JohnDB ,
WIP,
JLB,
OzSpen
I'd like to discuss the "Sin Nature" and it's implications toward the eternal home of infants, mentally challenged or culturally deprived societies that have never heard the gospel let alone the name of Jesus.
I would like to hash this out and come up with a single paragraph to replace our current statement listed below as I find the below lacking in these areas.
We support the biblical teaching that all people are lost in sin and are born with a sinful nature. They can be saved by repentance, forgiveness and faith in Jesus Christ's death (blood sacrifice) and resurrection. No human merit or performance earns salvation
SB,
Infants and the mentally challenged don't have the ability to understand and respond to Jesus in repentance and faith. This also means they have an inability to reject Jesus.
We do have Jesus' statement about infants and heaven: "Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me. Don’t keep them away. The kingdom of heaven belongs
to people like them"' (Matt 19:14 NIRV).
I can't find any specific biblical statement regarding salvation and the mentally challenged. However, because of God's nature - his love, grace and mercy - it would be consistent with Matt 19:14 for Jesus to apply this verses to the mentally challenged who are under the umbrella of "
people like them (children)".
We can postulate that mentally handicapped people are covered by this principle as well. The Word of God does not specifically say this, however. Knowing the love, grace, and mercy of God, this would seem consistent with His character.
There is some insight in Deut 1:39 (NIRV),
'You said
your little ones would be taken prisoner. But they will enter the land.
They do not yet know right from wrong. But I will give them the land. They will take it as their own' (emphasis added).
Regarding those who have never heard the Gospel, this is what Scripture states:
18 God shows his anger from heaven. It is against all the godless and evil things people do. They are so evil that they say no to the truth. 19 The truth about God is plain to them. God has made it plain. 20 Ever since the world was created it has been possible to see the qualities of God that are not seen. I’m talking about his eternal power and about the fact that he is God. Those things can be seen in what he has made. So people have no excuse for what they do.
21 They knew God. But they didn’t honor him as God. They didn’t thank him. Their thinking became worthless. Their foolish hearts became dark. 22 They claimed to be wise. But they made fools of themselves. 23 They would rather have statues of gods than the glorious God who lives forever. Their statues of gods are made to look like people, birds, animals and reptiles.
24 So God let them go. He allowed them to do what their sinful hearts wanted to (Rom 1:18-24a NIRV).
The person without the Gospel when faced with God will have to answer the questions: What did you do with the evidence I (God) gave you in creation of my existence? What did you do with these pointers to me (God) in creation?
A W Tozer wrote:
Justice, when used of God, is a name we give to the way God is, nothing more; and when God acts justly He is not doing so to conform to an independent criterion, but simply acting like Himself in a given situation.... God is His own self-existent principle of moral equity, and when He sentences evil men or rewards the righteous, He simply acts like Himself from within, uninfluenced by anything that is not Himself” (
A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, pp. 93-94).
This teaching is straight from Scripture. Of God's nature, Moses wrote:
He is the Rock, his works are perfect,
and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,
upright and just is he' (Deut 32:4 NIV).
Abraham appealed to God's character: 'Far be it from you to do such a thing – to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you!
Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ (Gen 18:25 NIV).
Through Isaiah, God declared: 'I, the Lord, speak the truth;
I declare what is right' (Isa 45:19b NIV).
Therefore, unbelievers who have not heard the gospel will receive justice from God - God's kind of justice.
Oz