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Sometimes It's Heaven, Sometimes It's Hell


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There are some who have speculated that babies and children who have died will be placed on earth during the thousand years so they will be able to accept or reject Christ.

Others have speculated there is a special place reserved for the babies and children who died where they will either mature or God will mature them (in some similar manner as to how God created Adam mature), where they will be presented with the opportunity to accept or reject Christ.

Scripture declares there is only way to heaven, and that is through accepting Christ as Saviour and Lord. Are there one or more exceptions that Scripture doesn't mention which covers babies, young children, the mentally disabled and others?

God doesn't have to reveal all the details to us. His Word tells us enough to know that whatever He does with anyone, including you, I and every other person who has lived, is alive, or will live, will be perfect.

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Along with speculations of such matters, is the speculation that all people will spend eternity with their new body at about age 33.

God knows all. He knows who will accept Christ and who will reject Christ before they are even born.

Ten babies die. God knows 1 would have accepted Christ and the other 9 would have rejected Christ. Does God reward all 10 with acceptance into heaven as translated, matured to 33 year olds?

Is it possilbe that God's dealing with those who died as babies or young children will certainly be done justly, but in a way or manner we know not?

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Wow.

People who come up with strange and never-before-heard "doctrine" by putting various verses together are usually quite dangerous.

In the OT, pretty much anyone who wasn't an Israelite went to hell because they were not yet under grace. Unless they were someone like Rahab, or Ruth, who specifically reached out to believe. Whether that also includes their babies and young children...well...my theory is that it possibly could have but only God knows. We do know that the babies of saved people (i.e. David) went to heaven. Only God knows if, say, the miscarried baby of Goliath's wife went to heaven....we can speculate but to make a doctrine from it would not be right.

In the new Testament we are under grace....and yes the passage about sin not being imputed when there is no law (or no understanding of law) is a good hint as to the truth. Another passage I keep in mind is that a saved spouse should try to stay married to a lost spouse because the children are sanctified by at least one saved spouse. To me, and its just a theory, that the children of at least one saved spouse, and under the age of accountability, will go up in the rapture with the saved parent, at the very least. I will not dare to speculate that children of lost parents go to hell if they die early because only God knows that (and I hope not)...but I'm pretty convinced that in the rapture, at least, that lost children will stay with lost parents on earth (its most humane, anyway, technically, for the short term) and saved children will accompany a saved parent to heaven in the rapture. I do NOT believe all kids will disappear in the rapture.

I have also heard the theory that any child who went to heaven before the age of accountability will have an opportunity to make their conscious choice during the Millenium. Its something to think about....

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1 John 3:2 tells us: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."

I think that encompasses every aspect of what we see: His "age," His perfection, etc. When He shall appear seems to indicate the rapture, so that becoming like Him would be for the dead and the alive (in Christ).

As to babies in Heaven or not - I truly think the idea that an infant can believe on Christ in the womb is a ludicrous idea. Why? Well, simply (as has been pointed) for the reason that the babe doesn't know sin (please note that I did not say the babe wasn't a sinner - big difference, as anyone who has reared a child knows). How can I say that? The Bible clearly teaches us that knowledge of the law is what brought knowledge of sin to us. As babies and then children, how do we come to know what the law teaches? By parental instruction as to what is right and wrong. It is that teaching that eventually allows a child to realize that they indeed are sinners, that they indeed commit sin. And that is when they will be to the point where they can understand repentance and salvation. Teaching anything else actually goes against scripture, reading into it that which is not.

Will babies who die go to heaven? Well, you know, someone (I think it was John) mentioned that 10 babies die, God knows that 9 out of those 10 wouldn't accept Him, so...That kind of makes sense - except for one little thing: If those babies die, God knew they were going to die from the foundation of the world. So, He also knew that they would never have the opportunity to grow old enough to recognize the fact that they are sinners and in need of a Saviour.

So where does that leave babies? Under God's wrath or under His mercy? I believe under his mercy.

David knew very well that he was going to spend eternity with God. The Psalms mention his knowledge that he will do so. And when questioned as to why he didn't mourn his dead baby, he stated that the child could no longer come to him (scriptural proof that the dead don't visit us), but that he,David, would go to the child. Now, David shows us that he knows without any doubt that he will go to be with God. And he says he will go to be with his child. His child, therefore, must have been in Heaven.

If we try to say that some babies go to Heaven and some go to Hell, then based on David's knowledge that his son was with God, we'd have to say that it is contingent upon the relationship of the parent(s) to Christ. And that is unscriptural.

There are many things we do not and cannot this side of Heaven understand about some of God's ways in the Old Testament. But to take something like the dashing of babies against stones and extrapolate from that, that some babies go to Hell is, has been said already, a stretch. A biiiig stretch.

I don't believe that babies who die before the millennium will have a chance to repent...there is absolutely no teaching in scripture that upholds that idea. Those in the millennium who make a choice between Christ and the devil are physically alive. Babies who have died are not - they are in spirit form, just as we will be (or, at the most the physical form Christ was in after His resurrection...remember, we shall be like Him...)

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Wow.

People who come up with strange and never-before-heard "doctrine" by putting various verses together are usually quite dangerous.

In the OT, pretty much anyone who wasn't an Israelite went to hell because they were not yet under grace. Unless they were someone like Rahab, or Ruth, who specifically reached out to believe. Whether that also includes their babies and young children...well...my theory is that it possibly could have but only God knows. We do know that the babies of saved people (i.e. David) went to heaven. Only God knows if, say, the miscarried baby of Goliath's wife went to heaven....we can speculate but to make a doctrine from it would not be right.

In the new Testament we are under grace....and yes the passage about sin not being imputed when there is no law (or no understanding of law) is a good hint as to the truth. Another passage I keep in mind is that a saved spouse should try to stay married to a lost spouse because the children are sanctified by at least one saved spouse. To me, and its just a theory, that the children of at least one saved spouse, and under the age of accountability, will go up in the rapture with the saved parent, at the very least. I will not dare to speculate that children of lost parents go to hell if they die early because only God knows that (and I hope not)...but I'm pretty convinced that in the rapture, at least, that lost children will stay with lost parents on earth (its most humane, anyway, technically, for the short term) and saved children will accompany a saved parent to heaven in the rapture. I do NOT believe all kids will disappear in the rapture.

I have also heard the theory that any child who went to heaven before the age of accountability will have an opportunity to make their conscious choice during the Millenium. Its something to think about....


True, we can speculate and such but in the end we can rest assured that whatever the Lord has determined in this area it will be just and we will recognize it as such when we are with the Lord.
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Sin affects everyone, not just those who commit it. Look at the story of David and Bathsheba. There is no mention of their child "sinning"; he was made ill because of the sin of his father.

Feliz Navidad!
God bless,
Joel ><>.
2 Chronicles 7:14.

Explain why it happened thus after God declared that children would not be put to death for the sins of their fathers in the Mosaic Law? Is it not possible that the child of David could have sinned too?
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You put yourself in a bad spot there, SFIC. God specifically said that David's child was going to die because of his father's sin of adultery.

Like I've tried to say over and over again, the Mosaic Law is man's dealings with man and it does not limit God. God said He punished those to the third and fourth generation of those that hate Him. Remember, it was Ham that sinned - but God cursed Canaan, Ham's son. Remember Achan? He sinned and his whole family was killed by God because of it.

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2 Samuel 12:13-14 And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.

Deuteronomy 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

Scripture cannot contradict itself, nor can God lie. God had already decreed that children will not be put to death for their father's sins.

In the judgment pronounced by Nathan, he said that God had 'put away' David's sin. And that David would not die. David had just confessed His sin before Nathan and according to 1 John 1:9, if we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. David, because of his confession, was forgiven; God had 'put away' his sin.

Yet, there are consequences of sin. The consequences of David's sin could not have been the death of the child. For God had already declared that the children would not die for the sins of their fathers. The consequences for David's sins appears to be the fact that the enemies of God had great occasion to blaspheme.

Since children were not to die because of their father's sins, it appears to me that the pronouncement of death upon the infant was entirely separate from David's sin. Something that God had showed Nathan was to happen.

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You put yourself in a bad spot there, SFIC. God specifically said that David's child was going to die because of his father's sin of adultery.

Like I've tried to say over and over again, the Mosaic Law is man's dealings with man and it does not limit God. God said He punished those to the third and fourth generation of those that hate Him. Remember, it was Ham that sinned - but God cursed Canaan, Ham's son. Remember Achan? He sinned and his whole family was killed by God because of it.

Canaan was indeed cursed because of Ham's transgression. But you are overlooking something... They lived prior to the Law of Moses being given out. And Canaan was cursed because of Ham's sin, not put to death. And it was not God that cursed Canaan... it was Noah.

It appears that Achan was killed by Joshua and Israel... not by God.

Joshua 7:25 And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the LORD shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones.

Try again. Edited by Standing Firm In Christ
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Wasn't the context of the children not paying for the sins of the father a prophetic statement referring to the age of grace, post-resurrection? Because practically speaking, a lot of people end up suffering because of the sins of a father or mother or sibling or grandparent...even lost people.

And it doesn't have to mean babies...it can even mean an adult child.

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So what I am seeing is that there is a belief that a loving God, the One that sent His only Son, to pay for the sins of the whole world, would not show that grace to an infant. He stopped the disciples from sending them away from Him while He was here. I do not believe an infant goes to Hell. What kind of god would do that. Not my God!! Time and again God refers to children as His or a heritage from God. If your god would send infants to Hell you can keep him.

Edited by Bro Jim
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I hope no infants go to hell!!!!!

Sometimes though part of me wonders if abortion could be a good thing...if all infants go to Heaven...does that mean with abortion, more people go to heaven than would otherwise happen without abortion?

I don't believe that of course, just saying it hypothetically.....

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Wasn't the context of the children not paying for the sins of the father a prophetic statement referring to the age of grace, post-resurrection? Because practically speaking, a lot of people end up suffering because of the sins of a father or mother or sibling or grandparent...even lost people.

And it doesn't have to mean babies...it can even mean an adult child.

The thing is, it states that all must give account for his own sin. So if the infants in Hosea were not dashed to pieces for their parent's sins, (which Deuteronomy 24 seems to say is not to happen) why were they dashed to pieces? For God's enjoyment? Certainly not!

By the way, children can mean and children from infancy to adulthood. Edited by Standing Firm In Christ
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