Christianity.com: What happens to infants when they die?-Mark Dever

remember when davids first child with bathsheba died. he told his servants---the child shall not return to me, but I shall go to him. did david go to be with christ? I'm sure he did. God is good, all the time!

Without going into a long discussion, note what Mr. Dever pointed out in this video. Even though God has not said anything in the Bible about this in direct fashion, follow God's Self-Revelation in what He has said and done. True, there were exceptions---the executions of families during the trip to Canaan, the execution of families under Joshua once in Canaan. But God has always stressed throughout: "The soul that sins shall die". "The sins of the fathers shall not be visited upon the children". Undeveloped infants and toddlers can not choose consciously, rather like adults with severe mental underdevelopment. Following what God has shown Himself to be like in the Bible, He has shown that he will no more damn them automatically because they have not confessed verbally than he would accept infant baptism as a form of salvation. He is Just, but in the truest sense, just as He is Mercifull fully and truly. The children are surely in His Presence and under His Eternal Care. That is how He has revealed Himself, and He can never do anything that is self-contradicting.

Voilet, You are correct, David under the inspriation of God the Holy Spirit wrote in 2nd Samuel when his child died, I shall go to him, But he will not return to me. My question to those who disagree, Do you believe that the Bible is the infallible Word of God.

Who can know the mind of God and who are we O man to tell God what He should think or do. We like to think we know God's will in every matter but the truth is that His ways are much higher than our ways. I'm not so sure about original sin. I think we were born into grace first. Adam did not know what sine was until the law was put into effect. He was not born with the law on his heart, God had to make him aware of it. But I have a hard time with understanding that anyone of us even from birth are innocent. There are too many stories where God told the Israelite's to wipe out whole towns, every person, animal and thing because they were evil in God's sight. There are too many scriptures that bend both ways. All I'm saying is that God is God and we are not. We are the clay and He is the Potter and there is just no way we can put God in a box. We do know His character but not His specific will in every case. My hope is that this doesn't sound argumentative but honing, like iron.

For christians who may be struggling with the question; WHY God?

David may have gotten an assurance from the Holy Spirit about his baby son. But this story does not set up definitive doctrine on this issue. Where is there anything in the Bible on the so-called age of accountability as it relates to salvation? If you assume that all the babies that die in infancy were to grow to adulthood, how many of them would be saved? Obviously, a great percentage would not be. Then it would be an advantage to die as an infant if you got an immediate ticket to eternal life, no? From a human standpoint, isn't every death a sorrow to someone, no matter what the age of the deceased? Why the sentimental translation straight into heaven of babies....because they are sweet and humanly helpless? The Bible is clear that God has mercy on whom He desires to have mercy. We cannot dictate to Him that this includes all infants. All we can say is that the Lord of all will do justly.

Please read my reply to Leo Lenschow! Thank You! GOD Bleass all of you as he did me! I learned so much listening to THE ARNOLD FAMILY, FROM THE SHEPHERDS CHAPEL. I have followed the Arnold Family for many years. Amazing People. They use to be on TV but now are on line.

"age of accountability"... "innocent children"... neither concept is found in the scripture, especially in relation to the inherited sinful nature (see Rom 5) that all are born with. I find Pastor Dever's efforts to be a good attempt at bringing comfort to grieving parents from his baptist perspective. But, as a father who has lost two little ones, a merciful God who will "do the right thing" falls flat on two accounts. One, a merciful God who does the right thing might see fit to send the guilty to hell, and we are sinful from our mother's womb (see Ps 51). Two, he doesn't deal with all the data the scripture has about covenant children (like the 2 Samuel passage referenced by another commenter) and the promises that belong to them by right of their birth to Christian parents.

we are all created by GOD because we all we recieve victory atlast those that believe in Jesus Revelation 20:12.

Christ said the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.Speaking of children, Unless we become like them we can not enter heaven.So this is the answer according to Gods word, Children belong to God until the age of accountability where they can choose not to belong to God.amen.

Who did Jesus die for? The LOST--- then why not the innocent infant? I know through my life walking with him he is a good God.

We are never to know the answer in this side of the world. We know God is merciful and just, but we must do our utmost best to save the human infants from the moment of conception or any other similar status. No excuse to leave them for manual destruction by other human beings. We are not in a position of deciding whether the baby will be happy or unhappy in this world; we just must protect their physical lives the best we can. Human infants inevitably got included in the collective punishment occasions for irreversibly evil human societies in the Old Covenant era for various practical reasons but not in this New Covenant era. We know from Psalms God handles innocent victims who committed no actual sins.

why would God not expect a new born back into his kingdom they never had a change to see this wicked world or the thing that would temp. then

Are infants saved? Can people who have never heard the gospel be saved? The bible answers these questions indirectly but omits a defiative answer. Why? It is because the Bible is for you. It teaches about your relationship with God and what you can do. It is not an encyclopedia of all knowledge to explain all things but instead, it talks about how you can serve. So, it excludes irrelivant information to eternity that our scientists research daily and it also excludes ministering to people that you can never meet. We are to teach the gospel to all who we meet but those whom we cannot meet or who cannot understand we trust in God to do according to his will as it was God who gave them life, chose where they would or would not be born and then it was God who took away the life he had given. Certainly we can trust the creator of the universe in all things.

I think this is something God made ambiguous on purpose. We know the judgment is according to actual committed conducts though every human is a born-sinner. The Bible has both passages suggesting babies safe and tainted by sin-nature. If God had told us clearly that all babies would go to Heaven automatically, none of us would try to save human babies including fetus or children from physical or spiritual harms. We know babies are Adam's sinful race but also innocent in conducts and need our protection by all means. We also know how much Jesus loved children. God is fair, just, loving and almighty. There are something we must not know in this side of the world.