The Silent Holocron

This time we will look at the concept of infant regeneration.

Infant regeneration must be distinguished from our heretical position (see the Beginning Assumptions post) on baptismal regeneration. While baptismal regeneration is simply the doctrine that “baptism saves you,” and by extension stating baptized infants are saved, infant regeneration does not use the crutch of baptism to support it.

Infant regeneration, simply stated, is the position that children who die before this age, especially infants, are saved by God. How is this so? They are saved on the basis of Christ’s redemptive work and regeneration by the work of the Holy Spirit within them. Remember, “unless one is born again, one cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). As such, infants and “innocent” children must be regenerated (born again) prior to their death.

Scriptural evidence for infant regeneration is found primarily in the story of John the Baptist.

Luke 1:15: “For he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.” Here we see that John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit from the time he was but a mass of rapidly dividing cells and growing tissue in his mother Elizabeth’s womb. Wayne Grudem quips that “we might say that John the Baptist was ‘born again’ before he was born! (Systematic Theology, 500)”

Another instance is found in the Psalms, where David says of himself (and prophetically, of Jesus): “Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God. (Psalm 22:9-10)” Note the similarities between David and John the Baptist.

So advocates of this position say these Scriptures seem to suggest that God is able to save infants in an unusual way, a way that is distinctively separated from hearing the Gospel, repenting of sin, and trusting in Christ. It seems God is able to regenerate people early in life, in some cases even prior to birth.

Why would God do this? To quote Grudem again on the same page as above: “it certainly is possible that God would also do this where He knows the infant will die before hearing the Gospel.”

Incidentally, these verses have also been used to justify infant baptism and the baptism of small children. I also find it interesting that there are strong echoes of the Reformed ordo salutis (order of salvation) present here, namely, that one must be regenerated before one can willingly trust in Christ.

Deconstructing The Position
Now, let us remember the principle I introduced you to in the previous post; namely that we do not necessarily have to infer an understanding of Scripture where Scripture does not support that understanding. We are attempting here to allow Scripture to speak for itself, not trying to read our own beliefs, wants, and desires into the text.

The main problem with this perspective is that it directly bypasses the means of salvation. What do I mean?

In Romans chapter 10 we find the following passage:

13For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

So we see here that the only way for a person to be saved is through a direct response of faith that comes from hearing the Gospel preached. One must hear the Gospel and respond to it in order to be saved. That is the means by which God saves people. According to this passage, a baby must first have the Gospel preached to it, the baby must then hear (and by extension understand) the Gospel, and then the baby must respond in faith to the preaching of the Gospel.

For advocates of this position, this is not a problem. For those of us who have committed ourselves to “stick to Scripture,” this is a huge problem. A deeply important part of Scripture has been summarily crossed out of the Bible where infants are concerned! I do not want to accuse my brothers and sisters who hold this position of willfully ignoring the Bible. That will not help matters very much. But we cannot ignore that the means of salvation, according to the Bible, is through the preaching of the Gospel, and that this means has been ignored.

Immediately, however, we are faced with a problem. If Romans 10 is true, then how can a baby ever be saved?

Scripture is intensely silent on this matter. We are given hints at a solution by one of the verses used to support this perspective. In Psalm 22:9-10, David says that God “made him (David) trust God at his mother’s breasts,” that “God has been David’s God from the womb.” Advocates of infant regeneration will no doubt want to say, when faced with Romans 10, that God preached the Gospel to an unborn David, and caused David to believe in the womb.

If so, advocates of this position have fallen into a modification of another heretical position: post-mortem salvation. Instead of saying infants who die are given an opportunity to accept Christ after they die, they are saying that infants are given an opportunity to accept Christ before they are born!

This is totally absurd and violates one of our beginning assumptions, namely that Christ must be accepted in this life. How would you or I know if we accepted Christ before we were born? And why are we born without the quickened understanding given to us in the womb when the Gospel was preached to us? In addition, why does Scripture command that the Gospel be preached to us if we have already heard it and responded? No, this is an absurd and invalid position to take.

But here we have yet another error in thinking. We have, once again, been given an eisegesis, not an exegesis. This psalm in no way states that David was “saved from the womb,” nor does it say that “God preached the Gospel to David in utero (in the womb).” That has been read into the passage by advocates of infant regeneration. We have no idea from Scripture what God did to make David trust him from the womb, from birth. And as such, we cannot say with certainty that God brings the Gospel to an infant and allows the infant to understand and respond in faith. We will examine this verse more fully in Part 2.

We are also left with another problem given by such an odd interpretation of this Psalm in light of the Romans 10 objection. Who is responsible for our salvation?

Advocates of this position have no choice but to say that the baby is responsible. That is, the baby is responsible to respond once God makes the baby able to understand the Gospel. God is only responsible to preach the Gospel and enable the baby to understand it. We are left with no hope whatsoever that any pre-natal person is saved, just as in post-mortem salvation we are left with no hope that dead infants are saved! This is a direct contradiction of Scripture even for those who actually can understand the Gospel!

Scripture, instead, reveals that God is under no obligation to do anything to save us. That he saves anyone at all is a mystery! And it is just as clear from Scripture that we are all, from conception, children of wrath slated for destruction (see the post on original sin for more information). We are all going to hell! And we justly deserve hell. But God, in order to show his mercy, chose some of those children of wrath to become children of mercy (Romans 9:22-24) and graciously brings them to faith in Christ apart from any action on their part (Romans 3:20-28, 4:16; 2 Corinthians 3:5; Ephesians 2:8-9; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 3:5).

We are left in the same position we were in the last post. As Scripture does not say how God deals with an infant where the preaching of the Gospel is concerned, we must be silent where Scripture is silent.

We will continue our look at the Scriptures supporting this position in the next post.

All right. I believe we are now ready, after considerable preparation, to start looking at this concept critically. We have hopefully removed any impediments to study and gathered the necessary resources (see the Theological Investigation series here, here, and here), grounded ourselves in a good, basic understanding of original sin (as I wrote here), and have resolved not to fall into certain heresies and false doctrines (which can be read here).

Why the delay? Because it is critical that we do this correctly. Our answer to this question will determine our response to those whom we will minister. We cannot afford to misstep. If we do misstep, it must be from what we genuinely believe Scripture to teach rather than because we’ve been sloppy and unprepared in our study. As such, we will in the next few posts examine the verses or perspectives used in support of this doctrine. We will examine the passage or perspective, its strengths, and its weaknesses. Let us begin today with the first, major position that affirms infant salvation: the Age of Accountability.

What is the “Age of Accountability?”
It is commonly believed and taught that there is an age at which children become responsible moral agents. That is to say, before a certain point in a child’s life, that child cannot be held as guilty of committing sin. This is because there is no conscious understanding of good and evil, right and wrong, sin and holiness on the part of the child.

This is to be contrasted with our heretical position (see the links above) that holds the innocence of children when they are born. This position, instead, agrees that children are born with the taint of original sin. Rather than a child being innocent of moral corruption, a child is innocent of actual sins committed. There are a couple of Scriptural indicators of this position:

Deuteronomy 1:39: “And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad—they will enter the land. I will give it to them and they will take possession of it.” This verse is the command of God that the children of the rebellious Israelites would be the ones to inherit the promised land, not their parents. The children would not be held responsible for the sins of the parents, by virtue of their inability to distinguish between right and wrong.

Isaiah 7:14-16: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste.” In this messianic prophecy, Isaiah states that there will be a time when Jesus Himself will not be able to distinguish between wrong and right, and that a time would arrive when he would know consciously what was right and wrong.

These verses state that there is a time in a person’s life when one is unable to tell the difference between good and evil. Advocates of the affirmative position believe this means that until a child understands the difference, God cannot hold them guilty for sinful acts committed, because they are not sins consciously committed.

The foundation of this idea is based on Romans 2:5-11, where it is clear that we are judged by God on the basis of our works. That is, when we die and face the judgment seat, God is not going to ask us, “Have you accepted Christ as your Savior?” but rather, he will ask, “Did you keep my commands? Did you love me with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and did you love your neighbor as you love yourself?” The only answer any person could possibly give is “No, Lord, I am a complete and utter failure before you.” Some of you are about to object that I’m leaving Jesus out of it. Well, I can and do, because the passage in Romans is very clear about it — Jesus does not affect that judgment…yet. So hold your horses and bear with me.

What is clear is that since a baby has no consciousness of sin, no understanding of right and wrong, then by extension they cannot be judged guilty on the basis of their works, because there are no sinful acts committed yet. They would be judged innocent. But that begs the question: Is sin still sin if you don’t know that it’s sin?

Advocates of this position have no choice but to say sin is not sin if one does not know that it is sin. This is an absurd position. Stealing is still stealing, murder is still murder, failure to worship God is still failure to worship God. We would not excuse a criminal on the grounds that he/she did not know the law. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” it is often said. Paul wrote that the sins he committed in ignorance were still sins (1 Timothy 1:13). Other verses (Ephesians 4:18; 1 Peter 1:14) equate ignorance with being in a sinful state. It matters not if you know what you do is wrong, it is still wrong. Why? Because the rightness or wrongness of an action is not determined by you and me, but by God. Sin is sin whether we know it or not. Interestingly, this also applies to the “mental incapables” argument, often lumped in with infant salvation.

So it is clear that this argument cannot be used to support an age of accountability. The only thing we can say about this argument is that it deals with morally conscious adults, not infants, and as such we do not know how God deals with an infant.

But to focus on the texts themselves, we find an error in the thinking of those advocating an age of accountability. Nowhere do these verses state that God does not assign guilt, neither do these passages state that God cannot assign guilt. Such a statement is an eisegesis, not an exegesis. Eisegesis, for the laypeople among my readers, is reading one’s own bias–including worldview, tradition, philosophy, wishful thinking, what one would like to be true, etc.–into the passage of Scripture one is interpreting. Exegesis involves letting the text speak for itself, as apart from the personal bias and inferences of the interpreter as possible (in keeping with our principles of theological investigation). Dr. Chad Brand introduced me to a principle that has created much simpler ways of reading Scripture; namely, “we do not have to infer” a reading of Scripture when Scripture does not support such an inference.

Allowing the text to speak for itself reveals that in the Deuteronomy passage, God is saying that the children of the Israelites of the Exodus will not be held responsible for their parents’ rebellion after the 12 spies were sent into the land. It does not say that God will not count them guilty of all sin committed before reaching moral consciousness. Such a position has been inferred by those who wish to make this passage say what they want it to say. And we do not have to infer this position from the passage. It is a logical leap to say that because the children are not guilty of the rebellion at the river, therefore they are not guilty of any sin committed before they understand right and wrong.

Given the above discussion, we do not need to examine Isaiah 7:14-16, as we can see that the affirmative position is an inference from this verse rather than the clear teaching of the passage. The clear teaching of these passages is simply that there is a point in a person’s life at which one becomes morally conscious, before which there is no moral consciousness.

However, this position is the strongest argument for infant salvation, since it is obvious that the works of such a one with no moral consciousness are not considered willful sin. And without a clear indication of how God deals with this in an infant, we must be silent as Scripture is silent. But I think it has been made very clear that Scripture does not teach an “age of accountability.”

Next time we will look at the argument of Infant Regeneration.

Before we plunge into the waters of this doctrine, I’d like to attempt to stake out some boundaries for this investigation. As conservative, evangelical, missional, Baptist Christians we must be able to show that any conclusion reached as a result of this study must not fall into positions that are un-Scriptural at best and heretical at worst. With that in mind, we can agree that any doctrine of infant salvation, to be valid, must avoid:

1. Universalism. We cannot fall into the heresy that all will be saved. The universalist argument generally goes something like this: “God is love. Since a loving God would not allow any of his precious creatures to suffer in Hell, we can know that at some time everyone will be saved.” This is untrue and refuted soundly by even a cursory reading of the Bible. It ought to be enough that even Jesus spoke regularly of people being consigned to hell. Some, in affirming the salvation of all who die in infancy, have even preached that it might have been better for all humans to die in infancy so that they would attain heaven! Thankfully, we are not that hysterical, nor are we that histrionic. The Bible clearly teaches that not all will be saved, only a few. Universalism renders the question of infant salvation irrelevant. A doctrine of infant salvation cannot affirm universal salvation.
2. Post-mortem salvation. We cannot fall into the very troubling view that people are offered a chance to believe in Jesus after they die. This view is actually a modification of universalism. In this view, not all who die are saved; however, based on a misinterpretation of 1 Peter 3:18-19 and 4:6 some people teach that Jesus “preached the gospel to souls in hell.” Then those souls, usually people who have never heard the gospel and infants, can finally decide for themselves whether to accept or reject Christ. Faith in Christ in this life is not necessary, since Christ will be preached after death. This view is worse than universalism in that besides directly contradicting the biblical witness that “it is appointed for a person once to die and then face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27), it gives us absolutely no hope that anyone will ever be saved once they die. Would you like for your child to die and then never know if he/she accepted or rejected Christ after death? What kind of cruel, sadistic torment would that inflict upon parents who have lost children? If anyone preach such a doctrine, let him be swiftly corrected, otherwise let him be anathema. A doctrine of infant salvation cannot place that salvation after death.
3. Baptismal regeneration. We cannot fall into a view that baptism saves. Many denominations baptize babies by either sprinkling or pouring. Roman Catholics teach that only baptized children are saved. However, Scripture is clear that it is faith in Christ alone that saves, the sign of which is baptism. Obviously, babies cannot exercise a profession of faith in Christ, therefore any baptism of an infant is invalid as a sign of salvation. Nor is baptism itself salvific, since Christ himself said baptism is done to fulfill righteousness (Matthew 3:15). To “fulfill” means “to bring into realization or actuality; to put into effect.” In other words, to fulfill something, in the sense we are using the word here, is to mark it as something that has already taken place or is understood to be true. Baptism identifies a person as saved, it does not actually save. As such, only a person who has professed faith in Christ can actually be baptized. A doctrine of infant salvation cannot rest on baptism.
4. Denial of original sin. We cannot deny infants are born with original sin. This position is the doctrine that humans are born sinless and therefore innocent. Most people, including most Christians, believe this doctrine. Unfortunately, this doctrine is a 1600 year-old heresy. It is called Pelagianism. Pelagius was a British monk who lived around the same time as St. Augustine, who would become his major opponent. He taught that humans are not affected by Adam’s sin and as such are not born with a sinful nature (original sin). Moreover, because we are not born with a sinful nature, it is possible to save ourselves. All we have to do is to never sin, or if we have sinned, stop sinning. Unfortunately for Pelagius, Augustine realized the Bible directly contradicted his claims, and he wrote many treatises against Pelagius and his followers that ultimately led to Pelagius being condemned as a heretic and his position as heresy. I have given a brief treatment of the matter in my previous post on original sin and included resources for further study there. Babies quite frankly are not born innocent; all humans are born with the sinful corruption of our nature. Any doctrine of infant salvation cannot attempt to get around original sin.

All of these positions are attempts to deny the need to accept Christ as Savior. They deny the means by which Scripture says we are saved. In Scripture, faith in Christ is a gift of God that is granted to but a few, not all. Yes, the post-mortem salvation view seems to require faith in Christ, but remember, it is impossible for a person to attain heaven outside of faith in Christ in this life. So, ultimately any doctrine of infant salvation cannot deny the biblical requirement to believe in Christ and how that faith is brought into existence.

Now that we have defined where we will not go, let us attempt to understand where we must go in reaching a conclusion about this doctrine.

1. Any doctrine of infant salvation must account for original sin.
2. Any doctrine of infant salvation must have salvation occur before death.
3. Any doctrine of infant salvation must rest on faith in Christ.
4. Any doctrine of infant salvation must also rest on the means by which God grants faith in Christ.

With ground rules firmly outlined and grasped, we can now begin to investigate this doctrine. Join us next time.

Resources for further study:
When a Baby Dies: Answers to Comfort Grieving Parents by Ronald H. Nash
(Stephen’s Note: much of the outline for this post was based on Nash’s book. Nash very clearly outlined the issues that the sources in the previous posts inevitably raise. It is a short book but very well-written and thought provoking. I recommend this book for any parent dealing with the loss of a child.)

A few weeks ago, I was about to post the refurbished first installment in this series on the question, “Do Babies Go To Heaven?” It was in the queue, spell- and grammar- checked (thank you, Great-Gran and Grandmother for an intense upbringing in proper English), and all I had to do was click Publish. But right at that very moment, it hit me that I was missing something integral to our understanding of the question. I had left out the part that explains why there is even a problem in the first place: we have to deal with the concept of original sin.

Let me put up a definition here for my less verbose readers: prolegomena is a Greek word that means something like “prologue” or “introduction.” It is used in many theological books to describe what we would call the “Preface.” And indeed, the doctrine of original sin must preface any discussion about the supposed salvation of infants. Indeed, it colors the entire discussion, whether one knows it or not. But now, we can enter into this discussion much better informed and knowledgeable.  So, let us begin.

What Is Original Sin? Before we can understand what original sin is, we must first grasp what it is not. Original sin is not the very first sin committed by humans. Many people think original sin means the moment when Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is not true. It may be the first sin, but it is not what is meant by original sin. Original sin, instead, refers to the results of the first sin. Every single human since Adam and Eve was a sinner from their conception.

Many find this idea hard to grasp and even harder to accept. Scripture is very clear on the matter. Psalm 51:5 states, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (ESV). The NIV makes it more clear: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” The New Testament doesn’t get any better. Ephesians 2:3, speaking to Christians, says that “we [that is, Christians] were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” To be something by nature means that “something” is foundational to who you are. In other words, you cannot be who you are unless this “something” is a part of you. So we are by nature sinners, under condemnation and damned to hell (the “wrath” referred to in the Ephesians verse above), from the moment our parents conceived us.

How Did Original Sin Become Our Nature? Something happened to Adam as a result of eating the forbidden fruit. Something changed in him that affected his entire being — spiritual, psychological, and physical. Those changes were passed on to us. The most noticeable and accepted changes are physical deterioration and death, and the deterioration and death of our psyche (our minds and emotions). But many of us find it difficult to accept that something we are not immediately responsible for (the spiritual death Adam’s sin created) is passed on to us.

Romans chapter 5 is the clearest explanation of how sin became our natural state. There seems to be a logical progression here: sin enters the world, causing death. Adam passes that death on through his children all the way up to us. But Paul does not stop there. In verse 12, Paul says that Adam’s sin is also passed to us. “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned….” (emphasis mine) Even though you and I had never sinned — indeed we did not even exist so that we could sin — when Adam sinned, every single one of us sinned right along with him. There are two ways to look at this incredible fact of Scripture.

First, we can think of it in terms of biology. Let’s take deafness as an example. Some people are deaf because it is genetically inherited. Somewhere in that deaf person’s past, an ancestor had his or her genes altered by something that made him or her susceptible to becoming deaf and put all of his or her offspring at risk of becoming deaf themselves. From that person onward, every one of his or her children has a biological tendency towards becoming deaf. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for the children of Deaf people, that genetic trait does not always manifest itself. I’ve heard it said that deafness skips a generation! But even if a child is born hearing, it carries the gene, and passes on the tendency to its children. Sin is similar because the tendency is passed on, but it is also different. Sin never skips a generation, sin always shows up in the children of sinners! In that respect, when God sees a sinner, he also sees the children of that sinner as sinners themselves, because they carry that tendency with them even before they are born. Every potential child of a sinner, even before it is ever conceived, is tainted by sin and as such cannot be united with God.

The Bible speaks to this concept as “being in the loins of” Adam. How? By way of Hebrews 7:9-10, where the writer explains that Levi, even though he was not yet born, paid tithes to the priest Melchizedek through Abraham. Remember that Levi would not even be conceived until after Abraham died. This concept also leads us to a second way to understand original sin.

Second, we can look at it in a legal sort of way. Another way to understand the concept of being “in the loins of Adam” is to say that Adam was our legal representative. What he did would affect everyone he represented, for all time. Romans 5 also clearly expresses this legal concept, and much more forcefully than my biological argument above. Verses 18 and 19 clearly state that “one trespass led to condemnation for all men” and “by one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners.” Remember that the entire chapter is referring to Adam and Christ. The trespass and disobedience referred to throughout the chapter refers to Adam. The sin of Adam was clearly transferred to the rest of humanity. Again, when God sees a sinner, he also sees the children of that sinner as sinners themselves, but in this instance it is because of the status conferred on them by their father and representative, Adam.  And because of that status, just as in the biological argument, the children of Adam all the way up to us today cannot be united with God because of their legal status as sinners.

Is that still a problem for you? Remember, God is holy. As such, God cannot abide sin. He cannot be around it. He cannot have it. It must be cast out from his presence and destroyed utterly. And as such, sinners must be utterly destroyed for all eternity in hell. Sinners are damned.

If ever we faced a double whammy, it is this: we are sinners by both natural descent and legal representation. And we can’t claim inadequate representation, nor can we claim that we were not there to make the choice to sin. God made Adam perfect and there was no one else to take up that responsibility. Therefore Adam not only damns us by proxy (that is, as our agent or substitute), but also damns us by nature (passing on the sinful nature and all its consequences through biological reproduction). It cannot be made any clearer that children are not only born sinners, but they are also sinners at conception.  Scripture is airtight.

So now we arrive at the problem we face in this question: babies are conceived and born damned to hell for all eternity. Is there any hope for these children? Can they be saved? It is to this question we will finally turn in the next post. Join us later this week for this continuing series!

Resources for further study:
Systematic Theology, by Wayne Grudem, p. 492-501
Christian Theology, 2nd ed. by Millard Erickson, p. 648-656
Created in God’s Image by Anthony Hoekema, p. 140-167
Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle by Henri Blocher

[Note: If you get these books and your page numbers for Grudem and Hoekema don't match up, I'm using the 2000 printing of Grudem (which contains revisions from the original work printed in the '90s) and the 1994 paperback edition of Hoekema. Grudem has a new edition out and Hoekema has a new printing, so I don't know where the page numbers fall on this. Suffice it to say that they fall in Grudem's chapter on Sin and Hoekema's chapter on The Spread of Sin.]

Welcome back. Before I get into our chosen topic of study, namely the question of whether or not babies go to heaven when they die, I had decided first to try and head off the usual knee-jerk and emotional responses a subject such as this typically brings. In our last post on that subject, I posted 5 principles of theological investigation that everyone can learn to use. To recap, here they are:

1. Forget everything you know or think you know.
2. Set aside any bias you may have toward the subject as much as possible.
3. Make the Bible the final answer on the issue.
4. Rely on the Holy Spirit to make things clear to you.
5. Pray.

These principles are very, very basic. Every Christian should learn and practice them. I strongly believe that if I had been taught these principles early in my Christian life, I would be much more mature a believer than I am today.

I said that this time around I would provide some more basic principles, a little more advanced than these foundational ones. These are introductory principles of theological research, some of which most Christians actually learn to do on their own. This post is about the tools one needs to do strong work. Let’s dive right in.

1. Invest in a good concordance. The average Christian who has been in your average Christian bookstore knows all about Strong’s Concordance. I’ve got one on my bookshelf. I actually have 3 or 4 copies of it, given to me by various family members. It’s a great concordance, but it has one limitation – it is a KJV-based concordance. Young’s Analytical Concordance is more up to date, but it’s okay. There are many new concordances out there for newer, more modern versions such as the NIV, Kohlenberger’s NIV and NRSV concordances come to mind. The people who edit Strong’s have actually put out new versions of Strong’s that follow these modern translations. If you, like me, are more technically inclined, you can use an online program such as Biblegateway.com to do your word and verse searches; or you can invest in a good, top-notch Bible software program like Bibleworks. Bibleworks is my dream Christmas present, but the expense of it (it will run you at least $350) prohibits my possession of it. You can expect to pay as much as $50 for a concordance, but there are lots of discounts to be had in the bookstores and online retailers like Christian Book Distributors (CBD).

Why a concordance? It will save you a lot of time flipping pages and verse-hunting. Strong’s has actually saved my sanity a few times during sermon prep. I notice that many Christians are like me; that is, we know the verses but we cannot remember the “address” to save our lives. Or we know what the verse teaches but can’t remember what it actually says at the moment.

A concordance will also be a giant help to you should you need to do a word study to determine how the Bible uses a word or phrase. You have no idea how helpful that kind of information is when you learn to look for it and apply it to your studies.

2. Invest in a good Bible dictionary. This one is actually a little optional in my mind. But many Christians struggle with the meaning of biblical terms such as propitiation, justification, sanctification, predestination and many others. You could go out and get an unabridged Webster’s dictionary or a Collegiate Dictionary (which I really, really need to do myself), but these dictionaries will only add to the confusion. A Bible dictionary cuts out the fat and gives you the definitions that are actually related to what the biblical words mean. This allows you to focus on the concepts you are studying instead of wading through a morass of vocabulary.

Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary has long been the standard Bible dictionary, but more recently the Word-Study dictionary series have become popular. William Mounce, author of the famed Basics of Biblical Greek textbook (which is fast becoming the standard text), last year published Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words. I’m sure Mounce will also become a standard text as well. There are lots of other good ones, such as Unger’s, the Holman Illustrated (for you diehard Baptists out there), and other notables.

Those of you who are more hardcore about it, and have a little extra money, may want to invest in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. TDNT or “Kittel”, as it is also known, has long been considered the finest New Testament dictionary of all time. One of my friends got the set from his uncle as a graduation present. The problem is, it really, really helps if you know Greek, so unless you’re willing to take a class or sweat out “baby Greek” on your own, you’d be better off saving your money and using it on other things. They have a set of these for the Old Testament too, but you’ve got the same issues of cost and needing to know Hebrew.

3. Invest in a good systematic theology book. You’re not going to get away with skipping this one. If you don’t have a structured, coherent, biblical theological system, your beliefs are going to be all over the map. Right around the time I went to college, I was a hodgepodge of Baptist, Pentecostal/Charismatic, Fundamentalist, and Methodist theology. By the time I arrived at Southern, I’d largely shed the the extra (non-Baptist) stuff, and I still did not have a firm theological foundation. There was no structure to what I believed. Russell Moore – who at the time was not yet a Ph.D – required us to read The Baptist Faith and Message for an introductory class I took my first semester at Southern, and reading the BFM knocked my socks off. It was coherent. It was logical. And it was biblical. I wanted that! The two tools I will recommend went a long way towards bringing structure to my faith.

Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology and Millard Erickson’s Christian Theology have become the standards for both seminary students and the average Christian. Grudem tends to be more biblical and to the point, whereas Erickson is more explanatory and philosophical. For the layperson, I’d suggest Grudem’s book, since it’s easier to handle and less “talkative” than Erickson. If you want more explanation, you can pull out Erickson and read his treatment. That’s what I do. Most systematic theology classes at Southern offer the student a choice of which text to use. I used both, since I had both. I have deep appreciation for both texts. You won’t need any other book, unless you start studying the systematics of past theologians. You can procure both pretty cheaply at CBD.

I think I’ll do one more and then stop before this post gets too long.

4. Invest in a good commentary. This one should be a no-brainer. Most Christians who are serious about their Bible study will do this without being told. I did – I asked for one not long after I became a Christian. That was what started the flood of Christian books given to me as gifts by various family members. Commentaries are, generally speaking, explanations of the biblical texts by theologians. The purpose is to explain what the text of the Bible means with the goal of understanding what the biblical writer was trying to teach. Good commentaries will do this as well as in some cases apply the principles to the modern reader.

In the interest of saving people money, I’m going to suggest a one-volume commentary for the layperson. Every Christian bookstore has a copy of Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible. This is a good place to start. It was my first commentary as well. It’s only problem is (as with Strong’s) that it is a KJV-based commentary. That’s no surprise, since Henry lived in the late 1600s. Henry’s commentary focuses on explanation, which makes it a great benefit to young Christians.

Another good one is the MacArthur Bible Commentary. This commentary is very similar to John MacArthur’s multivolume commentary set – nontechnical, clear and concise. While I would actually prefer the multivolume set for more depth (I’ve started collecting it somewhat), you can’t beat this one if you’re just starting out. It’s meant to be used with the other resources MacArthur has published, so you could easily create an entire reference library from the MacArthur study tools alone.

Other good ones include the Holman Commentary and the Baker Commentary.

If you absolutely must have a multi-volume set, get MacArthur’s set (not yet complete) or the Expositor’s Bible Commentary set. I want to collect the MacArthur set as well as the Pillar New Testament series. But keep in mind multi-volume sets are an expensive proposition, and unless you can get a deal like I did on Calvin’s Commentaries (which I got for almost $100), you’re going to be collecting these things over a long period of time. So stick with the one-volumes unless you’ve got the money to burn.

That brings us to a pause. Learn to use these tools in addition to the five principles I gave, and you will see your study deepen even more. These basic tools should adorn your bookshelf, so that when you have a question or are confused, you simply need to reach for them. They will help you understand the subject more deeply, as well as help you develop questions for further study or to ask your pastor.

Join us next time as we begin our foray into infant salvation!

In the last post, I said I would present some basic principles of theological study for the lay person. It is my hope that those of you who are not pastors or seminary students will be able to use these principles to deepen your regular Bible studies. A word of encouragement: everyone who is a pastor or seminary student started out as a “complete klutz.” To this day I shudder to think of some of the things I believed ignorantly or accepted unquestioningly as a very young Christian. It was after being introduced to some of these basic principles that I began to truly mature as a believer. So with no further ado, let’s get started.

1. Forget everything you know or think you know. No one is immune to the “know-it-all” syndrome. It is only when you are willing to set aside everything you have learned and approach an issue fresh that you will really learn. You wouldn’t approach a car engine thinking you know everything about car engines when all you really know is how to check the oil, would you? You must admit your ignorance on the subject, even if it is a subject you have read or been taught about in the past. Many pastors and seminary students (myself included) forget this on a regular basis, so you are in good company.

2. Set aside any bias you may have toward the subject as much as possible. This is the hardest thing to do. It is extremely difficult for me to do, and I’ve gotten twice as much training in it! I’ve been theologically trained as well as trained in counseling methods, and I still have to remind myself to set aside any ideas I may have formed before studying an issue or sitting with a counselee. Bias is the enemy of learning. If you approach an issue with your mind already made up, you won’t learn anything about the issue. It is impossible to completely free yourself from bias, but you can free yourself to the point where you can be fairly objective. It doesn’t hurt to pray for that objectivity first! And with that being said…

3. Make the Bible the final answer on the issue. I think this is even more difficult to do, especially if you have failed to do #1 and #2. The Bible will challenge you. The Bible will offend you. The Bible will demand your belief and obedience. If you have not committed to make the Bible the last word on a subject, you will never have a stable faith. You will be blown about like a leaf on the wind, never able to rest on the truth. But if you are willing to trust God’s Word, and not the word of some book, blog, personality, or preacher, then whatever you study will have exponentially increased in value. When you judge every book, blog, personality, or preacher against the standard of the Bible, you will learn 10 times as much as you normally would.

As an example, let’s take limited atonement. Calvinists accept it. I don’t. I find it hard to reconcile with both Scripture and my conscience. But see, Calvinists are flat-out convinced that the Bible teaches this doctrine. And they are willing to conform to what the Bible says no matter how the doctrine seems to offend their sensibilities or the sensibilities of others. That is the exact attitude you must have if you are going to study doctrine. Will you follow what the Bible reveals even if it makes no sense to you or anyone else?

4. Rely on the Holy Spirit to make things clear to you. This point flows out of the third. If you commit to letting the Bible be the last word, the Holy Spirit will make clear to you those things you do not understand. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would lead us into truth. God keeps his promises. Job, when absolutely nothing in his life made any sense, declared boldly that he would trust the Lord even though he felt the Lord had been unfair. That must be your attitude. Willingness to rely on the Lord’s guidance will bring much greater fruit in your studies. And our last but not least item for today…

5. Pray. I can’t stress the importance of prayer in study. Pray the Lord’s prayer, but with study in mind. Pray that God will be glorified in your study. Pray that what he wants you to learn will be revealed. Ask him to remove any stumbling blocks of sin or temptation in your life that would hinder your study. Pray that he would prevent you from being a stumbling block to others as they study.

These are 5 basic principles that I have used for years. I learned some of them on my own, others through formal study in college and seminary. They are principles anyone can use. If all you do are these five, your study will be deeply enriched, your learning will increase exponentially, and your maturity can deepen.

Tomorrow, I’m going to provide some more basic principles for laypeople. I should probably say these principles are a little more advanced, but they are still very basic. As a layperson or new Christian becomes more serious in his or her study, what we will discuss tomorrow will become invaluable.

It occurred to me today that as I begin to post about this infant salvation stuff that many Christians won’t know how to deal with this issue. What do I mean by that?

The average Christian has all the theological aptitude of a clam in roller skates. Ask the average Christian about something theological, and you’re likely to get a pithy slogan, some kind of acrostic (i.e. JOY = Jesus, Others, You), or a quote from the latest fad such as The Purpose-Driven Life or Your Best Life Now. If George Barna and others are to be believed, we live in the most biblically and theologically illiterate church since before the Reformation. Some would amend that to say ever.

It wasn’t always that way. After the Reformation, “average” Christians wrote fantastic works of theology and books on Christian living that actually did tell you how to live Christianly. We know those people today as the Puritans. For a glimpse of just how deep they were, look at The Valley of Vision, a collection of prayers written by Puritans from all walks of life, rich and poor, men and women, educated and not. These Christians were certainly far from average, by todays standards, but in their day it seems to have been expected. Such depth continued through the time of Jonathan Edwards, and saw a revival under Charles Spurgeon, before the 20th century got its grubby hands on it.

Theology today is viewed with some suspicion, especially in this postmodern world. Look at most theological arguments from the average Christians, and instead of reading something biblical, you will instead read arguments of well-constructed logic at best. At worst, and more commonly, you will read emotional screeds. Daring to suggest that “the Bible says” over and against these lesser and invalid arguments can get you called all sorts of things that Christians ought not be calling other Christians. In their minds, there is no excuse for standing up and asking if something is biblical.

Case in point, after I began to seriously blog, I was actually told by a fellow seminary student (maybe he was a Boyce student, I don’t really know) who will remain nameless that I was “in league with the Devil” after I wrote something about the sincerity and biblical validity of testimonies. That was a hissy fit I don’t care to see repeated here. But such “hissy fits” are commonplace. If you watch the most popular preachers on television today, their sermons are emotionally loaded, tug at the heartstrings of their listeners, and fry their brains with logic. The majority of those sermons are also unscriptural.

Further, when the average Christian studies the Bible, it is with the view of having peace of mind on an issue, or how oneself can benefit, or how God can make one happy. When that study turns into debate or even apologetics, the results are terribly disappointing. The Christian relies on emotional appeals (my favorite is “MY God would/wouldn’t…” or one of the many appeals to the love of God, as if it is the Band-Aid of the universe), appeals to logic (“If you do X, God will do Y, then Z will happen), or pure guesswork based on what the Christian has been taught by leaders he/she trusts and what little he/she has actually gleaned from the Bible.  Keep in mind that none reading this paragraph, including the guy who wrote it, are innocent of these things.  Every last one of us has done them at some point in our Christian walk.

The result is that when issues such as the one we will soon discuss are brought up, people become easily offended and will not think the issue through biblically. Instead, those emotional/logical/loyalty attachments are held even more tightly, and the Christian becomes what the Old Testament called “stiff-necked.” Scripture is ignored or even (knowingly or unknowingly) derided. I was once told by someone reacting in this way that “I just pretend those verses aren’t in the Bible.”

So, as a primer for the discussion on infant salvation that will ensue on this Silent Holocron, in the next post I am going to provide some basics of theological investigation for laypeople. The majority of the people who read this blog are pastors or seminary students, but those of you who are not will benefit from it. Perhaps these principles will even help you to understand the Bible better. Furthermore, perhaps these principles will help you to help not only me, but other Christians come to a biblical conclusion on infant salvation or other issues. Even better, perhaps these principles will spark a hunger in you to desire God’s glory in all you do.

Join us tomorrow when I will post these principles.

At long last, I feel it is time to come out of blog hibernation. As we end this hiatus, I felt that it would be appropriate to return to a subject which I have held off for several months. We are going to return to the subject of the salvation of infants, or as more commonly framed, “Do babies go to heaven?”

Below is the first, introductory post in the series, reposted almost verbatim. Following will be a list of the original posts in the series. Enjoy them, and please help deepen my study by leaving your comments (positive and negative) either on the originals or on the new posts. Especially, feel free to ask questions where I have not been clear, seem to have overlooked, or may well have just gotten it wrong!

Do Babies Go To Heaven?

This question has become a sticking point between me and my wife. It is a given that we will have children at some future point. I’ve been asked this question by counselees. Many of our friends have infants and small children. We both know people who have lost babies through miscarriage, SIDS, accidents, etc. When I worked as a chaplain at Kosair Children’s Hospital, I personally witnessed several dozen stillbirths, infant and child deaths. My wife adamantly affirms that babies who die go to heaven. At this point in my development, I have to say “I don’t know.” Honesty demands such a response from me.

On the surface, it would seem to be an easy answer. We are judged at death on the basis of our works, and babies quite obviously do not have the capacity for willful sin. Babies also cannot yet distinguish between right and wrong. Based on their works, babies would get into heaven.

BUT…

There is a singular problem here. Nowhere in Scripture do we see salvation outside of Christ. Even in the Old Testament, salvation rests on the promise of God’s redemption of us and nothing else. Only those who place their faith in Christ can go to the Father. Babies, quite frankly cannot do this. They, like all other unbelieving sinners, lack the ability to believe in Christ.

Furthermore, babies are sinners. David wrote that we were conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5), and as such from the moment we were conceived by our parents we became sinners deserving nothing but eternal condemnation.

In addition, through personal experience I have been convinced of the capacity of an infant to sin. I observed one of my friend’s daughters, when she was a little over year old, repeatedly headbutt another infant. She was told repeatedly to stop, and even swatted a couple of times by her mother. Her response? Laughter. Then she would wait until she thought no one was looking, and repeat the headbutting. It was apparent to me that the little one knew what she did was wrong, and that she enjoyed it. I said to myself at that moment, “without Christ she is going to hell.”

Many of you will say, “oh, that’s just an innocent child playing a game,” but no it wasn’t. The other infant was wailing and crying, and my friend’s daughter was intent on inflicting harm. This was quite simply an instance of willful sin.

Based on the deep-seated, natural corruption of our being from conception, which only reveals itself as a child becomes expressive, babies would go to hell without faith in Christ.

Do you now somewhat understand and appreciate the difficult position in which one is put? I could list many other pros and cons for this belief. Instead, I would like to examine each position, pro and con, over the next few days and attempt to reach some sort of conclusion, even if I end up right back where I started, at “I don’t know.” It may well be that the most mature and Scripturally faithful answer could be just that, “I don’t know.”

So, join me as we look in to the doctrine of infant salvation over the next few days!

For the original posts in this series, click these links:
Do Babies Go to Heaven?
Do Babies Go to Heaven? – Sidebar
Do Babies Go to Heaven? – Pro
Do Babies Go to Heaven? – First Rebuttal, Part 1

While watching and reading about this weekend’s NFL Draft, I was struck by how crudely appropriate a picture of our salvation it is. Namely, it is a crude picture of God’s election of believers. How is this so?

Think about this. Each team has in mind the kind of players it wants to draft long before the draft begins. Each team knows the needs that must be met before their plan can take shape and succeed. Out of all the available players, the team comes up with a “wish list” of players to fill each need. Assuming the team drafts every player on its list, now the team woos their draftees with a contract, which is eventually accepted and signed by the players.

In the same way, God has a plan in mind for His creation. He not only knows, but has decreed exactly what must happen, exactly who must act in which way in order for His plan to succeed. Before He ever implements His plan, He fills out his “wish list” from all the humans that He will bring into existence that will determine the “who must act” portion of His plan. These are His elect, determined from before the foundation of the earth. God then sets out to “woo” those elect through His grace expressed in the person and work of Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And Scripture says that every one of these elect will eventually “sign the contract.” The Spirit will not fail in His work.

But the story does not end there.

An NFL team will spend millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours developing their newly drafted talent. If the rookie is not developed, or simply refuses to develop, he will be cut from the team. He will never truly have been a part of the team. Summer camp becomes a training ground, where the rookie must prove himself constantly, learning through experience as well as by the example of veteran players. The rookie must also learn to listen to his coaches and study his playbook before he will ever be allowed to do more than just practice during the week and sit on the bench during games.

In the same way, God has spared no expense developing His elect. New believers immediately face challenges, and unless they are discipled, they will fall away. “False converts” will simply refuse to be discipled. If there is no change in a new believer’s life to mirror the supposed change in heart, there are serious reasons for believing this “rookie” is not a believer. The church becomes the new believer’s training ground. He will be fed and nurtured, given opportunities to prove himself. He will learn from his pastor and mature Christians within the congregation. He will be taught to study Scripture. He will be trained for the opportunities he will receive to gain experience in living out his salvation. If he does not learn to listen to his pastor and “elder” Christians, nor does he study his Bible, there will be no place of service for him, and he will become a “pew-warmer.”

And ultimately, one day he will look up in awe and wonder, and with tears in his eyes cry out to the Lord, “Out of all the players You could have drafted to fulfill your great plan, You drafted me. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!”

Would that we all had this attitude. Selah.

In my previous post on this subject, I noted that Jerry Falwell had declared of Liberty University:

“We are not into partcular love or limited atonement. As a matter of fact we consider it heresy.”

I stated that Falwell had taken two distinctively Christian doctrines or concepts and called them heresy. Falwell spoke of particular love and limited atonement. While it seems Falwell is lumping these two concepts together synonymously, they are in fact two distinctive concepts. Today we will briefly examine whether or not “particular love” is a biblical concept.

What is “Particular Love?”

“Particular love” seems, at first glance, to be the idea of loving certain individuals in a special way. Also at first glance, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this idea. It is a simple fact of human nature. Each of us practices such love. I love my wife in a way which I do not love other women. I love my family in a way which I do not love other people. And I love my church in a way which I do not love other churches. Every person reading this surely must agree with this assessment.

But Falwell, it seems, has connected this idea with limited atonement. That is to say, Falwell is asserting that “particular love” teaches the idea that God does not love everybody. Since Jesus only died for Christians, then the logical conclusion is that God only loves Christians, right?

Wrong. Such a conclusion, even if one concedes the first part of the syllogism, is so utterly false and unbiblical it boggles the mind. Why?

In my post on John 3:16 (you can read it here), I showed that it was very clear that God does, in fact, love everyone. “God loved the world.” There is no contesting this explicitly clear statement. The entire Bible is filled with statements describing God loving. 1 John 4 makes it explicitly clear that no one is able to love unless God loves first. So it is very clear that God does, in fact, love everyone.

Feeling It Doesn’t Equal Doing It

Unfortunately for Falwell, it seems he has conflated the emotion of love with the act of loving. Just feeling love does not necessarily equate into expressing that love. More specifically, having love for a group of people does not mean that love is expressed in the same way to every member of that group. And so we move right back to the assertion of the first paragraph in the previous section: God does not love every individual in the same way.

How do we know this biblically? Again, return to John 3:16. The Greek of this verse makes it explicitly clear. The Greek word most English versions translate as “so” actually means in this manner, in this way or as I like to say, this is how. Most Christians, when they read “For God so loved the world” will actually think, For God loved the world so much. Such a reading is incorrect. The correct reading is “For God loved the world in this way” or “For this is how God loved the world.” So we see that while God does indeed love the entire world, He has chosen to express that love in a specific way. This is what is really meant by “particular love;” God loving in a certain way rather than generally.

To see the illogic of Falwell’s understanding, let’s look at it this way. I love my sisters in Christ deeply and in an abiding manner. I also love my wife deeply and in an abiding manner. If Falwell is correct, then I must love these women and my wife equally and without distinction. That means I must take these women out to dinner, provide for them, emotionally connect with them, have sex with them on a regular basis, perform all the husbandly duties for them. Do you not see the absurdity? It is just as absurd to insist that God must love Christians and non-Christians just as equally. Jesus does not perform husbandly duties for those who are not His bride. Ephesians 5 makes it clear that He does these things for the Church alone.

It is clear, then, that the love of God for humanity is not expressed generally.

How Does God Love?

Returning to John 3:16, it again becomes obvious just how God loves the world. He sent the only begotten Son. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how God loves you, Christian or non-Christian. That expression of love is so limited, so particular, and so biblical that I have trouble understanding why Falwell is even objecting. 1 John 4:9 makes it clearer by repetition: In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. This passage is nothing more than a restatement of John 3:16 and should be considered exactly synonymous.But the problem, and this is where Falwell totally misunderstands this concept, is that there is a purpose behind expressing God’s love in this way.

Why Does God Love This Way?

Both John 3:16 and 1 John 4:9 lay out the purpose behind God’s expression of love: that those who believe in Jesus will live forever. God wants to give eternal life to humans. In fact, the Bible explicitly says God wants all people to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). But He is not going to pass it out arbitrarily like animal crackers and apple juice in children’s Sunday School. Just like I don’t give the same kind of love I give my wife to other women, God does not give eternal life to just anyone. No, He gives it only to a certain type of person; one who believes. Just as I only share my bed with one woman, God only shares His eternal life with one type of person.

Let’s take the sexual intimacy anology once again. Is it really love to share your bed with a person who does not love you? Do you really want to have sex with a person who is not emotionally invested in you? A person who has no desire for you beyond carnal benefit, a person who does not think highly of you, a person who does not want to share their life with you? If any of us have a shred of integrity and self-respect, the answer must obviouly be a resounding “NO!”

So by the same token, why would God share His eternal life with a person who does not believe in His Son, a person who does not care for Him, a person who only wants worldy gratification from Him, a person who thinks very little of Him, a person who does not want to commit their life to Him? If you can answer that question, you are a much smarter person than I. In fact, you are even smarter than the professors I have been privileged to sit under.

Who Does God Love?

At this point we come to the crux of Falwell’s misunderstanding of particular love. God makes His love manifest only to those who believe in Jesus. What Falwell is failing to comprehend is that while God loves everyone, not everyone experiences God’s love. That experience is left only for believers.

Such a concept is testified to practically everywhere in the Bible. The Psalms, for example, are awash with statements to the effect that God expresses His love to those who obey Him, who do right, who are just and upright in their ways. In fact, the Psalms are explicit that God hates (yes, hates) those who do not. Psalm 5:5 is a glaring example of that. Wicked people do not experience the love of God. Quite the contrary, they experience God’s hatred of sin. Perhaps the most famous and controversial expression of this idea is from Romans 9:13, quoting Malachi 1:2, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”

A Right Response

It is fitting for us to conclude this examination with that verse, Romans 9:13. What is really disturbing about that verse is not that God hates Esau. What is disturbing is that God loves Jacob. God hates evil. He absolutely hates sin. He despises it. It makes Him sick! And by all accounts Jacob was one of the worst of sinners. That God loved Jacob at all is mind-boggling. Astounding! Why? Because, as Joseph told his brothers, Jacob’s sons, what was intended for evil, God intended for good. God loves particularly because He intends for evil people to be saved. And He extends that love for the purpose of saving them. And He will only allow those to be saved whom meet the criteria of that love. That is mind-boggling and life-changing to understand.

Jerry Falwell does not understand this. I think that he knows exactly what I have just written, and that he agrees totally. But in his rush to condemn “limited atonement” and all who believe in it, he has trampled a core Christian concept.

“Particular love,” as we have seen, is a totally biblical concept. It is not heresy. God has expressed His love through Christ. This expression of love makes it possible for only those who believe in Him to experience it. That we believers experience such love ought to make us bow down on our faces in humility and awe and praise and worship and glorying in the One who so loved us. Excuse me, in the One who loved us in that way.