Now, after having been so busy, let's develop this topic further:
John 3:1-15, 17-21
1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews;
2 this man came to Jesus at night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God [as] a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him."
3 Jesus responded and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."
4 Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a person be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother's womb a second time and be born, can he?"
5 Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born of water and [the] Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
6 "That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 "Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'
8 "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it is coming from and where it is going; so is everyone who has been born of the Spirit."
Notice the white spaces between the lines, in that nothing else is written as a caveat to the words of our Lord.
9 Nicodemus responded and said to Him, "How can these things be?"
10 Jesus answered and said to him, "You are the teacher of Israel, and [yet] you do not understand these things?
11 "Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you [people] do not accept our testimony.
Why were the people not accepting His testimony? Man always likes to think that he's smart enough to know how to make his way into Heaven, and will invent all manner of side-paths and try to stand ladders up against the wall to crawl over the top, and thus cheating the rules the Lord sets forth here and in other places.
The more dangerous aspect of this are those things couched in strong enough emotions that we search for any nuance, any little foothold that seems to give support for what WE want to believe, such as the fate of babies and young children. The words of our Lord have already been quoted where He clearly stated that the majority of mankind is on the WIDE path leading to destruction.
Again He offered no exceptions to the requirement for the new birth in the Spirit for entrance into Heaven. To say that there is "another way," that's a dangerous exception to suggest when a systematic study, in-depth, to any and all the wording in the perceived exceptions, and those exceptions fall flat in my studies to date.
12 "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13 "No one has ascended into heaven, except He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.
14 "And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15 so that everyone who believes will have eternal life in Him.
16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
When Jesus spoke of being AS the little children, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven, that was not a declaration for their automatic salvation, but an appeal to their character. I firmly believe what He stated in this regard, for if more of us were as little children in our character, there would be far less strife in families, road rage, and hatred in general. The world would be a far better place.
17 "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.
18 "The one who believes in Him is not judged; the one who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Babies and children, according to God's perfect justice, I think, will be afforded the opportunity to make that decision rather than to get around the core requirements the Lord set down for ALL of mankind, especially given that the majority of them will reject the Lord at that point, and beyond.
This is not an appeal to the exact means by which they will be afforded the opportunity to make that choice, but parents who did not parent their children in the ways and word of the Lord, yes, I can understand their concern. What parent wants to stand before the Lord and answer for not having raised up their children in the admonition of the Lord?
19 "And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light; for their deeds were evil.
20 "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light, so that his deeds will not be exposed.
21 "But the one who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds will be revealed as having been performed in God."
The idea that this will be attributed automatically to babies and children who passed from this life before reaching that point of decision, that forces so much test into the white spaces within scripture, and is therefore and eisegetical interpretation model, which is not something we accept from Mormons and JW's, but will turn around and perpetrate that very practice on the basis of our emotions.
You see, it's actually a good thing for them to be afforded that opportunity, because it gets around any and all interpretational methods that open up all kinds of doors to utilizing the same flaws for interpretation that the cults are known to apply as an attempt for a defense of their warped theologies.
As before, I'm not saying that I'm absolutely correct in this. Only the Lord knows, and He is the One who should be consulted as to the truth of this, because, like you, it's seemingly impossible to believe that they will be cast into the lake of fire because they were sinners who never had the opportunity to call upon the name of the Lord for salvation that only He can provide to any of us.
MM
