Infant Salvation

Last week as our Thirsty Theologians met we discussed in some depth the issue of infant salvation, and the similar matter of salvation of the feeble minded. To formalize the ideas I was trying to express, I wrote the following and present it here for scrutiny and comment.

After our discussions last night I felt I need to make clearer a few of the points I was trying to make. First, I want to assure you that I do not hold to an idea of innate innocence, or an age of accountability. I do uphold that every human (born of the seed of man, that is) is corrupted by the sin of Adam and in need of salvation (there are no innocents) but I will try to show that the lack of personal transgression does mitigate the need for repentance and the usefulness of a profession of faith.

I assert that salvation is merited by the good pleasure of our Creator alone, and enacted by His power alone. Salvation is a unilateral action of God, and as such requires no admixture from the subject. Faith, the apprehension of and acquiescence to the offer of rescue by Christ, is a response to the regeneration God has wrought in His elect (John 10:26-27, 1 Jn 5:1). Though Romans 10:10 says, “with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” and Joel 2:32 “whoever calls on the name of the Lord Shall be saved” I doubt anyone would deny that God can save a mute man simply because he is unable to produce the normal response to his salvation. In like manner I would suggest that the failure of an infant to respond with repentance and a well-formulated confession of the faith are unnecessary, though normative. I would further assert that God can regenerate a man just before his death, and before he has a chance to profess Christ to those around him. Is his regeneration invalidated for his failure to live up to his end of the bargain? I think not! Any insistence on tying the response to the cause is problematic at best, and smacks of the baptismal regeneration argument and the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy (after this, therefore because of this)—the rooster’s crow no more causes the sun to rise than the baptism and profession of faith cause God to save.

Young children do not doubt truth (they innately fear fire, or falling, and do not test these fears) and the very young do not sin (choose against what they know to be good). Doubt and sin darken the mind and cause a person to discard the truth of God known naturally. In Matthew 18, Jesus called men to be converted, becoming like little children in order to gain heaven. This does not seem to be a call to a simple faith as many propose (the Gospel in two sentences a 6 year old can understand), but a call to have your mind renewed and illumined—to wash away the obscuring doubt and sin of a corrupt life. Verse 3 also makes clear that this is not a work of their own, the action is passive and subjunctive (a desired possibility), indicating that God is the one making them anew as though they were uncorrupted children. Jesus warned that it was egregious for someone to tempt a child into sin, essentially jumpstarting their foray into darkness. I would say that it is this darkening that necessitates a work of repentance and a profession of faith, each of which speak to a change of mind. The profession of faith from a corrupt man, is a sign and wonder to it’s hearers because of the magnitude of the change. Young children and infants have no need to change their mind and regain the truth, for they have never departed from what they know naturally to be true.

The same, of course, cannot be said of the “innocent savage” who has never heard the Gospel. The savage discards the limited truth he has and sets in its place idols—just as his fathers did before him. His corruption is inherited from his ancient ancestors who held the truth, for every nation on Earth proceeds from Noah who had and preached the truth, but they corrupted and discarded it as they fled from Babel. The unevangelized man’s culpability is duly compounded by his own active dismissal of natural revelation (Rom 1:18-27).

If this line of thinking is right, then I glory in the thought that heaven is richly populated with people from every nation, tribe and tongue since none are exempt from infant mortality. If it is wrong, I have difficulty in seeing how God's glory is amplified by infants in hell, but that hardly makes the case as his wisdom so beyond my own. In either case will trust in His goodness and count my judgements as straw.

Scriptures to consider:

• Matthew 18:4, “Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven,”
• Matthew 19:14. “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven”
• and David’s confidence in 2 Samuel 12:23, “But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”

All seem to me to be assurances that children (at the very least children of the covenant peoples) are saved by the grace of God, according to His good pleasure, apart from any work of our own. Amen and Glory to His Name!