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Transcript 175C — Do All Infants Go to Heaven When They Die?
CALLER: Is there a Scripture in the Bible where it states what happens to babies or little children that die?
HC: The question is asked, "What happens to babies that die in infancy? Where do they go?" Actually, the Bible gives a wonderful promise to parents who are believers. If one of the parents is a believer, God says, "I will be a God to you and your children."
When David's little baby died, he said, "I shall go to be with him." He claimed God's promise that his baby had gone to Heaven, because God says that He looks with special favor on our children, because we are born again believers.
In I Corinthians 7:14 or 15 it says that because we are a believer, our children are holy. That is, they are set apart. Now not every baby of every born again believer is born again, and only as they grow up will we see exactly which ones are born again, as we see the evidence of the grace of God in their lives.
But when they die in infancy, we have the promise that He is a God to our children, to us and to our children, and so we can cling to the promise that He will have looked with favor upon our child, even as David did.
Now in the case of the baby of an unsaved parent, there is no such promise. The Bible teaches that "there is none righteous, no not one." The Bible teaches that we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The Bible teaches that we're conceived and born in sin, and that the wicked are wicked from the womb, from birth.
And so the baby of an unsaved parent is born an unsaved baby. We know this, because you look at the world, and it's made up of unsaved people. If they grew up as unsaved people, it means that they were unsaved as babies, because if they had become believers at some point, then they never would have lost that salvation.
Now we may not, however, say, categorically and absolutely, "'Therefore, since they are not saved, if they die in infancy they go to hell." We can't say that, either, because the Bible indicates that God, in His sovereign good pleasure, can reach down and save a baby from unsaved parents. We have an example of this in the case of Jeroboam, the first king over the ten tribes of Israel. And he was a very wicked king, so wicked, in fact, that God decreed that the whole family of Jeroboam would not experience burial, to indicate that God's curse was upon them.
But one child died as a child, and was buried. In other words, it was an indication that God's favor was upon him. And the Bible says that there was something good found in him. Now the only good that this child could have experienced is the righteousness imputed to him from Christ. And so we may not say that the infant of an unsaved parent went to hell. But neither do we have any assurance that they went to Heaven. They probably went to hell. On the average, they would have gone to hell.
We see this dramatically in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham pled with God, "If there are only ten righteous, will you destroy the city?" And God said, "If there are ten righteous, I will not destroy the city." Now the only way one can be righteous is to be covered by the blood of Christ, to be born again.
Well, the fact is, God did destroy the city, and there were unquestionably hundreds of small children and babies in that city. But they were not named among the righteous.
CALLER: I see. Okay. Thank you very much.
HC: Thank you for calling. Good night.