3
Children and the Kingdom of God
(Luke 18:15–17)
And they were bringing even their babies to Him so that He would touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them. But Jesus called for them, saying, “Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” (18:15–17)
All Christian parents have been given the responsibility by God to “bring [their children] up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). Their greatest concern is their children’s eternal destiny; their greatest desire for them is that they spend eternity in heaven, not hell. To that end Christian parents pray for their children’s salvation, and work toward that goal by teaching them the gospel in an attitude of love and discipline, while avoiding exasperating and discouraging them (Col. 3:21), and living Christ-loving lives before them.
All of this is to lead children to salvation when they are old enough to repent and believe. But what about before that age comes? How does God see them? This passage is foundational to that understanding. In it the Lord Jesus Christ reveals how God views little children in relation to His kingdom. The text may be examined under four headings: the setting of the text, the scolding by the disciples, the special care for children, and the salvation analogy.
THE SETTING OF THE TEXT
And they were bringing even their babies to Him so that He would touch them, (18:15a)
The references to it in verses 16 and 17 show that this section continues the Lord’s discussion of the kingdom of God, which began in 17:20. The urgent question that would have arisen in the minds of Christ’s hearers is, Who will be in the kingdom? To whom does the kingdom belong? The previous passage (vv. 9–14) answered the question of who will not be in the kingdom. Ironically, it was those who were the most convinced that they would be in it: the religious high achievers, most notably the Pharisees and their followers. They were deceived into believing that their Abrahamic ancestry, self-righteousness, external morality, devotion to observing rituals and ceremonies, and scrupulous keeping of the minutiae of the law guaranteed them entrance into God’s kingdom (see the previous chapter of this volume).
But in reality, the opposite is true. Those who enter the kingdom are those who know they cannot achieve righteousness by their own efforts. They are acutely aware of their sinfulness and, like the tax collector in Luke 18, contritely and remorsefully confess their sins and cry to God for forgiveness they do not deserve. Only such people, Jesus declared, will be justified by grace (18:14).
The transition from verse 14 to verse 15 is a natural and logical one. No one better illustrates the reality that only the lowly who have achieved nothing of merit enter the kingdom than infants. No one has achieved less morally and religiously than them; no one has less knowledge of or obedience to the law, or less devotion to God. Thus, infants perfectly illustrate the principle that God saves sinners apart from their achievements. While the proud and self-righteous are excluded from the kingdom, infants—and those who approach the kingdom like infants—are included.
This was yet another stunning rebuke by our Lord of the Pharisees and their works-righteousness religious system, which dominated Jewish culture. In such a system, the idea of a baby entering the kingdom was absurd. Babies neither understood the law nor practiced it, and were thus incapable of performing any meritorious works with which to earn salvation.
This incident, like the previous one, is a real-life story. The significance of this brief account is evident from its inclusion in both Matthew’s (19:13–15) and Mark’s (10:13–16) gospels, as well as here in Luke. Some parents, concerned about the spiritual well-being of their children, were bringing even their babies to Jesus so that He would touch them. It was common for Jewish children to receive a blessing from the elders of the synagogue or prominent rabbis. Matthew’s account reveals that this incident happened in front of a large crowd, likely numbering in the thousands (Matt. 19:2). According to both Matthew and Mark, the discussion prior to this incident concerned family issues (Matt. 19:3–12; Mark 10:2–12). That being the case, it was natural for the gospel writers to record this story of parents bringing their infants (Gk. brephos; a newborn or very young child) to Jesus at that time, hoping that He would pronounce a blessing on them.
The Old Testament reveals God’s love for little children, which also pictures His unique love for Israel (Ezek. 16:4–7). Further, God considers all babies to be His (Ezek. 16:20–21). As God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ frequently demonstrated divine love for children. For instance, in Matthew 18:1–6 He held a child in His arms (as He did here; cf. Mark 10:16) while teaching the importance of childlike faith. At His triumphal entry, He responded to the indignant Jewish leaders’ challenge by quoting the Old Testament saying, “Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise for Yourself” (Matt. 21:16). Throughout His ministry Jesus showed compassion to the sick, the grief-stricken, the hungry, and the lost. To fail to show compassion to children, the special object of love for adults, would have undermined all of the compassion that marked His ministry.
Jesus was not simplistically sentimental about children. He knew that they were sinners, and could be peevish, stubborn, selfish, and rebellious. In fact, He not only used them to illustrate the childlike faith that marks those in the kingdom, but also the rebellious stubbornness that marks those who are not (Matt. 11:16–19). But because of His evident compassionate love for children, parents felt very comfortable in bringing their children to Jesus, hoping His blessing would bring divine favor on their lives.
THE SCOLDING BY THE DISCIPLES
but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them. (18:15b)
Although bringing their children to Jesus was important to the parents, it was nothing but an insignificant obstruction to the disciples. They saw it as an intrusive, unnecessary, unimportant interruption to their Lord’s ministry, so when they saw it, they began rebuking the eager parents. Rebuking translates a form of the verb epitimaō, which describes a strong rebuke or censure (the related noun epitimia is translated “punishment” in 2 Cor. 2:6). The imperfect tense of the verb indicates that the disciples were persistent in rebuking the parents. The disciples had grown up influenced by the Pharisees’ teaching that children could not perform any meritorious works that would earn them salvation. Therefore they saw no reason for Jesus to interrupt His discussion of the kingdom for this request.
THE SPECIAL CARE FOR CHILDREN
But Jesus called for them, saying, “Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. (18:16)
Overruling the disciples, Jesus called for the parents to bring their children to Him. Then He sharply, indignantly (Mark 10:14) rebuked the disciples for their wrong assumptions and efforts to thwart the parents’ intention. The Lord emphatically commanded the disciples to allow the children to come to Him, both positively, “Permit the children to come to Me,” and negatively, “Do not hinder them.”
The stunning reason the Lord gave for His special concern for the children is that the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. That is an unqualified, unambiguous declaration, allowing for no exceptions or limitations, and opposite the prevailing view of the Jews. Jesus did not limit it to the children of faithful Jews who were part of the covenant, or to circumcised children who manifest the sign of the covenant (or to all children who are baptized). Nor was Jesus by a special sovereign act dispensing salvation only to those infants on that particular occasion, as the use of the word toioutōn (such as these) instead of toutois (“these”) indicates. Children here refers to all who are unable to believe savingly because they have not reached the condition of personal accountability (the age at which that happens varies from child to child). Until that time when the law and the gospel can do their work, they are under God’s special care.
As noted above, that does not mean that children are not sinners; all people are born sinners. “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,” David said, “and in sin my mother conceived me” (Ps. 51:5). In Psalm 58:3 he added, “The wicked are estranged from the womb; these who speak lies go astray from birth” (cf. Gen. 8:21; 1 Kings 8:46; Ps. 143:2; Prov. 20:9; 22:15; Eccl. 7:20; Isa. 48:8; Jer. 17:9). Everyone inherits the guilt of Adam’s sin and the corruption of his nature (cf. Rom. 5:12–21). The reality that children die proves that they are sinners and not morally neutral. But in a child, sin has not yet developed to the degree that it produces conscious resistance to the law and will of God.
The reality that the kingdom of God belongs to such as these means that until they reach the condition where they are accountable to God for the work of the law in their conscience and can understand the truth of the gospel, children are in God’s gracious care. That care is realized when children die. This is not to say that all children are saved, then lost at the time of accountability. In fact, when Jesus said that the kingdom of God belongs to such as these, He was referring to the present form of the kingdom, which is spiritual (the realm of salvation). Children who die before reaching the condition of accountability are then secured in the kingdom forever.
The Bible explicitly supports this implication that children who die before becoming accountable to God are saved and gathered into His presence. Such children are innocent in God’s sight. In Deuteronomy 1:39 God referred to Israel’s young children as those “who this day have no knowledge of good or evil.” He informed Jonah that He was withholding judgment on Nineveh in part because of the children there who were not old enough to “know the difference between their right and left hand” (Jonah 4:11). Such children have no true understanding of good and evil. They have no understanding of God’s law, and therefore no sense of disobedience or guilt for violating it. Because they do not know what is right and wrong, they are not culpable for their actions and are innocent before God (cf. Jer. 19:4–5, where God called the infants sacrificed to pagan gods “innocent”). As R. A. Webb wrote,
If a dead infant were sent to hell on no other account than that of original sin, there would be a good reason to the Divine Mind for the judgment, because sin is a reality. But the child’s mind would be a perfect blank as to the reason of its suffering. Under such circumstances, it would know suffering but it would have no understanding of the reason for its suffering. It could not tell itself why it was so awfully smitten, and consequently, the whole meaning and significance of its sufferings, being to it a conscious enigma, the very essence of the penalty would be absent and justice would be disappointed, cheated of its validation. (The Theology of Infant Salvation [Richmond, Va.: Presbyterian Committee of Publications, 1907], 42)
Lamenting his misery and suffering, Job said,
Why did I not die at birth,
Come forth from the womb and expire?
Why did the knees receive me,
And why the breasts, that I should suck?
For now I would have lain down and been quiet;
I would have slept then, I would have been at rest,
With kings and with counselors of the earth,
Who rebuilt ruins for themselves;
Or with princes who had gold,
Who were filling their houses with silver.
Or like a miscarriage which is discarded, I would not be,
As infants that never saw light.
There the wicked cease from raging,
And there the weary are at rest. (Job 3:11–17)
In light of his suffering, Job felt it would have been better for him to have been a miscarriage or a stillborn child and to have thus entered into heavenly rest.
Perhaps the most helpful illustration in the Old Testament of the salvation of infants who die is found in 2 Samuel 12. After David’s horrific sins of committing adultery with Bathsheba and then murdering her husband in a botched attempt to cover it up, he was rebuked by Nathan the prophet. After David confessed his sin (v. 13), Nathan assured him of God’s forgiveness, but informed him that one of the consequences of his sin was that his son with Bathsheba would die (v. 14). For seven days, the distraught king fasted and prayed for the life of his son. When he perceived that the child was dead, David “arose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he came into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he came to his own house, and when he requested, they set food before him and he ate” (v. 20). His astonished “servants said to him, ‘What is this thing that you have done? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept; but when the child died, you arose and ate food’” (v. 21). David explained that while the child was still alive, there was hope that God would relent and spare his life (v. 22). But after the child died, there was no further point in fasting (v. 23).
Then David confidently said at the end of verse 23, “I will go to him, but he will not return to me.” He knew that after his own death, he would be in God’s presence (cf. Ps. 17:15), and the certainty that he would be reunited with his son in heaven secured for him comfort and hope.
In contrast, when his rebellious adult son Absalom died, David was inconsolable (2 Sam. 18:33–19:4). He knew that after he died, he would be reunited with his son by Bathsheba. But David knew there was no such hope of a reunion after death with Absalom, the murderer (2 Sam. 13:22–33) and rebel.
By blessing the children on that day, Jesus affirmed the Old Testament’s teaching; the Lord blesses those who belong to Him, not to Satan, as all accountable sinners do (John 8:44). When babies die, their souls are received into heaven. Those who do not die live under God’s special gracious, compassionate protection until they reach the point where they understand good and evil and become responsible for the law and gospel. Then their eternal destiny will hinge on their repentance and faith, for which God will hold them accountable.
The salvation of infants who die has been the church’s teaching for centuries. The great reformer John Calvin wrote,
Those little children have not yet any understanding to desire his blessing; but when they are presented to him, he gently and kindly receives them, and dedicates them to the Father by a solemn act of blessing. … To exclude from the grace of redemption those who are of that age would be too cruel … it is presumption and sacrilege to drive far from the fold of Christ those whom he cherishes in his bosom, and to shut the door, and exclude as strangers those whom he does not wish to be forbidden to come to him. (Commentary On A Harmony of Matthew, Mark, And Luke [Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1845], 2:389, 390, 391)
The noted nineteenth-century theologian Charles Hodge wrote, “Of such [children] He tells us is the kingdom of heaven, as though heaven was, in great measure, composed of the souls of redeemed infants” (Systematic Theology [Reprint; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979], 1:27). B. B. Warfield, the revered and definitive nineteenth-century Princeton theologian, also argued that Scripture teaches the salvation of infants:
Their destiny is determined irrespective of their choice, by an unconditional decree of God, suspended for its execution on no act of their own; and their salvation is wrought by an unconditional application of the grace of Christ to their souls, through the immediate and irresistible operation of the Holy Spirit prior to and apart from any action of their own proper wills. … And if death in infancy does depend on God’s providence, it is assuredly God in His providence who selects this vast multitude to be made participants of His unconditional salvation. … This is but to say that they are unconditionally predestined to salvation from the foundation of the world. If only a single infant dying in infancy be saved, the whole Arminian principle is traversed. If all infants dying such are saved, not only the majority of the saved, but doubtless the majority of the human race hitherto, have entered into life by a non-Arminian pathway. (Cited in Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination [Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980], 143–44)
Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” (18:17)
This brief analogy is based on the truth illustrated by this incident. Jesus introduced it with the statement of emphasis, truly I say to you (cf. Matt. 18:3; 19:14; Mark 10:15). The Lord’s point is simple: whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all. Children are the best illustration of how people are saved. Like them, the redeemed are saved by God’s sovereign grace, despite their spiritual ignorance and lack of any achievements that would merit salvation.
While their young children are under God’s special care is the best time for parents to evangelize them. How can they best take advantage of those years? First, by teaching their children the truth of the gospel, as Timothy’s mother and grandmother did for him (2 Tim. 1:5). Second, by modeling the truth that they teach. Teaching the truth but not living it is nothing more than counterproductive hypocrisy. Finally, by loving them. Parents love their children by being affectionate, tender, compassionate, sensitive, sacrificial, and generous, and by protecting them from evil influences. Those who train their children in that way form in them lifelong patterns that will not be forgotten (Prov. 22:6).