What happens if someone dies before they became a believer, is it their fault?
- By Mark Quayle
- General Theology
- 65 Replies
That's a bit of a stretch. I don't separate, as you do, one's deeds from one's intentions. But you are not alone in that respect. (Even some of my Reformed and Calvinist friends do that, and even to the point of claiming a certain universal aspect to Christ's atonement, as apparently you do too, here, to relieve the unborn or new born of their guilt in being "in sin"). To me, it makes no difference. It is not to their credit that they did not do sinful deeds; if their hearts are at enmity with God, their every thought, feel, and intention is sinful, self-centered, self-important, presumptuous and God-diminishing at the core. I say nobody but Christ has committed no deeds worthy of hell. I only allow that I may be wrong in that it is possible that there is some point at which a fetus is not yet a human being.It isn't me for sure, I'll pass that on to Christ since I'm just following His lead. His heart and way of making other people's wrongs, right, and His compassion on me is all you are seeing, because I was a train wreck. I am glad you see I intend well, I will say that.
With incredibly manifest bluntness I can say it sounds as though you have experienced the Christ I quoted in the bottom of my first response to you, the one who has unending kindness and never turned away children, who forgives the worst sinners, who told the adulteress "neither do I condemn you," who said those who are forgiven much.. love much, and even while being outright murdered on a cross cried genuine pleas of mercy and forgiveness for those responsible for Him being brutally tortured for six hours on that cross to His death. That is unimaginable to me the more I contemplate and the longer I know Him, and the emotion you are mentioning sounds like it aligns with knowing this character trait of the Savior who is Christ the King of mercy and the Prince of peace.
This is going to be a doozy, but I'll knuckle under and oblige you since you do seem sincere and well intended in trying to follow what you feel is true, even if you don't like it (I'm assuming here you don't like the idea of babies in Hell). With this assumption in mind, let us consider what kind of person the great Judge, God Almighty, might consider you to be and what the condition of your heart was in if you considered someone who committed no deeds as worthy of Hell as someone who committed many evil deeds.
You haven't heard me disagreeing with this, but you will hear me disagreeing that our concepts of right and wrong, and our concepts of God's love, and our representations of fact, are not a basis for extracting doctrine. Scripture alone is. Yes, we reason on it, and I have not said different, but much of what I hear from you is not tempered with the rest of Scripture, and Scripture cannot contradict Scripture.Let's also keep in mind, while undergoing this exercise that no person great or small deserves to go to Heaven and be forgiven, which is why it is a "gift" and gifts cannot be earned (Ephesians 2:8 - Ephesians 2:9).
Facts and reason are not opposed to each other, or logic, or God's ways even. The Lord Himself tells us to "reason together" with Him (Isaiah 1:16), and I don't think it is a mild suggestion or that God speaks without purpose using empty or poetic words. Rather, I think He means what He says and expects us to use our heads and follow Him with our hearts both, not be thoughtless and emotionally driven or blind followers of whatever is written in any "holy book" (of which they have many acclaimed these days). God also says to "test Him" (Malachi 3:10)as He can stand up to doubt and prove He is true, and He doesn't have to or need to but He does so like for Gideon, for example, simply because He is (VERY) kind. This is God telling us to be reasonable, and logical, and sensible and to use the faculties He gave us for His will, which is that everyone be saved and that no one perish in Hell (2 Peter 3:9 - John 3:16 - John 3:17[this one is critical, it declares blatantly and bluntly the purpose is not to condemn or destroy but to save anyone and everyone, that is the mission of Christ stated by Him here in John 3:17])
"Apart from me you can do nothing." doesn't imply that we do our part and God does his. The whole business is his part, and we are "in Christ."Not only this, but God does not intend for us to be ignorant and serve blindly, rather He stated Himself that He tells us what He is doing and why (John 15:15 - Genesis 18:17-18) so we can know and work with the Lord (Mark 16:20) according to His heart and His will and accomplish His wishes without doubting what He desires.
Another huge stretch. If indeed any sin worthy of Hell, and, as I mentioned above, any sinfulness, is by definition blasphemy of the Holy Spirit in the same contextual representation by which Jesus spoke of it, then, agreed, but I don't see that it is the same thing. Your statement implies that all sins not only are forgivable, but that they are forgiven, but for blasphemy of the Spirit of God! Not so!So now, with all that established here we go on the next ride, which would be the reason God says literally anyone goes to Hell at all. Christ stated with His own mouth in the flesh and not through a prophet or saint that the only reason anyone is sent to Hell at all has nothing to do with their sins. It has to do with blaspheming the Holy Spirit, which is quite literally ignoring God and telling Him to buzz off and searing one's conscience to the point of having no ability to be corrected by God because they have rejected God outright and chosen rebellion (Matthew 12:31). If this is the reasoning God has said is His reason for not forgiving someone, or anyone, and we apply this to the current subject we are on we can see that unborn children and infants haven't even had the opportunity to reject God.. therefore they quite literally have never committed this sin. If God also desires that no one perish and genuinely wishes so strongly to save us all that He would send His only Son to die on a cross (Romans 8:32), then His hearts desire in this particular situation is to save these little ones just like He desires to save me and you. His character is on full display and there is no question that God is good, and at that yes... "all the time."
"All" here doesn't imply that God has that particular mercy on all, but that there are none who escape the principle. God is very particular on whom he will show that particular mercy. The "elect" are not a random number from a random group. There is no "pool of possibles", but only those chosen from the foundation of the world.I am not saying children are born without sin, but that they are born "IN SIN," just like Romans 11:32 states clearly, but in that statement He boldly proclaims the reason for that as well, "that he might have mercy upon all." "All" in this thought from God is easily understood as "all of the humans born in sin", and that would include the unborn, infants, children, and adults as all of those categories fall under "all."
I will just put this down to category error, or maybe, a categorical misunderstanding of what I am saying. My decisions are not the big deal that I make of them. I am but a child to God. A child may, in fit of rage, say to their parent that they hate them, but the parent knows more than to take that child seriously. It is being a child. When I was 5, I gave my heart to the Lord. Also when I was 6, and 7 and 8 and so on. My 'big' "decision for Christ" was only emotional yielding. It did not save me. My consequent unfaithfulness makes that obvious. God saved me.Also, I would disagree wholeheartedly about God taking your sin more seriously than you. He showed up on Earth for 33 years, was beaten ridiculed and mocked (something UNTHINKABLE for a Holy God) and murdered indescribably to spare you an eternity in Hell. In all of that process He was crushing sin like He stated He would do in Genesis 3:15 and displayed His immense power over sin and His enemies (Colossians 2:15) and He quickly and without a second thought easily forgave people because it is His heart and who He is (to be good and wanting to forgive - 2 Corinthians 5:19).
Was He taking the sin more seriously, when His purpose was to destroy it? Or was He taking YOU more seriously, when His entire purpose was to save you? I think it be the latter my dear friend, and I could not emphasize this enough. We are lost Sons and Daughters Christ came to redeem to the Father (Galatians 3:26 - Luke 15:20), with Christ being the first.. the "first fruits" who we are meant to become (Romans 8:29) like in Spirit and this Spirit is a nature of goodness that emanates from the Father who is all good and no evil, all light and no dark (1 John 1:5). No no, I think He is taking you very seriously, and as seriously as any parent takes their child at the edge of the water (Hell) where the crocodiles are (demons) and who jumps in to save their child and gets nearly torn apart and covered in scars (Christ) because He takes that child far more seriously than that crocodile that He will kill without a second thought.
But sin is the one thing for which Christ's sacrifice and substitution was necessary, or God would not have it even begun, nor would he have created Lucifer for that purpose, nor Adam, nor the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It is amazing enough that there can exist something besides God in his Aseity, but for that something to be able to oppose and rebel and live as though his very Creator is a liar is monstrous beyond description. It is "cosmic treason". It is a gash in the universe, a rift in the geography of reality. It is only by the power of God that it remains under control all these thousands of years.
I easily grant that they are "more safe and secure" but it is by his mercy than any of them are. That is, as David said, it is better to depend on God's mercy than to be thrown on any other means of resolution. Our reasoning is not dependable here. We love to say that God is Love, and he is indeed Love. But we don't yet know what love is. Our concepts are about as valid as 1, or one trillion, if you so esteem it, compares to infinity. There is plenty in Scripture to demonstrate the reason to FEAR God, but that is ignored for the most part, instead of being taken into account.It isn't so much the "facts" themselves, or the reasoning, or thinking, or logic, that ultimately sails my ship to the shore I'm on right now with this conclusion I hold so tightly to. Instead, it is the fact that (as you have also) I have known Him and tasted (experienced) His goodness and His heart and WHO HE REALLY IS and just like I know when I was a child my parents would have taken on a crocodile, or a strange man attacking me, or whatever deathly situation may have been facing them and put their own life in the way of a bullet or attacker, Christ has done that for us, and not just me, but all of us who would repent. If God put us all under sin so that He could have mercy on us all (Romans 11:32), then the infant and unborn are by His own words more safe and secure than we who have WILLFULLY and deliberately sinned multiples of times even after hearing the commandments and understanding (somewhat) right and wrong, good and evil, loving and unloving.
I have not intimated that God puts justice before mercy. But the two do not oppose, except in OUR minds. Mercy does not squelch justice. Justice will be done. But not all is mercy.If His Spirit lives in me, in you, in us believers and we know God would not want us to allow a child to die, or be tortured, or for us to withhold forgiveness from them.. why would we think God would put His justice before His mercy (Hosea 6:6 - Matthew 9:13 - 1 Corinthians 6:19)? Mercy always triumphs over judgment with God brother (James 2:13), and God said this and showed this in action throughout the four Gospels in the life of Christ more than anywhere.
Further, by your statements, it is implied that there must be a reason for mercy. Thus, even the unborn and newborn, for whom we feel such tenderness and care, are deserving of death, and, but for the mercy of God IN CHRIST, they will be judged.
Is that his only purpose? And do you have evidence it is only a universal statement? Do you consider "election" to be unparticular?We are here for His purpose, and His purpose is and was to save the lost (John 3:16-17). These are His words, not mine.
Right. I can even mis-use that verse to claim universalism. The statement does not imply that he is here in some general capacity, as though it is entirely up to the lost to take advantage of his offer. But, again, the "all" is a categorical statement indicating that all are under that principle, and none can be saved any other way.If God says in John 3:17 He did not come here to condemn but to save, then His entire mission and objective is to save, and if Romans 11:32 says that He put us all under sin so that He could save "all" then infants and unborn and "all" are in that category. These are all His declarations and His plans and His goals and His love and His mercies.
Whoa there, buddy!The pattern here is so profound toward mercy that to think such evil of Christ
Do you think there are some whom he cannot save? Do they have power over God, to undo his intentions?is something Satan loves to giggle about. While Satan is demanding child sacrifice in the OT (2 Kings 17:17), He is accusing God of everything evil in the world and trying to defame God's Holy character and unparalleled kindness, and selflessness, and overwhelming love.
There are not infants burning in Hell my brother. God is the one who had to stop His own people from offering their children (born in sin!) to Molech (Leviticus 18:21)in the fire, and does not tell them to offer their children to Him (Yahweh).
God is speaking through His behavior AND His words about this, not just one or the other. He doesn't condemn those He can save, He saves even those He could rightly condemn (that being all of us who are saved), how much more will He save those little ones who we sinful fallen people would die for to save ourselves?
I will leave the discussion here as your doctrine follows your feeling, and not as though you intend any diminishing of the power of God; I have no wish to further our already noticeable contention. Admittedly, like you, I am not fully representing God's nature, nor can I fit the facts of his immensity into my head, so I will leave it here.
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