Dear Friends,

This is the second baby post!

So, we’re all agreed that babies can go to heaven. Today I want to ask you this question: Do you use loopholes to get babies into heaven? If you do, I will try to convince you in this and future posts that the real problem is the particular way you’re getting (or not getting) the rest of us in. Thanks for giving me a chance 🙂

Series Outline:

• Part 1: John 3:16 might not mean what you’ve been told
• Part 2: John 3:16 cannot mean what you’ve been told
• Part 3:John 3:16 shows that you can live a victorious life now, that you can overcome those things that are gnawing away at your soul as you read this

Part 2 Outline:

• Part 2: John 3:16 cannot mean what you’ve been told
  • Part 2a: John 3:16 cannot mean that God loves every serial killer who ever picked up a butcher knife
  • Part 2b: John 3:16 cannot mean that God loves every serial killer who ever picked up a butcher knife…not even an eensy weensy bit
  • Part 2c: John 3:16 cannot mean that dead people are supposed to “believe” anything
    • Part 2c1: Is this relevant to you? Yes.
    • Part 2c2: Do you need a band-aid or a resurrection?
    • Part 2c3: Were you consulted before the doctor gave your mother the Pitocin?
    • Part 2c4: Whoever drinks Starbucks has been born
    • Part 2c5: Let it go
    • Part 2c6: This is going to be epic
    • Part 2c7 : Every one that loveth is born of God. Yes, everyone.
    • Part 2c8: In a nutshell
  • Part 2d: John 3:16 cannot mean that God has 4 ways of saving people
    • Part 2d1a: goo-goo ga-ga
    • Part 2d1b (today): Everything is going according to plan (phase 1)
      • Part 2d1b (today): Everything is going according to plan (phase 2)
      • Part 2d1b (today): Stay on target, stay on target!!!
      • Part 2d1b (today): “Non-sentient”? Sure about that?

Everything is going according to plan (phase 1)

So, let’s just cut to the chase here. Infant salvation conforms perfectly with my theology, and I do not need to come up with any special category of sinner or method of salvation to explain how they get to heaven.

This blog is a unabashed bastion of the very Biblical doctrines of election and predestination. This means people are saved based on God’s choosing of them, not based on their choosing of God.

I have a standing request to anyone who believes that God merely chose the people who he knew would choose him: please give me chapter and verse.

Anyway, because God does the choosing, and that choosing is before the foundation of the world, someone’s lifespan poses absolutely zero obstacle to God’s election. It doesn’t matter whether your mother miscarries 1 day into the pregnancy or you live to be 500 years old.

Everything is going according to plan (phase 2)

And all elect people get born again entirely by a sovereign act of God, and I wrote a whole series on that, which I summarized in post 2c8 (see link in outline above). Anyway, here is one verse used in that series:

[Jhn 3:8 KJV] 8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

So, being born again is not something you have to choose…you don’t choose when the wind blows, and you don’t choose when the Spirit blows on your dead heart to regenerate it. Since there’s no human choice involved in regeneration, you can see how there is no reason to search for a separate mechanism for infant regeneration. God uses the same method to regenerate all who are elect, but on his own timing. It could be in the womb, or it could be when you are 90. And here’s a concrete example (one of several that I mentioned in the previous post):

Everything is going according to plan 🙂

Stay on target, stay on target!!!

There is a separate question that I will acknowledge here, but only briefly address. And that question is, do all babies go to heaven? Maybe they do. I don’t know. We might address that question later, but that is not our focus today. Our focus today is, how could any babies go to heaven? So, I explained above how babies can very easily ride my beliefs straight into Pearly Gate station, and I’m questioning if the same can be said about belief systems like the one below…

“Non-sentient”? Sure about that?

Here is an alternative explanation of infant salvation from the Gospel Coalition (1):

“Infants and those with mental disabilities that preclude processing didactic information are believed by many (if not most) exclusivists to be in a separate category. Naturally incapable of exercising conscious faith, they cannot be included in the Romans 1 picture—that of a rebellious humanity “without excuse” on the basis of the fact that they “know” God and yet actively “suppress the truth.” An infant cannot be judged according to works (Rom. 2:6; 1 Pet. 1:17). Many exclusivists believe God deals graciously with such non-sentient image-bearers, on the basis of Christ’s work, apart from personal faith.”

As a word nerd and a father of three, I object to the claim that babies are “non-sentient”.

Here is a definition of the word “sentient” from dictionary.com (2):

A baby is conscious of his mother’s voice. He can sense her voice via his ears. Babies can sense when they are hungry. Babies can get angry and babies can get happy. So, babies are sentient. And guess what? A born again fetus can “sense” the presence of Jesus Christ, as in the case of John the Baptist!

So, first of all, let’s give those rugrats a little more credit.

I want to keep this post from getting too long. So, I will leave you with the above thoughts as a teaser for my real objections to what the Gospel Coalition is saying.

See you soon 🙂

Links:

(1) Gospel coalition

(2) “Sentient” on dictionary.com