Infant Limbo

Today's devotion by Dr. Scott Murray is a must read:

Infant Limbo

The subject of infant baptism generates a great deal of heat and very little light when discussed among American Christians today. American Christians, under the influence of the baptistic tradition, are unique among Christians in denying not only baptism to infants, but also faith and regeneration. Of course, this has more to do with the imposition of dogmatic theories about the concurrence of the will in faith and the possibility of belief in Christ among infants. These theories arise from the American presupposition that action is superior to repose; in other words, our firmly held doctrine that faith that does not demonstrate action is not faith at all. To rest comfortably in the arms of Christ is inferior to demonstrating the power of faith through personal confession or action. However, Christianity is not about purely external demonstrations of power. Christian faith is often hidden under contrary signs: life under the signs of death (1Co 15:36), heaven under the signs of hell, the righteousness of God under the signs of human guilt (Ps 32). In the Man dying there is the greatest power unto life for the world. In the midst of great suffering there is the gift of heaven. Where sin is admitted and accepted there God declares all guilt taken away and all transgression covered. Christianity at bottom is about receiving something, not doing anything. Doing is God's. Receiving is ours. This describes infant faith given and confirmed in the sacrament of holy baptism.

The Bible is shockingly clear that only those who have faith in Christ go to heaven. This point baffles those who presume that faith is our action or is only real when it can be demonstrated by action. Because if infants can't demonstrate their faith, therefore they can't believe; and only those who believe are saved, then what happens to infants? They are left in an un-biblical Limbo created on the basis of a faulty dogma about what faith is and who is working in baptism. Sometimes it is argued that the innocent infant who has not yet reached the ability (as though it is a human ability, rather than a divine gift!) to believe are guiltless in the presence of God. But this runs smack up against the divine Word's condition that only those who believe will be saved. Even if they are "innocent and without guilt" the Bible never attributes salvation to anything but faith in Christ.

Even apart from all this, how would such innocence and guiltlessness be demonstrated by the infant? If only a demonstrated or proven faith is accepted as legitimate, why would we merely be able to presume that infants are innocent? What basis would we have for this? What actual action proves the innocence of infants? As I have pointed out previously, this is an opinion that could only be held by people who have never cared for an infant. If we depended on what God actually says about all persons; that is, that they are sinners, guilty before God, and dead in their trespasses and sins apart from Christ and faith in Him, we could conclude the infants have faith (as Scripture specifically declares), because infants are saved. So you can't see or hear about their faith from them? Uh-huh. Well, maybe you should listen to the divine witness instead of believing your own dogmas. How gracious the good Shepherd is, that He takes up in his arms the little ones and blesses them with the new life in Him and the faith to trust Him.

Read the entire devotion here also you may subscribe to these excellent daily devotions.