Will babies who have died automatically be saved?

[Celsus]

Will babies who have died automatically be saved, go to Heaven and get eternal life?

[chelbelle89]

so, Mythone, when you say that the infants in question will be risen up from the dead and reunited with their souls and taught the word of God after the second resurrection, do you mean that they will physically be risen up, their physical bodies in tact? Because, from a biological standpoint, this is impossible due to the rapid decay of human tissues, etc. Or is this a more figurative event? As to either question, can you give evidence to support your view?

[chelbelle89]

so, Mythone, when you say that the infants in question will be risen up from the dead and reunited with their souls and taught the word of God after the second resurrection, do you mean that they will physically be risen up, their physical bodies in tact? Because, from a biological standpoint, this is impossible due to the rapid decay of human tissues, etc. Or is this a more figurative event? As to either question, can you give evidence to support your view?

Also, why would an all perfect being, incapable of making mistakes need to create a new covenant for salvation, for infants or otherwise because His old one was flawed?

You said:

However, there was a fault in the first testament in that all mankind sinned! Therefore, no one could gain eternal life under that first testament. Since the first covenant contained faults, God created a second, or New Testament:

Then you quoted Hebrews to support your claim:

But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises: For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. (Hebrews 8:6-7)

[The_Student]

So Christians actually don't have a common view/doctrine on this?

Lookup up "Limbo of Infants" and while you're at it, baptism of desire and baptism of blood.

The Roman Catholic church has a number of ways to satisfy grieving parents and lovers when they know that whomever the knew has died without being in a state of grace.

Limbo has long been held to be the place where the souls of children go if they die before they can be baptised. However, a 30-strong international commission of theologians summoned by the late John Paul II last year to come up with a “more coherent and illuminating� doctrine in tune with the modern age is to present its findings to Pope Benedict XVI on Friday.

Vatican sources said yesterday that the commission would recommend that Limbo be replaced by the more “compassionate� doctrine that all children who die do so “in the hope of eternal salvation�.

There is little doubt that the Pope will agree. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he presided over the commission’s first sessions. He is on record as saying that Limbo has no place in modern Catholicism. In 1984, he told Vittorio Messori, the Catholic author, that Limbo had “never been a definitive truth of the faith�.

He said: “Personally, I would let it drop, since it has always been only a theological hypothesis.� The commission is currently chaired by Archbishop William Levada of the United States, appointed by the Pope in May to be his successor as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In Christian doctrine, Heaven is a state of union with God, while Hell is separation from God. Christians have long wrestled, however, with the thorny question of what happened to those who died before Jesus, who “brought Man salvation�, as well as the fate after death of children who die in the womb.

Although there is no basis for it in Scripture the traditional answer is Limbo, from the Latin limbus, meaning a hem, edge or boundary. It is described as the temporary resting place of “the souls of good persons who died before the resurrection of Jesus� (limbus patrum) and the permanent home in the afterlife of “the unbaptised who die in infancy without having been freed from original sin� (limbus infantium).

Is there a Limbo? Can you find the word Limbo in the Bible?

Will babies who have died automatically be saved?

Let's read...

1Jn 3:4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.


How could babies commit sin if the baby doesn't know what is bad or good?

[myth-one.com]

so, Mythone, when you say that the infants in question will be risen up from the dead and reunited with their souls and taught the word of God after the second resurrection, do you mean that they will physically be risen up, their physical bodies in tact? Because, from a biological standpoint, this is impossible due to the rapid decay of human tissues, etc. Or is this a more figurative event? As to either question, can you give evidence to support your view?

I would not have said that as the soul is a myth.

The majority of humans will have two periods of life with physical bodies on the earth. Every human who ever lived will be resurrected. However, only those with their names written in the book of life will be resurrected as immortal spiritual bodies:

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life... (Daniel 12:2)

Two body types are defined in the Bible, physical and spiritual:

There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. (I Corinthians 15:44)

The many that sleep in the dust of the earth are those humans who have died and been buried. The "some" that awake to everlasting life are Christians who are born again as spirits and thus awake to everlasting life. Since there are only two body types, those not awakened as spiritual bodies must be awakened as the other body type, which is physical.

At the second resurrection those who did not believe in Christ when they were buried will be raised from their graves as mortal human bodies. The vast multitude of people who had never even heard of Jesus, those who had never heard the true gospel message, those who were infants or otherwise incompetent to make decisions, along with those who lived before Jesus died on the cross for their sins, will now have their first true choice regarding their salvation. This will be after their initial death as humans.

Because, from a biological standpoint, this is impossible due to the rapid decay of human tissues, etc. Or is this a more figurative event? As to either question, can you give evidence to support your view?

It is impossible for man. But to God, those suffering their first physical death are said to be sleeping or resting:

Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. (John 11:11)

And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn... (Mark 5:39-40)

The Bible discusses two deaths, the first death and the second death. The first death is that of our physical bodies as they exist now:

And it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27)

The second death discussed in the book of Revelation must also be the end of a life if it is a true death:

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. (Revelation 21:8)

Only the first death is apointed. The second and permanent death is optional depending on whether one accepts or rejects Jesus as their Savior.

Also, why would an all perfect being, incapable of making mistakes need to create a new covenant for salvation, for infants or otherwise because His old one was flawed?

There are two wills, testaments, or covenants between God and mankind in the Bible. Under the first covenant the only path to everlasting life was to never sin. The wages of sin is death. But there was a flaw in the covenant in that all sinned. Under the New Testament covenant, the only path to everlasting life is to believe in Jesus as one's Savior from the wages of sin. When the New Testament became effective, the Old Testament vanished away and no longer applies:

In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. (Hebrews 8:13)

Once the New Testament became the active testament, no one could gain eternal life by remaining sinless as required under the Old Testament. This includes infants! The only path to salvation presently is through a belief in Jesus Christ under terms of the New Testament covenant. Infants do not believe in Jesus Christ. Parents who murder their children to send them to Heaven or avoid their possible "eternal torture in hellfire" have been deceived.

NOTE: Somehow I missed your last two posts -- and did not read them until today (10/05). I was not ignoring you -- please accept my apology!

[SpiritQuickens]

Will babies who have died automatically be saved, go to Heaven and get eternal life?

I dunno if it's been cited yet, but Ecclesiastes 6:3 says that the stillborn child is better off than a man who doesn't enjoy his prosperity, and who doesn't have a proper burial. While I don't think the author means to make a theological point, I guess it could be reasoned that a stillborn child who need to have gone to Heaven to be better off than such a person, since no earthly misery is comparable to Hell.

[myth-one.com]

Will babies who have died automatically be saved, go to Heaven and get eternal life?

I dunno if it's been cited yet, but Ecclesiastes 6:3 says that the stillborn child is better off than a man who doesn't enjoy his prosperity, and who doesn't have a proper burial. While I don't think the author means to make a theological point, I guess it could be reasoned that a stillborn child who need to have gone to Heaven to be better off than such a person, since no earthly misery is comparable to Hell.

If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

The New Living Translation translation puts it thusly:

A man might have a hundred children and live to be very old. But if he finds no satisfaction in life and doesn’t even get a decent burial, it would have been better for him to be born dead.

How can any conclusion be reasoned from this verse regarding the fate of a stillborn baby?

Basically it's better to not even be born, than to live a long unsatisfying life.

[DeBunkem]

What about a mother who dies an hour after conception? Will the zygote go to Limbo or heaven? as what, a zygote or what it will become?

[myth-one.com]

What about a mother who dies an hour after conception? Will the zygote go to Limbo or heaven? as what, a zygote or what it will become?

The mother and zygote will probably be buried, cremated, or otherwise legally disposed of -- and return eventually to "dust."

[DeBunkem]

I apologize if this point has been made, but basic Xtian doctrine is that we are all "born in sin," a belief that defies all codes of justice. In human terms, in a backward criminal justice system, a murderer can be executed. God's system of "justice" would imprison and execute his/her children as well, regardless of if they have actually committed a crime.

[DeBunkem]

Neither the man nor the woman accepted responsibility for their actions. Man blamed his sin on the woman, and indirectly on God for giving him the woman in the first place, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." The woman blamed her sin on the serpent.

We are told that God saw the mess on the Ante-diluvian earth and "regretted" that he had made humans. Well, what about his own culpability? Did he not let the Serpent go free instead of incarcerating him? Did he not let the rebellious angels leave their assigned posts and invade earth, commiting acts of violence and stealing harems? Instead of admitting responsibility, proceeded to kill off the "evidence." The angels escaped, humans died. That's messed up. A real god could have resolved a nit-picking misdemeaner like fruit theft in a way that could have avoided this disaster.