Poimen - Volume 18, Issue 4

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An Obvious Mystery

Joost Nixon

If there were anything nearer to the hearts of parents than their own salvation, it would be that of their children. And when one of those children dies in their infancy, there is great distress. The baby's death itself can be a crushing sorrow, but to this load is added the uncertainty of their little one's eternal fate. The Bible does not speak explicitly on the subject. Yet surely God knows this is a point of great anxiety for parents. Knowing the anxiety, why no explicit answer?

Ultimately, we must say, "Lord, you do all things well." Not just ultimately. Really, we must start here too—with trust. We do not always understand how his mercies are merciful, but (through our tears) we know He knows how, and it is enough. But though God withholds an explicit answer to our breathless questions, He leaves a trail of crumbs as clear as the one your two-year old leaves when he has gotten into the Saltines. The fate of infants who die in their infancy is a mystery, but an obvious one. Not Sherlock Holmes. Hardy Boys. God wants us to guess the riddle.

So how has the church solved the mystery in previous years? The early church held that only baptized infants who die in their infancy were saved. Later, Ulrich Zwingli taught that all elect infants—whether from pagan or Christian homes, and without regard to baptism—are saved. The Westminster Confession of Faith embraces this position: "elect infants, dying in their infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through His Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth" (10.3).

The question remains, "But who are the elect infants?" Will there be babies who, as Robert Burns satirically puts it, "gnash their gums . . . in burnin' lakes, where damned devils roar and yell?"¹ Are there any non-elect infants who die in their infancy? The consensus of the church, excepting some dissenting supralapsarians, has been that there is not.

This is the church consensus, but how did we arrive at the position biblically? To truly comfort grieving parents with more than sentiment, we have to show them God's trail of crumbs. It begins on a sobering note. As B.B. Warfield wrote, "Infants too are lost members of a lost race, and only those savingly united to Christ are saved."² Death entered the whole world through Adam, and so all our children are by nature children of wrath, and not innocence. Infants are born with an innate disposition to naughtiness. Had they the developed intellect and muscle control to accomplish their desires, and no Holy Spirit restraining them, no doubt they would terrorize the countryside. So no infants are saved apart from Christ, because all infants deserve everlasting punishment by virtue of their fallen natures.

But this presents a problem, because the usual means to be united with Christ is through faith, and faith comes through hearing, which requires an understanding of the message. Granting that infants can understand language before they can speak it, it is still quite a stretch to think that a three-day-old baby is digesting anything other than his mother's milk. Here we are comforted by the reminder that regeneration is a work of the Spirit that can happen "when, where, and how He pleaseth." John the Baptist was born again before He was born (Luke 1:15). And David expressed confidence not only that Yahweh was his God from birth (Ps. 22:10), but that he would be reunited with his own dead infant son in heaven (2 Sam. 12:23).

How God does this is a matter of speculation. It also raises other speculative questions such as what our relative ages will be in heaven. What concerns us now, though, is that we have evidence of regenerate, elect infants. Both examples, however, are from covenant households. What about pagan children? The answer lies in the perfections of God. He delights in displaying the riches of His mercy and grace. We are not presumptuous in entertaining the hope that God extends His electing grace to embrace all infants who die in their infancy. The historian Philip Schaff writes, "Their early removal from a world of sin and temptation may be taken as an indication of God's special favor. From this it would follow that the majority of the human race will be saved."³

Consider this hope in light of the inevitable success of the gospel over the globe. Consider timing. As infant mortality rates decrease due to better medical care, the gospel has been increasing. Consider location. Where are infant mortality rates worst? In places where the gospel and its blessings have less of a hold. Consider that two-thirds of all new-born deaths occur in just ten countries. Consider which countries they are: India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Afghanistan, and Tanzania.⁴ These are countries where the gospel preaching is scant, and thus medical care grossly deficient.⁵ In such nations, God mercifully gathers a people to Himself immediately, without the regular use of means.