overwhelmingly normative kind of uh right in the absence of some sort of rare random miraculous divine intervention and that's you know we don't we don't presume on god to do the miraculous we content ourself with the ordinary means uh that he's called us to do it's right and the way the way i think about this too is that i'm not suggesting that uh god does this in in frontier context where the gospel has not been given i'm only talking about this in cases where the gospel has been given to an area into a people right and then you have some people who are not capable of hearing a lot of people make the muslim content muslim kind of like uh jesus appearing to the muslim personally kind of thing um yeah that's a yeah that's a whole different issue um but uh but yeah can um yeah does god reveal himself to those who have not even been reached by you know the preacher who romans 10 is talking about uh maybe you know uh i believe god can move in miraculous ways to prepare people for that gospel but not uh but not like i'm talking about you know these these stories i hear in those contexts i'm more inclined to believe them when they don't include uh you know someone one like really seeing jesus and you know receiving this gospel etc because because like you said you know it is it is for the preachers to bring all right well maybe you can um you wrap us up here uh connelly and um give us um so thinking about the objections maybe you can summarize the objections that um 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 plage in route whether you're reformed route maybe you can summarize the the arguments they're making and then just give like a summary kind of here's what i think is short -sighted about those does that make sense yeah i think i think almost everything we've looked at almost everything comes down to basically saying that original sin is has no real power right original guilt does not actually have the power of guilt in condemnation and that's pretty much everything boils down to you think about you know sam storms quotes that is he really the god that can condemn infants on no basis other than adam's transgression you know is he really a god who would who would count someone guilty on account of original guilt you know this is this is what almost all of these arguments come back to the idea of original and a rejection of original guilt or the guilt the the verdict that corresponds to original right like the fact that it can actually make someone guilty like it 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 and you you attribute uh you would say that you know most of that is just um like how can you know good you know calvinistic theologians be persuaded by this yeah that's the question i'm asking you're supposed to answer that yeah 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 and so they're willing to do uh you know what they've got to do to make it happen and i think that's probably another uh set of what these objections are is that infants are special like infants are very special to god and therefore he will save them so like for example one verse uh in matthew 18 14 it says 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 god's heart for children and then you say okay so if that's the case if it's not as well than he should not do perish but the problem is they do perish like we talked about this already you know they do perish in this world and so if that's not god's will why does it happen because when it says it's not god's will that any should perish it's talking about uh his will in a particular kind of way in a particular aspect it's not saying that um it certainly won't be the case that he's decreed otherwise well isn't it weird that you have psalms i mean related to that point um that we're 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 like i mean i'm not embarrassed of those kind of passages right but the only way you can make sense of like um 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 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 so right what is the what is the rationale like wouldn't he be unjust to order that in the temporal realm right so what is the internal realm yeah yeah what is the like what is the rationale to say because he's ordering it in the temporal realm and not just like natural so you can't just blame it on natural evil right so we talked about that with the with our um 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 you know they'll 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 they're just as sorry about as we are yeah exactly but 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 uh these things were done for their uh for their good to um uh to lead them in a particular way it was because they were sinners and needed god's assistance in moving down that path of sanctification that he that he supplies these afflictions to his people 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 all right i know that you looked into a lot of the church history stuff so maybe this is a thank you have any quotes you want to bring up the round us out yeah this is a this is a great transition point because uh one of the things that i found because a lot of people will misquote calvin and by misquote i mean you know quote him out of context in ways where he looks like he's supporting a universal uh salvation of infants where uh one of the things i found is that and unfortunately i only have this in a uh translation of a of a latin document that i don't have the whole document for but the official charges that were brought up against cervetus that uh calvin led they particularly point out that uh and i'll just go ahead and uh quote that so this is this is uh calvin and 15 other genevan pastors um excuse me uh 14 other genevan pastors talking about michael cervetus uh he dare uh he dare condemn none of the infant offspring of ninovites or barbarians to hell because in his opinion a merciful 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 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 and so here you have one of the chief arguments against cervetus being that uh when infants are talked about as being you know how happy is he who dashes their heads against the rocks etc uh that he would condemn none of them to hell so you have this example of calvin and uh you know there's plenty of examples of others too from that era uh you know reformed reformed theologians who would all say at least the children of unbelievers if not more than that at least the children of unbelievers are are assigned to hell sure yeah i mean i think you can look at um augustine's confessions at the very least and you know him confessing the of his infancy and that would it um that would be um another example of a church father who would at least be um at that point denying the you know idea of age of accountability um right because you know if there's not a age of accountability you don't have to go back or if there's nature you don't have to go back there but yeah and just just thinking more about this idea that um you know children are special in the eyes of god uh and therefore you know if he doesn't want them to they won't perish uh where when does that 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 is it around age five like and then at five or twelve you know he stops loving them and he does start denying that they perish like you you have this weird kind of conditional love that god has for infants if this is your if this is your view of how he how he thinks of children yeah you don't have any um like the only way to really make that make sense at all if if there is that kind of special um adoptive kind of love that he has for them um you really don't have a category for him acting in judgment upon them in history you know um you basically have to i mean like he could 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 right then yeah exactly they wouldn't die in general but then they wouldn't die as objects of god's temporal judgment as well right right yeah if he doesn't wish that they perish in any sense then why do they perish in some sense why do they perish in some sense like whether indirectly or directly or you know but it's all a part of his plan right 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 right i mean 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 it must just be he's just as sad as you know the tornado his hand his hand is forced given you know the world we live in yeah what when he tells him to like the israelites to exterminate entire peoples right his hand was forced i mean at some point it's just like well maybe maybe that's not a good place to go you know uh but then i guess apparently he just gets really mad at them after they you know get to seven years old or something and is that basically right yeah there's 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 yeah definitely it definitely feels like um you know like like with so many other other things that people make mistakes on when it comes to theology and what god has actually told us um 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 but then yeah i i think part of 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 saying you know asking myself like okay yeah what what's the age then you know like how do we even know that seems like something that we should probably that god should probably have told us you know if we're gonna you know if i'm gonna raise my children right then i i would like to know when's the you know what at what age are they all of a sudden like all right now i need to really be careful that i make sure they don't die because because now you know if they die they're going to go to hell and and they weren't before and and and i think there's just so many questions like that that are that lead you to weird answers that don't seem to align with god's character and his nature that have that have you know pushed me to to the position that i i just don't think that you know um 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 i just i think that they get held to the same judgment that everyone else gets held to and so um i i i think i think that's kind of a good place to end on that the idea of like all right take them to their logical conclusions and and they just don't it they just don't work they they lead you to weird conclusions that i don't think we would make in any other circumstance uh or any other topic or talking about any other type of people you know we we don't come to these conclusions but then we want to when it comes to children so um connelly you've done you you've been so brave man you you've done two episodes now you've been uh you've been uh bruce jenner transitioning brave that's high praise right there brave and stunning you've been brave and you've been you've been real the real brave not just the yeah well maybe i'll find it maybe i'll regret it after i start getting emails after this episode well we we didn't tag we didn't tag your email on the last one so people find it they'll find yeah they'll find a way but um no i don't know any facebook post or anything you've got to tag me in them so i can see the the things people are saying in response okay um yeah no no we really are appreciative of you being willing to come on and talk about this um because like like we said last time this this is important anytime you talk about salvation we need we need to you know we that i mean that's one of the core you know um uh aspects of christianity of salvation and so we really need to commit ourselves to understanding what it is god said when it comes to these things because there's so many implications that come from it but um before we go i didn't get i i forgot to do this last time um but i want to make sure i do it this time is connelly uh before before we get off uh why don't you go ahead and just you know uh tell everyone who's listening where can they find more of you what are you working on right now sure this is the part where you leave your email address so that people can yeah well like i said people can easily find it if they want but i'm a pastor at silicon valley reform baptist church so you can check out our church at svrbc .org

01:15:31

and then uh also please check out the episode i did earlier with bible dashed um on the dorian principle uh it was about uh the commercialization of christianity i have a book called the dorian prince the dorian principle a biblical response to the commercialization of christianity and you can check that out at the dorian principle .org

01:15:52

yeah and and that's a um that's a free book right it's it's you can order it you can read it online and it's an audiobook right that's correct yeah it's uh it's in a lot of different formats epub kindle pdf uh just right on the website and yeah and also an audiobook and there's also a facebook group i'd really love it if more people join the facebook group it's called money and ministry and so yeah we talk about the commercialization of christianity there um you just said freely you received freely give but so many ministries are trying to sell you things rather than freely giving right okay well again thank you for coming on the show and uh we want to you know take time to to thank all of you guys who are listening uh for the ways that you support us for the ways that you interact with us that's a ton of fun to get to talk with you guys and comment back and forth on some of these things and and hear your perspective and and um you know what your positions are on the various things that we talk about and you know our whole goal is is to be able to equip you guys for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask and and you know i personally i think that's a ton of fun and and it's fun to get to hear from back from a lot of you guys and hear how you know hey you like you like talking you're hearing from people who are willing to say these things and connelly you've definitely proven that you're willing to you're you're bible bashed material your bible bash material and so uh so thank you connelly thank you for all you guys that listen and we'll catch you on the next one this has been another episode of bible bashed we hope you have been encouraged and blessed through our discussion we thank you for all your support and ask you to continue to like and subscribe to bible bashed and share our podcast with your friends and on social media please reach out to us with your questions pushback and potential topics for us to discuss in future episodes at bible bashed podcast at gmail .com