Welcome to the For the Gospel Podcast, where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Costi Hinn. And whether you're listening to this on your favorite podcast platform or watching on our YouTube channel, I'm really thankful that you've joined me for this episode. And as always, I just want to thank you, especially to our gospel patrons and our partners who enable us to produce and distribute all of this content, along with the translation of the ministry now into Spanish. We are incredibly grateful for the reach that God has provided. The numbers look great, but really what we're after is life transformation and the testimonies coming in will bring you to tears. It's been wonderful to hear from all of you. If this ministry's blessed you, be sure to send us a DM or drop a review. Let us know. We really do check on those. The team will send me those updates. When you send letters or send us mail, even the old school snail mail, those get to me. They mean a great deal, and we view them as affirmation that God is using this ministry in your life. And for those of you who want to partner with us as the year winds down and we set our sights on fundraising goals, you can go to forthegospel.org, click give, and all of the information is there to partner with us. We're grateful for you trusting us with this stewardship. Today I'm continuing our series on heaven and the afterlife by answering a very key question, and it's a sensitive one. Do babies who die go to heaven? And I'm also going to include special needs kids or individuals who cannot make credible professions of faith because of the unique challenges they face within their mental capacity and their mental faculties. Now, there's various positions on this, and I'm not in agreement with one of them in particular within the reformed evangelical circle. And while I would consider myself, and those of you familiar with our ministry know the way I describe it as lowercase are reformed, meaning I'm not Presbyterian, I don't baptize babies, I don't wear the robes, but we are reformed-ish or reformed in our soteriology, and of course, many of the classic doctrines of the Christian faith, and we hold the line and draw clear lines, yes and amen. We love sound doctrine and we provide it for everyday people. It's the goal of our ministry in my local church. It's exactly the same way. But there's going to be a few distinctives along the way with what I would just call classic or confessional Reformed Protestantism. And it's the position that only the babies who are the elect go to heaven. Only babies who are elect go to heaven. And then there's other babies they're not the elect and they go to hell. Now I understand the positional consistency that view offers within Reformed circles because of our belief in the doctrine of divine election, that God is the initiator of salvation, meaning he chooses to save and he awakens the dead heart. You say, okay, that's kind of new, or explain that one to me, Costi. Is this the old Calvinism versus Arminiism debate? Yes, and here's the deal. We would describe it, and I would argue for this, and we have episodes on it, that God is the, as the Bible says, the author and the finisher of our faith. He's the beginning, he's the author. He starts it. God is the initiator, man is the responder. God starts it. We're dead in our sins, Ephesians 2. We cannot awaken our own dead heart. Vodhi Bacham used to always say, dead men don't grab, like the life preserver was thrown of the gospel, dead men don't grab. They don't reach out and grab it. God does it all, he does the work, and then we respond in faith. So God is sovereign, man is responsible. Absolutely. The doctrine of divine election is clear in Scripture. We don't know who the people are who are going to respond to Christ in that way or whom he's going to call at any given moment, but we know the Bible says no one can come unless the Father draws. And so we absolutely believe in the doctrine of divine election and that God is 100% involved in salvation. He is the initiator, the author of it. We don't choose to be saved. God is the one who starts the work and he finishes it. But I believe that where the scriptures contradict your tradition or doctrinal framework, you and I, we should bow to scripture, even if it messes with our tidy label or the confession or whatnot. Scripture, not tradition, scripture, not confessions, scripture, not theological camps and labels, is our ultimate source for doctrine and living. And so on this particular issue, I would depart from kind of the classical reformed view of certain types of reformed circles, in that only the babies who are the elect go to heaven. Again, I appreciate the consistency. I know there's arguments there, but here's the deal. I would be of the mind, biblically, and I'll prove it during this episode, that there's a clear view and a clear path for the answer to be yes. Yes, all babies who die go to heaven. And fewer questions weigh heavier on the hearts of parents. And right alongside comes another question. What about those who, because of profound mental or developmental limitations, never reach the point where they can understand sin and repentance and faith in Christ, or even this, biblically, just general revelation. Like Romans 1 says that things have been made clear that even though you don't have special revelation, which is God's word revealed the specifics of the gospel, all men will be responsible for general revelation, for they look and they know something bigger than me has made this. Something beyond me was here first. There is intelligent design, there is a God. The book of Ecclesiastes says that God has set eternity in the hearts of men. So everybody knows, but Romans 1.18 says that the wicked, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. It's like the gay person knows being gay is sin, they push it down. The person who says, Well, I feel like I'm a woman, I just happen to be born a man, so I want to be a woman. Well, the Bible says, or God made you this, or that's not some social construct, that's genetics and design, and that's binary, and you are either male and female. No, I don't like that. And they suppress the truth. All men look up and know there is a God. And so that's general revelation in theology. We would say that. Well, babies, or those who are uh under the label of, we'll call it just special needs, and they don't have the mental capacity to even understand general revelation. Well, I would make the argument from scripture, and many good theologians do, that they will be ushered into glory. And if you want to say that only the elect uh go to heaven, well, then they are all of the elect, and God has chosen to bring them all unto Himself. And if you've ever wrestled with this, I want to assure you, God's word is not silent. Well, there's not a single verse that says, all babies go to heaven, like the old movie, all dogs go to heaven. The Bible gives us more than enough truth to rest on God's justice, his mercy, and his grace, and it's consistent with his character. So today I want to walk you through five biblical reasons we can believe with confidence that babies and those who never develop the capacity to grasp the gospel are safe in the arms of Christ. Reason number one God's justice is always perfect. And the passage that I would reference is Genesis 18, 25. When Abraham pleaded for Sodom, he asked this shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just? That's not rhetoric. That's not a random story. That's theology. The judge of all the earth always does what is right. God always. He never condemns someone unjustly. If someone is condemned to hell, it is just and right, consistent with scripture. He doesn't punish people for uh, you know, light they never had or rebellion they couldn't commit. And yes, babies, like all of us, are born under Adam's fall, Psalm 51.5. We are born in iniquity, we have sin, we are stained with sin, original sin, because of Adam's sin entered the world. But babies haven't willfully rejected the truth. They haven't suppressed the truth and unrighteousness, as Romans 1 describes. And so if God's justice is perfect, and it is, then his treatment of those without moral awareness is going to be perfectly righteous as well. And so we can rest knowing God will never misjudge. He doesn't get this one wrong. He judges perfectly and rightly. Reason number two, as we build this case, is that God distinguishes in the Bible between willful sin and inability. He distinguishes between willful sin and inability. Two passages to highlight here, Deuteronomy 1, chapter 39, and Jonah 4, verse 11. In Deuteronomy 139, when Israel refused to enter the promised land, God judged that unbelieving generation. They were unbelievers. But he makes this distinction and he says this, and I quote, your little ones who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there. He's saying, look, the next generation, these babies, these little ones, they have no knowledge of good and evil. They don't understand, they haven't viewed general revelation, they haven't seen me work, they haven't been given special revelation, as so much of Israel, of course, had been, being talked to directly by God. But those children hadn't yet developed the capacity for moral discernment. And so he treated them differently than the willfully rebellious adults. Now, fast forward to Jonah chapter 4, verse 11. There's this moment at the end of the book of Jonah. Jonah has preached judgment on Nineveh. And then God does spare Nineveh. They repent. And then Jonah's thrown a pity party. He's all sad. He's underneath the tree and he's pouting and he's mad. And God basically says to him, like, Oh, oh, what are you so mad about, prophet? Well, I, you know, he wanted to see a fireworks show. Jonah wanted them to burn. He's like, These people don't deserve your mercy. They don't deserve. And Nineveh was preached to with the message of repent. They do repent. And then that's like me being mad when I go preach the gospel on a Sunday and people get saved. And I'm like, oh man, you know, I really thought they were going to go to hell. I'm going to watch them burn. I thought some fireworks were going to come from the heavens and destroy them all. And so God ends up rebuking Jonah and says, Should I not pity Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left? 120,000 people in this great city that don't know, they can't discern their right hand from their left hand. What's God talking about? That's God describing moral and spiritual immaturity, people who couldn't discern right from wrong, yet they still stirred his compassion. It's another window into his heart. And most, many theologians view that passage as children or babies and those with special needs. Why? Because God sees the difference between those who won't obey and those who can't understand. When it comes to babies or those whose minds never mature beyond that innocent unawareness, we can trust that the same God who pitied Nineveh extends mercy towards them still today as well. He is both just and tender towards the morally helpless. And again, this isn't the adult who's just sinning and knows that there might be a God or sees general revelations like, well, I never heard the gospel. I didn't know. We're not talking about that. This is an absence of willful rebellion. Reason number three, David's confidence points heavenward. King David, in 2 Samuel chapter 12, verses 22 to 23. It's this statement that he makes. His son has been taken from him in judgment. The baby, his infant son, has died. And David is lamenting unto God. He says, Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him. He shall not return to me. He's saying, Can I, is there a way for him to come back? No. He's not coming back, but I will go to him. When you look at a passage like that, you see, David wasn't talking about the grave, like, I will go to him, I'm gonna go die too. No, he was talking about glory. He knew where he was going. I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, is what David said. And he knew where his son already was. If this were mere sentiment, it wouldn't be scripture. It is scripture, though. It's spirit-inspired confidence in God's mercy. And so when Christian parents today say, you know, I know I'll see my child again, they're echoing the same hope that David had. And the same hope applies to the mentally incapacitated and those who could never understand the gospel because of their stage. They too are known by God, they're safe with Him. We can say with confidence of our babies, whether it's a miscarriage, whether it's the death of an infant from SIDS or sickness or some other issue, they will not come to me, but I will go to them. Reason number four Christ's love for the helpless reveals heaven's heart. I say it that way because when you look at the way Jesus treated children, oh, you see the heart of heaven towards these little ones. Mark chapter 10, verses 13 to 16 is this beautiful picture of the disciples bringing, you know, these kids to Jesus, but not because they wanted to, but because they ended up getting rebuked. And Jesus said, Yeah, don't do that. Bring them to me. Bring the children to me. The disciples tried pushing them away. And Jesus says, Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. The disciples had tried to push them away, but Jesus stopped them and said, No, no, you bring the children to me. He didn't say the kingdom might belong to them one day. He said it already belongs to them. He wasn't being sentimental. He was revealing the heart of heaven. The kingdom belongs to the humble, the weak, and the dependent. And if Jesus welcomes those who can't come on their own, would he not also welcome those who could never understand how to come in in the first place? His compassion for the helpless isn't symbolic. It's purely redemptive. He draws near to the ones the world overlooks. There's this great book. I'm holding it in my hands if you're watching it on YouTube, if you're listening. It's this blue book. It's called Safe in the Arms of God. It's by Pastor John MacArthur, who is in glory even as I record this episode. Safe in the Arms of God, one of the best books I've ever read on the subject. It's short, it's to the point, it's clear. And MacArthur writes this at one point in this section, talking about the doctrine of election, talking about the gospel, grace, mercy, innocence, children, how people are saved, and that this doctrine, where you believe that all babies who die will go to heaven, isn't just some happy little sentiment like a fortune cookie coping mechanism. But MacArthur says if an infant or mentally incapable person is saved, it will not be because of innocence, but because of grace. And that's really the point here. No one is saying that they just get in scot-free and they're never considered sinners. All are born in sin. Ephesians 2 says we are all by nature children of wrath. Babies don't come out of the womb as saints, they come out as sinners. I was listening to Devotee Bacham recently, an old sermon from him, he was talking about the reason that God makes them so uh uh incapable babies, they come out unable to be mobilized, unable to do anything because if they could, if they could, they would kill you. You know, and the idea of if you wanted to take over the world, you would mobilize a bunch of toddlers and they would do the job like a rebel army, no problem. You don't have to ever teach your kid to say no. You don't have to teach disobedience. They come out, and the minute they can talk and they can formulate words and concepts, they go, what? No, mine, all of that. You have to teach them obedience, right? That's biblical. Nobody is saying that a child who dies is just never stained by sin, they're perfect. No, but the same way you and I, those sinners, or stained by sin, are ushered into glory and salvation by the mercy and grace of God, though we are able to respond, and that is required, no doubt. We must have faith to receive salvation in that sense, and it's applied to us through Christ. Well, in the same way, uh gospel, the gospel, salvation is applied to babies who are, in the sense, innocent in that they've never willfully rebelled, but in the same way we're given grace by God and it's applied to us, so it is to them. It's not because they're innocent and they're so sinless and they're so perfect, it's because of the grace of God and their status as quote, innocent, if we would call them that because they haven't willfully rebelled, willfully rebelled, is just a label that God would see them in their infancy and say, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And it is these little ones who have not willfully rebelled, though they're stained by sin. And that really is the gospel in purest form. MacArthur says they're not going to be saved because of their innocence, like they did anything, but even in their innocence or their label as a baby who's not willfully rebelled, it's still gonna be all of grace. Reason number five, salvation belongs to the Lord. If you are bothered by a doctrinal teaching like this, or you say, well, I just don't think that's fair, I just don't think this, or I guess, you know, it doesn't make sense for my reformed labels and this, that, and the other. Well, then you gotta understand once again and be reminded, salvation belongs to the Lord, not to you. Jonah chapter 2, verse 9, and Ephesians chapter 1, verses 4 to 5, make it really clear. Jonah declares in Jonah 2, 9, salvation belongs to the Lord. Salvation doesn't hinge on intellect. Salvation doesn't hinge on a doctrinal confession or creeds. Salvation doesn't depend on tradition. Paul wrote in Ephesians 1, 4 to 5 that believers were chosen before the foundation of the world. And when you see the whole of Scripture and formulate a biblical theology on this topic, you see that throughout the scriptures, God has chosen before the foundation of the world to appoint babies as his. Amazing. God uses the personal pronoun of ownership, my. My children, and you offered up them to idols by causing them to pass through the fire. They were throwing them into fire. Besides all your abominations and harlotries, you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare and squirming in your blood. Then it came about after all your wickedness, woe to you, declares the Lord God, that you built yourself a shrine and made yourself a high place in every square. The indictment is you think you're the boss, you think you own everything, you think you have the power, freedom, and authority to do as you please with what belongs to me, salvation belongs to the Lord, and babies belong to God. He's the one who said, You slaughtered my children. There's an ownership that God takes of these little ones. There's a threat that Christ makes so clear in the Gospels that if anyone would cause one of these little ones to stumble, cares so much about children, cares so much about the innocent or the weak or the vulnerable. If you cause one of these little ones to stumble, you might as well tie a millstone around you and jump into the ocean and drown yourself. You bring harm to people, you bring division or destruction to children, to families, to the church, to people. Oh, you might as well go and jump in the ocean with a giant rock tied to you rather than cause one of these little precious ones to stumble. God doesn't mess around. If you say, Where's the justice for children who are molested? Where's the justice for children that are aborted? Where's the justice for children that succumb to the evil, wicked schemes of demonic people and demonic agendas and strategies? Oh, rest a little longer, friend, because God will vindicate all of it and he will pour out fiery wrath and the hellish judgment that we long for in a good way upon the wicked and those who don't repent. And he will do that, and he will bring an end to all that wickedness, and he will make it all right, and there will be justice, and he does not play around with the way babies and children are treated. You slaughtered my children and offered them up to idols. Oh, what you've done is no small matter. God owns babies. Salvation begins and ends with God, not with us. If that's true, and it is, then God's sovereign grace isn't limited by cognitive ability or age. Those who never reach moral, mental comprehension are not outside of his reach. They're included in the same electing mercy that saves anyone else, not because they're innocent, but because they and not because they earned it, but because of God in his eternal wisdom applied Christ and his atonement to them. That's what God did. And salvation belongs to the Lord, and he includes the smallest, the weakest, and the least able in his election, if that's the way you want to say it, unto salvation. So where does that leave us? We may not know exactly how God applies salvation in every case, but we know who God is, and that's enough. And so we look at scripture, and what do we do? We look at his character. He is good, he is just, he's merciful. And from Genesis to Revelation, his heart is revealed as compassionate toward those who can't stand on their own. And so when we use the word innocent, we're not describing a sinless. Nature, we're using a word to describe somebody, a baby or a special needs child or person who has not willfully rebelled against God and cannot even fathom general revelation. God declares them innocent by his grace, not their doing, but his grace. And so the parents who lost a baby, the mother of a or father of a severely disabled child, the caretaker who's poured out years of love, you take comfort in this. The judge of all the earth has done right. And he is considered those in that state forgiven, innocent, bought, elected unto salvation, chosen and called because of his grace, he has done this. The Savior who said, Let the little children come to me, has welcomed them into his loving arms. And one day you'll see the fullness of that mercy face to face. And in that moment, all the tears, all the questions, all the pain will be swallowed up in the glory and love and mercy of Jesus Christ. My friend Phil Johnson, who serves as an elder and he helped to edit many of John MacArthur's books throughout the years, writes this on page 87 of Safe in the Arms of God. I met one fellow whose own child died in infancy, and he seemed to think there was something meritorious about believing his own child had gone to hell. Every chance he got, he brought up the issue and boasted about how he and his wife had come to grips with the fact that their child was simply not among the elect. I told him I thought he and his wife were in for a pleasant surprise when they get into glory. I recall that he said he was absolutely certain that if God elected that infant to salvation, he would have kept him alive long enough to bring him to faith. My reply was that he would have had just as much biblical warrant to conclude that if God had decided not to elect that child, he would have kept him on earth long enough for the child's heart to be hardened by sin and for his rebellion against God to be manifest through deliberate actions. Because whenever Scripture describes the inhabitants of hell, it always does so with lists of sins and abominations they have deliberately committed. We might look at the biblical data and conclude that when God takes the life of a little one, it is actually an act of mercy, keeping that child from being hardened by a life of exposure to evil and a life of deliberate rebellion against God. One's position on this issue says a lot about one's view of God and his grace. What do we conclude? While we cannot dogmatically say what age a child must be to be held eternally responsible for their rebellion and the rejection of general revelation, we can certainly say that based on the evidence from Scripture about God, his judgments, his view of children, and his heart towards those who cannot discern their left hand from their right hand, children who die along with special needs persons who do not have the capacity to understand were chosen before the foundation of the earth. They are received not because they are innocent in their having not committed willful rebellion, but because God is merciful and he's gracious and he's just. His judgment is never wrong, and his mercy is far greater than we often dare to hope. And so for parents, caretakers, and loved ones who grieve, this truth should bring you immense comfort. Your child, your loved one who could never speak or understand, rests securely in the arms of our Savior. I really hope this episode has encouraged you of lost children or who wrestle with these questions. And at the very least, it's sharpened and challenged those who may not agree with this position. The most important thing we take away from this discussion is how important it is to frame our views from Scripture. And on such a sensitive subject, I'm so thankful that the Bible gives us clarity. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Thanks for sharing and for supporting. I'll be back next week. We're going to keep on going with this series with an episode titled, What is Hell Like? Because we've talked about heaven, we've talked about the glories of it, relationships, our glorified bodies, we've talked about this sensitive subject as well. And now I do need to finish things off with a look at hell and what it's like and how to avoid ever ending up there. And then we'll finish with a listener QA. So I want you to already start DMing and sending in questions, drop them in the comments to our ministry, hear it for the gospel, and let me know what questions you have. I would love to crush as many of those as possible in our listener QA episode, which will be right after the episode What is Hell Like? As always, if this podcast has been a blessing to you, be sure to leave a review on Apple or share it with someone else so you can strengthen them and encourage them with sound doctrine. And don't forget to watch a variety of videos on so many different topics. Go to our YouTube channel. You can subscribe there and click playlists, and we have dozens of studies for you to choose from. And if you're looking for a whole bunch of topics on audio, both on Apple and Spotify, you can just scroll through all of the For the Gospel podcast episodes. There's over 250 of them, different series on anger, forgiveness, relationships, discipline, the body, the mind, spiritual warfare, spiritual gifts, the Bible, all of it. You'll have so many different episodes to choose from, as well as interviews. And so for more information about for the gospel, if you're new to our ministry, go to forthegospel.org and everything's there, as well as the opportunity to partner with us every single month as a gospel patron. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.