A Parent’s Hope | Rapp Report Daily 0055 | Striving for Eternity

Pastoral Care and the Limits of Certainty About Infant Salvation

Welcome to the Rapid Bull, daily edition, where we provide a quick biblical interpretations and applications. This is a ministry of striving for eternity.

As we've been dealing with the question that was emailed in to us, do children go to heaven? We have to address this pastorally as well. The passage in 2 Samuel chapter 12 and verse 23 that many hold to as a promise that David is prophesying or claiming clearly that all children go to heaven we've seen this week is not valid.

However, this is an issue that is very, very difficult for many parents. I, myself, has lost a child while still in the womb and did not get an opportunity to share in a relationship with that child. Does that hurt?

Yes.

Do I wish to see that child someday in heaven?

Yes.

But should I trust in a false promise?

No.

The worst thing I could do as a counselor is give a false hope and say that the Bible says something it does not say. Do I believe that all children go to heaven? I cannot say because the scripture does not say clearly.

There are passages that might imply that and there's passages that would not. But we are born with this in nature and therefore we would be found guilty before God even as infants when we act in selfish ways the first thing out of the womb.

And yet the fact is that we desire to see our children in heaven who've passed away. Can we answer this definitively? No, we cannot because scripture is not clear. But we still would have hope that we would see our children in heaven one day.

That's our hope.

This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.