(b) Yet as compared with those who have personally transgressed, they are recognized as possessed of a relative innocence, and of a submissiveness and trustfulness, which may serve to illustrate the graces of Christian character.
Deut 1:39—“your little ones ... and your children, that this day have no knowledge of good or evil”; Jonah 4:11—“sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand”; Rom. 9:11—“for the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad”; Mat. 18:3, 4—“Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” See Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:265. Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:50—“Unpretentious receptivity, ... not the reception of the kingdom of God at a childlike age, but in a childlike character ... is the condition of entering; ... not blamelessness, but receptivity itself, on the part of those who do not regard themselves as too good or too bad for the offered gift, but receive it with hearty desire. Children have this unpretentious receptivity for the kingdom of God which is characteristic of them generally, since they have not yet other possessions on which they pride themselves.”
(c) For this reason, they are the objects of special divine compassion and care, and through the grace of Christ are certain of salvation.
Mat. 18:5, 6, 10, 14—“whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me: but whoso shall cause one of these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea.... See that ye despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.... Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish”; 19:14—“Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven”—not God's kingdom of nature, but his kingdom of grace, the kingdom of saved sinners. “Such”means, not children as children, but childlike believers. Meyer, on Mat. 19:14, refers the passage to spiritual infants only: “Not little children,” he says, “but men of a childlike disposition.” Geikie: “Let the little children come unto me, and do not forbid them, for the kingdom of heaven is given only to such as have a childlike spirit and nature like theirs.” The Savior's words do not intimate that little children are either (1) sinless creatures, or (2) subjects for baptism; but only that their (1) humble teachableness, (2) intense eagerness, and (3) artless trust, illustrate the traits necessary for admission into the divine kingdom. On the passages in Matthew, see Commentaries of Bengel, De Wette, Lange; also Neander, Planting and Training (ed. Robinson), 407.
We therefore substantially agree with Dr. A. C. Kendrick, in his article in the Sunday School Times: “To infants and children, as such, the language cannot apply. It must be taken figuratively, and must refer to those qualities in childhood, its dependence, its trustfulness, its tender affection, its loving obedience, which are typical of the essential Christian graces.... If asked after the logic of our Savior's words—how he could assign, as a reason for allowing literal little children to be brought to him, that spiritual little children have a claim to the kingdom of heaven—I reply: the persons that thus, as a class, typify the subjects of God's spiritual kingdom cannot be in themselves objects of indifference to him, or be regarded otherwise than with intense interest.... The class that in its very nature thus shadows forth the brightest features of Christian excellence must be subjects of God's special concern and care.”
To these remarks of Dr. Kendrick we would add, that Jesus' words seem to us to intimate more than special concern and care. While these words seem intended to exclude all idea that infants are saved by their natural holiness, or without application to them of the blessings of his atonement, they also seem to us to include infants among the number of those who have the right to these blessings; in other words, Christ's concern and care go so far as to choose infants to eternal life, and to make them subjects of the kingdom of heaven. Cf. Mat. 18:14—“it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven, that one of those little ones should perish”—those whom Christ has received here, he will not reject hereafter. Of course this to said to infants, as infants. To those, therefore, who die before coming to moral consciousness, Christ's words assure salvation. Personal transgression, however, involves the necessity, before death, of a personal repentance and faith, in order to achieve salvation.
(d) The descriptions of God's merciful provision as coëxtensive with the ruin of the Fall also lead us to believe that those who die in infancy receive salvation through Christ as certainly as they inherit sin from Adam.
John 3:16—“For God so loved the world”—includes infants. Rom. 5:14—“death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come”—there is an application to infants of the life in Christ, as there was an application to them of the death in Adam; 19-21—“For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. And the law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; but when sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly: that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”—as without personal act of theirs infants inherited corruption from Adam, so without personal act of theirs salvation is provided for them in Christ.
Hovey, Bib. Eschatology, 170, 171—“Though the sacred writers say nothing in respect to the future condition of those who die in infancy, one can scarcely err in deriving from this silence a favorable conclusion. That no prophet or apostle, that no devout father or mother, should have expressed any solicitude as to those who die before they are able to discern good from evil is surprising, unless such solicitude was prevented by the Spirit of God. There are no instances of prayer for children taken away in infancy. The Savior nowhere teaches that they are in danger of being lost. We therefore heartily and confidently believe that they are redeemed by the blood of Christ and sanctified by his Spirit, so that when they enter the unseen world they will be found with the saints.” David ceased to fast and weep when his child died, for he said: “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Sam. 12:23).
(e) The condition of salvation for adults is personal faith. Infants are incapable of fulfilling this condition. Since Christ has died for all, we have reason to believe that provision is made for their reception of Christ in some other way.