Elect Infants
The Westminster Confession of Faith says,
10.3 Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit,a who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth.b So also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.c
a. Luke 18:15-16 and John 3:3, 5 and Acts 2:38-39 and Rom 8:9 and 1 John 5:12 compared together. • b. John 3:8. • c. Acts 4:12; 1 John 5:12.
The Lord is gracious and I believe that what is confessed here, namely, that “elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ . . .” This position is often conflated with what is called the “age of accountability” but for one crucial reason, they are not the same. The notion of an “age of accountability” states that children are not held accountable by God for their sins until they reach a certain age and that if a child dies before reaching the “age of accountability,” that child will, by the grace and mercy of God, be granted entrance into heaven. At first, it may appear that these two positions are synonymous with each other, however, an age of accountability must be rejected because of the reality of imputed sin; the sin of Adam is inherited by all of his posterity. Imputed sin is something that the scriptures are very clear about, since Paul says, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned . . . therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men . . . For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners” (Romans 5:12,18,19, emphasis added). This means that for every single person from the very moment of conception, from the very second the sperm and egg combine, there is guilt for sin. That person is guilty before God. This reality is enough to condemn a person to hell for all eternity. This is a difficult truth to grasp for some. It is even more difficult for some to come to terms with our sinful nature and how God truly treats those guilty of sin and is (at least partly) why an age of accountability is thought to be a reality.
It is important, therefore, to continue with the assertion by some, that children are innocent of sin, or essentially sinless before the age of accountability. The age of accountability is nowhere to be found in the bible. There is nowhere when an age limit (as proponents of an age of accountability see it) is set by God to determine when a child becomes responsible for his or her sins. Rather, God tells us that the age when people become accountable is the very moment they come into existence; the very moment they are conceived. Not only was Adam’s sin imputed to all mankind but it also endowed to them the natural reaction of sin: hatred toward God. David harkens to this point in Psalm 51:5 confessing that he was sinful since conception and guilty of iniquity since his birth. In other words, from conception he was guilty, and from birth, he was practicing sin. God brings to bare the reality of our sin nature and it is made painfully clear in the pages of scripture. Infants, therefore, (if they do go to heaven) are not going there because they are innocent of sin. On the contrary, they are just as guilty as the vilest human adult who has ever lived.
The second important assertion is to establish the goodness of God. God always does what is just and right (Genesis 18:25). God is good and always does what is righteous. Psalm 119:68 declares, “You are good and do good,” and Romans 3:1-7 shows the absolute righteousness of God in judging the world. So we have to say that whether infants do or do not go to heaven when they die, that it is a good thing God does on their behalf. God does not do things that we have decided are good; things are good because God does them.
However, in light of the above considerations, It is my confident assertion that infants do go to heaven if and when they die in infancy and I especially believe this for the children of believing parents. God saves people one-way only: he saves his elect people. Likewise, God is free and can do as he pleases, so this means that he is not obligated to save anyone, not even infants who die in infancy. However, in God's Covenant, is a promise of faithfulness to the children of believers to be his or her God. There is interesting language found in Deuteronomy 1:39 where, in speaking of the promised land, God says, “And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.” God is speaking through Moses saying that the children "whose age did not yet allow them to discern between good and evil” were going to enter the Promised Land, which was a foreshadowing of heaven. Far from absolving these children from being guilty of their sins, Deuteronomy 1:39 does say, however, that they are unable to discern between good things or evil things. So, in God’s wisdom, he is kind to them. Also in 2 Samuel 12:23 David remarks that he will go to his deceased child, yet he says this with relief asking, “why should I fast . . . I will go to him.” In other words, why should he do that which expresses mourning, because he knows that not only will he be reunited with him after he dies, but that where he is going there his child is already, and this can only be into the bosom of Christ himself. Job 3:11-19 says,
“Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire? Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse? For then I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest, with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuilt ruins for themselves, or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver. Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child, as infants who never see the light? There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. There the prisoners are at ease together; they hear not the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master” (emphasis added).
This passage of scripture comes on the heels of Job suffering a massively tragic loss, and so his words are striking but are fitting for the moment. Here Job laments his birth, but he does not say that it would have been better for him to have never been born. Rather, he says - on two occasions - that it would have been better for him to come into existence (be conceived) and then perish. However, his description of what life would be like after he perished on this Earth is described as quiet, restful, comfortable, ceasing from trouble, easy, and free. This does not sound like a description of hell, but rather a place of great contentment, which can only be with Christ the Lord.
Finally, infants are not people who suppress the truth as we see in Romans 1. They do not suppress and reject God’s general revelation nor do they reject the Bible as God’s special revelation. By their very nature as infants, or unborn, they do not have the ability to reject God in their person in this way in an outward, obvious, deliberate, objective, and conscious way. So the things of God are not clearly seen by them. This does not mean that children are unintelligent or ignorant, but this does mean that they possess mental and physical limitations that prevent them from seeing and understanding certain aspectsin the world as plainly as adults do.
I believe in God's goodness and his graciousness, and I believe that sorrow and mourning can be turned to joy and gladness when we ponder the grandeur and graciousness of our heavenly Father. Babies who die as infants, or who are aborted, are not lost to the cosmos, annihilated never to be seen or heard from again, but rather they are upheld by the God of the universe because they are precious to him. Jesus declared “let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:14). There are many theological reasons that Jesus said this, but perhaps one reason may be because in God’s infinite knowledge he knew that more people in the world would be murdered by abortion than in any other way. Therefore, heaven is utterly packed “with a multitude that no one can number” (Revelation 7:9) with the little children that the Lord cares for so deeply. When the most innocent perish it is a tragedy, but our God is just, and he only does that which is just.
Mourning can be turned to joy, and sorrow turned to eager anticipation when we ponder the goodness and mercy of our God. The scriptures do not leave grieving mothers and fathers to wonder what - if anything - has happened to their little girl or boy. Our God is a Father who is full of compassion and will do right (Genesis 18:25). Trust in our Savior to restore you (1 Peter 5:10), to make all things new (Revelation 21:5), and to wipe all your tears away (Revelation 7:17; 21:4).
