
The following is an extract from my book, Embodied Afterlife: The Hope of an Immediate Resurrection, pp 80–82, available here and here.
My wife, Catherine fell pregnant for the third time while we were working in Kenya as missionaries. After about nine weeks we went for her first pregnancy scan. She had miscarried twice before, but this time we were hopeful, everything seemed to be in order. The sister began scanning. There, the little one was on the screen. Our joy and excitement lasted only for a moment. The doctor looked down and shook her head, “Pole sana, hakuna mpigo wa moyo,” meaning, “I am very sorry, there is no heartbeat.” Pain and disappointment filled our hearts. I can’t imagine what it must be like for those who miscarry in a later trimester or those who have lost their children. Cath has miscarried several times since.
If human life happens at conception, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, then what happens to that little being at death, for example, during a miscarriage? Or what happens to children, or people with a mental disability who die with an inability to come to an understanding of saving faith in Jesus Christ? McKnight[1] lists four basic options: The first is the generous view where such people who die will go to heaven. The second is a rigorous view that proposes that they are hell-bound. The third view is restrictive and suggests that some will go to heaven while others will go to hell, depending on whether they were baptized, whether they were children of a Christian couple, or they are one of those who would have believed should they have lived their life. The last view is that they go to limbo, which is a place in heaven where heaven’s blessedness is not enjoyed. I take the generous view, and for good reason.
Scripture does not comment on what happens to fetuses, children, or people with mental disabilities when they die. However, the Bible does tell us about God’s kindness to little ones. And this seems to affirm the first option in McKnight’s list, that they will experience the blessedness of eternal life. The most famous passage is Matthew 19:13–14, “Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven’” (see Mark 10:13–14; Luke 18:15–16). Jesus also said in Matthew 18:3, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Further, God appeared to Moses and described his character, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Exod 34:6b–7).
As McKnight[2] has stated, “God is still God. As we seek an answer to the question ‘What about children who die?’ let’s not lose sight of God. God is love. God is good. God is just.” It’s difficult to imagine that God would have anything but blessedness and life for these little ones.
To put it simply, I am convinced that fetuses, children, and people with a mental disability have eternal life when they die, not based on any explicit teaching of Scripture, but on the nature and character of God and his friendly disposition towards little children—that much is evident in Scripture. Oh, what a joy it will be one day for Cath and I to introduce our two adopted boys, Ezekiel and Gabriel, to their brothers and sisters in the life to come.
Image of a boy by Bessi is available on Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/photos/child-boy-portrait-cute-kid-817373/
[1] Scott McKnight, The Heaven Promise: Engaging the Bible’s Truth About Life to Come (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2015), 173.
[2] McKnight, The Heaven Promise, 172.
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