D. Scott Meadows
My friend replied, “Is it reasonable to conclude that God will condemn infants for original sin even in the absence of actual sins? Though we cannot answer dogmatically, I think we can say that it is more than just a possibility but is a probability that infants dying in infancy are probably elect.”
Dear Friend,
You ask, “Is it reasonable?” but I ask, “Is it scriptural?” (Gal 4.30), which is an entirely different approach epistemologically. Theological truth is known by Scripture first, and while never irrational, it is sometimes suprarational. And sometimes we discover in studying the Bible that what we considered reasonable is not so, and reason enjoys a major course correction by the absolute truth of God’s Word. Rationality is good; rationalism is evil.
The bottom line is that two parties are never going to agree on infant salvation is one looks to “reason” as the litmus test of truth while the other looks to God’s Word with reason in humble submission to that. Two parties must both be deeply committed to Scripture alone as the standard of truth before they could expect to reach the same conclusions because they are correct conclusions.
Many unsound Bible teachers have denied the biblical doctrine of imputation altogether on the grounds of its supposedly being unreasonable (e.g., Finney, who was manifestly heretical), despite the pervasive and insistent biblical testimony to its reality. Three imputations are really indisputable from the biblical witness:
1) The imputation of Adam’s sin to all his posterity.
2) The imputation of the elect’s sin to Christ.
3) The imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us.
All these stand or fall together if “reason” is the determining factor. Is it reasonable, if God refuses to condemn infants on the grounds of Adam’s sin alone imputed to them through their substitute, for God to condemn the perfectly righteous Christ on the grounds of the elect’s sin alone, without his having committed any personal act of sin whatsoever? Is it reasonable that Christ would become a substitute sacrifice for his people? Many say no, but Scripture abundantly affirms the forensic and substitutionary nature of Christ’s death, “the just for the unjust” (1 Pet 3.18).
Is it reasonable for God to justify all the elect on the grounds of Christ’s righteousness alone, without their personally having obeyed God’s will and moral law in any respect whatsoever, and in fact having violated it countless times and ways? Many say no, and then proudly insist that there is something that one must do at least to contribute to one’s justification, with the implication that Christ’s substitutionary obedience and substitutionary sacrifice are insufficient. But this is a corruption of the biblical gospel by rationalism.
Whether anyone finds these three imputations “reasonable” or not, the resounding biblical insistence favors all three. So many people need to sit and soak until thoroughly saturated in Romans 5.12-21. Read it again and again, with much prayer for illumination, and with diligent investigation into its words and phrases and logic, until it lives in your very bones. If people really understood and believed that passage, it would recover their reason from wandering in error.
Neither is there refuge in lip service to the imputation of Adam’s sin to all his posterity, including infants, while proposing that it is likely that God would not actually punish those he counts guilty on the basis of Adam’s sin alone. It is taking away with the right hand what was given by the left.
The imputation of Adam’s sin to all his posterity means that Adam was a substitute in this trial of Paradise for all his posterity. Since he failed and actually became guilty, all his posterity in God’s court are counted as having sinned in Adam, and having become guilty in Adam–really guilty, not just theoretically guilty or conditionally guilty or hypothetically guilty. And guilty by definition means being justly liable to punishment, legally deserving of punishment. “By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.”
I know this runs up against our natural notions of “fairness,” but Adam’s sin and guilt were imputed by divine fiat, not human consensus, and God’s decree is a sufficient basis for the rightness of his imputation. The Puritans were correct, because they were scriptural, when they taught their little children from infancy that “in Adam’s fall we sinned all.”
Further, it is evident that God counts infants as sinners from the fact that they frequently suffer the wages of sin (death; Rom 6.23), not to mention all the other miseries that come upon all people on account of Adam’s sin.
When God had announced the curse upon all mankind in the antediluvian days (Gen 6.5) and then sent his just punishment for sin, were infants excluded? No, they all drowned just like the more mature sinners. Countless bloated infant carcasses floating upon those horrible waters of divine wrath. Where is evidence that God counted them innocents?
It was likewise with Sodom and the cities of the plain. The question is not, “Is it reasonable that God would fling molten lava onto the tender pink skin of Sodomite babies when they had not committed any actual sin themselves? ” The question must be, “Nevertheless, what do the Scriptures say?”
Clearly, the Scriptures bear witness that the wrath of God was liberally poured out upon ALL the antediluvian sinners, including infant sinners, except for sinful Noah and his sinful family who were spared by grace alone, and his wrath was liberally poured out upon ALL the sinners of the cities of the plain, including infant sinners, except for sinful Lot and his sinful family, who were also spared by grace alone.
Some have concluded from the actual imputation of Adam’s sin, the clear instances we have in Scripture of infants suffering God’s wrath on account of that sin, and the necessity of faith in Christ for salvation, that all infants dying in infancy actually perish in hell. As I stated in the letter to a friend, I have reservations about this conclusion. It is one possible inference rather than an assured Bible doctrine. Historically, very few theologians, including Calvinists, have taken the position that we can know that all infants dying in infancy finally perish in hell. Our 1689 LBCF reflects the consensus of the Reformed tradition.
I am content to consider this matter among the secret things of God. There is a prudence in hiding the truth from us who are clearly not infants if we are pondering these things. If we could know for sure that all infants who die in infancy go to heaven, many would find a strong temptation to kill infants, or at least to let them die when their lives could be saved. The abortion mills would be filling heaven faster than Billy Graham ever hoped to. I actually know of a family that let an infant son/grandson die when his life might have been saved by the aggressive use of medical means, all because of their belief that he would be going to heaven anyway. They told me so. This was tragic and horrible, the consequence of their supposed reason and their firm belief in universal infant salvation.
I have long thought that the issue of infant salvation is not as important in itself as the ancillary theological issues it raises–particularly matters like imputation and God’s right to judge sinners. A refusal to admit that infants are legally guilty before God on the grounds of Adam’s sin alone, and that God would be perfectly just to punish them on that ground (whether he actually does or not it beside the point; God is sovereign), exposes serious theological error, in my estimation. We cannot consistently hold to the justice of our justification on the grounds of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness alone while we simultaneously deny the justice of our condemnation on the grounds of the imputation of Adam’s sin alone, even before we commit any actual sins.
For the record, Finney also rejected the forensic justification of the elect on the sole grounds of Christ’s righteousness and atoning sacrifice in their place. He didn’t think it was “reasonable.” At least he was wrong consistently. But there is no other salvation than that which is found in Christ Jesus, and in him alone (Acts 4.12).
May the Lord give us all greater understanding of his truth by his Word and Spirit, and lead us away from the folly and danger of rationalism.
Yours in the gospel,
D. Scott Meadows, Pastor
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