When I first came to the church I presently pastor, a dear sister in Christ had asked me a question that most people wonder about, “What happens to a mentally handicapped person when they die?” She had a special friendship with a dear person who was born with a severe case of Downs Syndrome. Her question is a very important one.
Difficult Questions
For that matter, we should also ask further difficult questions. What is the eternal destiny of infants and very young children who do not have the mental capacity to comprehend their accountability to God? How does one account for the fact that a baby is (as my wife puts it) both a “stinker” and very “precious” at the same time? How does the love, mercy, and justice of God come into play with people who are incapable of comprehending any revelation of God whatsoever? If we are all ‘made sinners’ because of Adam’s sin, how can babies go to heaven? (Romans 5:19).
These are all serious and important questions. My hope is to uncover what the Word of God teaches. In the end, I believe the Bible gives hope to all parents who have lost babies and little children and to those who have a child or a friend that is mentally handicapped.
All Infants are Participants in Adam’s Fall
I believe God is merciful to babies, little children, and the mentally handicapped, but not because they are innocent. I do believe babies and people born mentally impaired go to heaven when they die, but not because of a sentimental notion that babies are not participants in the Fall. There is no question that all humanity (being in the loins of Adam) participated in Adam’s Fall.
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned…. Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous (Romans 5:12, 18-19).
According to the above verses, all humanity are participants in the Fall of Adam. What sin has an infant committed? The answer is none (Romans 9:21). Yet we know that all humans are brought forth through physical birth into sin and have a nature and proneness toward sin.
David states that we all come into the world as sinners: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5, NASB, ESV). The word “brought forth” according to the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, means, “writhing in labor pains”.[1] The word “iniquity” means “to bend, twist, distort” or “to sin”.[2] We are all born with a crooked, selfish heart bent away from God. This verse is a good description in the Old Testament as to how we are “made sinners” through Adam.
Adam is the federal head of the human race, just as Christ is the Head of the “one new humanity”, His Body the Church (Ephesians 2:15).[3] Adam is the representative of the human race, and his sin is imputed to the human race so that all human beings will die, including some infants, and all in Adam are “made sinners” because of his decision to eat of the forbidden fruit (Romans 5:19).
We must be clear that this corruption is not God’s work, but it comes through our parents’ loins. “In Adam all die” (1 Corinthians 15:22; cf. Hebrews 7:5-10). Ephesians 2:2 says that all men are “children of disobedience” and “by nature the children of wrath”. We are all born with a nature that leads us astray. “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child” (Proverbs 22:15).
David says speaking of the wicked men who were persecuting him: “The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies” (Psalm 58:3). This verse implies that the nature of people are fallen from their wombs. Matthew Henry says about this verse: “wickedness is bred in the bone with them; they brought it into the world with them; they have in their natures a strong inclination to it; they learned it from their wicked parents, and have been trained up in it by a bad education”.[4]
The Basis of Infant Death: Adam’s Sin
If babies were born innocent or pure or morally neutral, there would be no basis for their death. The very fact that infants die indicates that the sin of Adam has had an effect upon them. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 3:23). “The soul that sinneth it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). Since an infant has done no sin in and of himself, why does he or she die? It is “in Adam” that “all die” (1 Corinthians 15:22). If an infant lives, he will, as soon as he is able, sin for himself. In Adam every child has a proneness to sin, has Adam’s sin and sinful nature imputed to him, and will therefore one day most certainly die. Adam’s sin is imputed universally so that it is absolutely certain that ten out of ten people will die. In our inherited sin nature the seeds of death are planted. So we must ask: If babies are not innocent then how does God deal with not only babies, but all persons that do not have the mental capacity to comprehend the depth of sin or the person of God?
The Age of Accountability
The Scriptures seem to infer that the judgment of God is based on a person’s ability to comprehend their own sin and their accountability to God. For infants and little children, we have come to call this age of comprehension, the age of accountability. We know that “unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12:48). We learn about sin and God through our conscience, through creation, and directly through the Word of God. If a person has none of these, we have to ask, is he or she accountable? Are babies, little children, and mentally handicapped people held accountable for Adam’s sin? Are they held accountable for sin if they do not have the capacity to understand what they are doing?
Only Those With Ability to Comprehend are Without Excuse
Let me say first of all regarding accountability of a child: Scripture is clear that all who have the capacity to comprehend God’s creation in nature are certainly without excuse. At what age that occurs, no one knows, but it is through nature we can comprehend the existence of God.
For what can be known about God is plain to them [that is, to mankind], because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse (Romans 1:19-20, ESV).
I believe this verse implies that those who cannot comprehend God through the creation because of mental incapability or whose conscience is not yet developed to discern sinful actions are safe. Only those who can have mental capacity are without excuse. All others are safe, even though because of Adam’s sin, they sin, yet without full knowledge.
A Baby Has No Works for God to Judge
All people are judged according to their actual works. A baby has committed no sins in the womb, and so he is safe. Romans 9:11 speaks of Jacob and Esau being in the womb “being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil”. Revelation 12:20 speaks of judgment day. John writes, “I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened…and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works” (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:10; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10). The sin of Adam is not brought out, but they will be judged “according to their [own] works”. Children in the womb have done no wrong of their own. I believe we can imply that heathen nations from all around the globe who have had stillborn births and miscarriages will have their children in heaven. There will be a multitude without number.
Charles Spurgeon said, "I rejoice to know that the souls of all infants, as soon as they die, speed their way to paradise. Think what a multitude there is of them."[5]
Those Without a Developed Conscience are Safe
Those who have no knowledge of good and evil, who do not have a fully developed conscience, will not be held accountable even though they do evil.
Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it. But as for you, turn you, and take your journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea (Deuteronomy 1:39-40).
These verses imply that the younger a child is, the more he or she lacks knowledge of what is and is not sin. But we must be careful. This verse does not teach that little children do no good or evil. They simply lack knowledge that what they do is sin. These verses imply that infants and little children do not have a fully developed understanding of good and evil and hence lack the capacity to make morally informed and thus responsible choices. At what age are children accountable? The Bible does not say. It is probably different for each child.
The Bible Generally Indicates Infants are Safe
Scripture generally indicates that babies will go to heaven. When David says "I will go to him, but he will not return to me" (2 Samuel 12:23) after the death of his son, what else can he mean? That he will be buried next to his son? No, the joy and confidence that David has in this passage indicate that this baby went to be with God.
In Job 3:16-17, Job says he wishes he were like a stillborn child because they enter into rest. Job wishes he could die and go to heaven. Listen to his words: “as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest”.
Conclusion
It is because of the these reasons that I believe though children inherit a sinful nature from Adam, I do not believe that children will be judged for Adam’s sin.
(1.) Only those who can have mental capacity are without excuse (Romans 1:19-20).
(2.) People are judged according to their works. Babies in the womb specifically have no works (Romans 9:11).
(3.) Those who have no knowledge of good and evil, who do not have a fully developed conscience, will not be held accountable even though they do evil (Deuteronomy 1:39-40).
(4.) Scripture generally indicates that infants will go to heaven.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon summed it up best:
Among the gross falsehoods which have been uttered against the Calvinist Proper is the wicked calumny [slander] that we hold the damnation of little infants. A baser lie was never uttered. There may have existed somewhere in some corner of the earth, a miscreant [criminal] who would dare to say that there were infants in hell, but I have never met with him, nor have I met with a man who ever saw such a person! We say with regard to infants, Scripture saith but little, and therefore, where Scripture is confessedly scant, it is for no man to determine dogmatically, but I think I speak for the entire body or certainly with exceedingly few exceptions and those unknown to me when I say we hold that all infants who die are elect of God and are therefore saved! We look to this as being the means by which Christ shall see of the travail of his soul to a great degree and we do sometimes hope that thus the multitude of the saved shall be made to exceed the multitude of the lost.[6]
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[1]Harris, R. Laird ; Harris, Robert Laird ; Archer, Gleason Leonard ; Waltke, Bruce K.: Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. electronic ed. Chicago : Moody Press, 1999, c1980, S. 270
[2]Ibid.
[3] author’s translation
[4] Matthew Henry. Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996), Psalm 58:3.
[5] Spurgeon. Autobiography, Volume 1, 175.
[6] Charles Spurgeon. Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume 7, Sermon 385, “Exposition of the Doctrines of Grace” (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1861), 297.
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