7
Why Jesus Blessed the Little Children
(Mark 10:13–16)
And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; 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.” And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them. (10:13–16)
This incident is recorded in all three Synoptic Gospels (cf. Matt. 19:13–15; Luke 18:15–17). Although brief, it is of great significance, because it answers the important question of what happens eternally to infants or young children when they die.
The answer Jesus gave, that they are part of God’s kingdom, ran counter to the prevailing view of the apostate Judaism of His day. According to the Pharisees’ works-righteousness system, such children were incapable of understanding and keeping the law, or of performing any good works that would earn salvation. Hence, the idea that they could enter the kingdom was absurd.
By identifying young children as part of His kingdom despite their inability to do anything to earn salvation, Jesus did more than merely violate the conventional wisdom of the day. The salvation of such children is as a powerful an illustration of the biblical truth that salvation is by grace alone as any reality. Thus, this incident stands in sharp contrast to the one that immediately follows it in all three Synoptic Gospels, namely, the Lord’s encounter with a rich, young ruler (see chapter 8 of this volume). That man seemed to have the inside track to the kingdom. He was extremely wealthy (Luke 18:23), fastidiously self-righteous (Mark 10:20), and deeply religious (Luke calls him a “ruler” [Luke 18:18], probably of a local synagogue). Yet he remained outside of the kingdom (Matt. 19:23), while these children were in it.
The crucial incident may be viewed under four headings: the sought for blessing, the sharp rebuke, the special care, and the salvation analogy.
THE STORY’S SETTING
And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; (10:13a)
Jewish parents commonly brought their children to the elders of the local synagogue or to prominent rabbis so that they might pronounce blessing on them. In a similar vein, the Old Testament records the paternal blessings of their children by Noah (Gen. 9:26–27), Isaac (Gen. 27:1–41), and Jacob (Gen. 49:28). Because of His great affection for children, parents often brought theirs to Jesus (cf. 9:36–37; Matt. 21:15–16). His affection for children, however, did not make Him naively sentimental about them. Jesus understood that children were sinners, and used a story about peevish and obstinate children to rebuke the Pharisees for their rejection of Him and John the Baptist (Matt. 11:16–19).
Paidia (children) is a general term for children. In his account of this incident, however, Luke used a form of the word brephos, which refers specifically to unborn babies, newborns, or young infants (Luke 18:15; cf. 1:41, 44; 2:12, 16; Acts 7:19; 1 Peter 2:2). Many parents in the huge crowd (Matt. 19:2), who saw His love, power, and majesty, and heard His preaching and teaching about the kingdom, salvation, and eternal life, were bringing their babies to Jesus so that He might touch them. These were parents who wanted their children to know God, to be a part of His kingdom, and to have eternal life, as any sensible parents would. They wanted Jesus to pray for their children’s spiritual well-being; that God would show favor to them.
THE SHARP REBUKE
but the disciples rebuked them. (10:13b)
The disciples, still influenced by the works-righteousness system in which they had been raised, were not on board with the parents’ enthusiastic desire to have Jesus bless their children. They saw the children as little more than unnecessary interruptions to the Lord’s ministry, and sharply rebuked the parents for disturbing Him. Rebuked translates a form of the verb epitimaō, an intensified form of the verb timaō. Epitimaō means “to censure,” or “to reprimand”; the related noun is translated “punishment” in 2 Corinthians 2:6. Mark used the word to describe Jesus’ rebuke of demons (Mark 1:25; 3:12; 9:25), and a storm (4:39), His warning to the disciples not to reveal that He was the Messiah (8:30), Peter’s rebuke of Jesus (8:32) and the Lord’s subsequent rebuke of Peter (8:33), and the crowd’s rebuke of a blind man who kept calling out to Jesus (10:48).
THE SPECIAL BLESSING
But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. (10:14)
The disciples’ overzealous rebuke of the parents prompted an indignant response from Jesus. The verb translated indignant is also a strong word, meaning “angry,” “irate,” or “outraged.” It describes the reaction of the scribes and Pharisees to the children in the temple who were hailing Jesus as the Messiah (Matt. 21:15), the reaction of the other ten disciples to the request by James and John for the chief seats in the kingdom (Mark 10:41), the reaction of some present when a woman anointed Jesus with expensive perfume (Mark 14:4), and the reaction of a synagogue official when Jesus healed on the Sabbath (Luke 13:14). The term indicates that Jesus was seriously agitated at the disciples for the way they treated the children. Nor did Jesus rebuke the parents who brought their children to Him. The disciples were the sole target of His rebuke, because of their wrong assumptions and misunderstanding of Scripture.
Nothing was said about the spiritual condition of the parents, or whether they were believers or unbelievers. The children’s faith was also a nonissue. Such children are not by conscious choice unbelievers or believers; they can neither receive divine salvation truth, nor reject it.
The Lord’s response to the disciples was emphatic. “Permit the children to come to Me,” He commanded; “do not hinder them.” The present tense of the verb translated hinder indicates that the disciples were to continue to allow the parents and their children to have access to Christ. It was essential that the children be allowed to come to Him because, as He told the disciples, “the kingdom of God (the sphere of salvation) belongs to such as these.” The Lord’s statement is unqualified; there are no caveats, conditions, or restrictions attached to it. He did not apply it only to the children of faithful Jews, circumcised (or baptized) children, elect children, or only to those infants present on that particular occasion. Luke’s use of the Greek word toioutōn (“such as these”) instead of toutois (“these”) indicates that Jesus was referring to all those who are unable to believe savingly because they have not reached the point of personal accountability (Luke 18:16).
It is obvious that Jesus did not pronounce blessing on people outside His kingdom. All such people belong to Satan’s kingdom (John 8:44; Col. 1:13; 1 John 3:8) and are cursed. Babies, before they reach the age when they understand good and evil (which varies from child to child), are under God’s gracious, special care. If they die before that time, their souls will go to heaven; once past that point, God will hold them responsible if they fail to repent and believe the gospel.
The comforting truth that young children who die will go to heaven does not, of course, mean that they are not sinners, even though they have not consciously chosen to sin. The Bible is clear that every human since the fall has been born a sinner, inheriting Adam’s sinful nature, which he passed on to all his descendants (Rom. 5:12–21; cf. the tragic refrain “and he died” in the genealogy recorded in Gen. 5). That corrupt nature is present from conception. David wrote, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Ps. 51:5). Psalm 58:3 confirms the reality that “the wicked are estranged from the womb; these who speak lies go astray from birth.” In Genesis 8:21 God said, “The intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (cf. Isa. 48:8). Proverbs 22:15 notes that “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.” The very fact that babies can die demonstrates the reality that they are not morally neutral (the historic position of Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, and Arminianism) but sinners, since death results from sin; it is the wages sin pays everyone (Rom. 6:23).
That all infants without exception grow up to be sinful adults offers further proof that they are sinners. In 1 Kings 8:46 Solomon noted that “there is no man who does not sin.” David pleaded to God, “Do not enter into judgment with Your servant, for in Your sight no man living is righteous” (Ps. 143:2). Solomon asked rhetorically, “Who can say, ‘I have cleansed my heart, I am pure from my sin’?” (Prov. 20:9). In Ecclesiastes 7:20 he added, “Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.” God said through Jeremiah, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). Paul affirmed the universality of sin in the human race when he wrote, “There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one” (Rom. 3:10–12). Sinfulness is not a condition that people enter when they sin but one they are born into that causes them to do evil. In other words, people are not sinners because they sin; they sin because they are sinners. So babies and young children are in God’s kingdom solely by an act of His grace.
It is not true, however, that such children have eternal life and then lose it once they reach the condition of accountability, since eternal life, by definition, cannot be less than eternal (John 3:15–16; 5:24; 6:40, 54; 10:28–29). Instead, God holds them in a condition of grace until they reach the age where they become accountable before Him. That temporary, conditional grace will become eternal for those who die before becoming accountable. The Bible teaches that they are viewed as innocent in God’s sight. God referred to the young children in Israel as those “who this day have no knowledge of good or evil” (Deut. 1:39). God withheld His judgment on Nineveh in part because of the children in the city “who [did] not know the difference between their right and left hand” (Jonah 4:11). Since they are not old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, young children are not culpable for breaking God’s law and are innocent before Him (cf. Jer. 19:4–5, where God referred to children sacrificed to Baal as innocent and Ezek. 16:21, where He called them “My children”). Explaining why God graciously spares such children 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)
In the midst of his suffering, Job lamented,
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)
So intense was his suffering that Job wished he had been a miscarriage or a stillborn child and entered directly into heavenly rest.
As I noted in an earlier volume in this commentary series,
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. (Luke 18–24, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary [Chicago: Moody, 2014], 29)
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: Calvin Translation Society, 1845], 2:389, 390–91)
The eminent 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 [repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979], 1:27). B. B. Warfield, the respected 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; for a further discussion of the salvation of infants, see John MacArthur, Safe in the Arms of God [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003].)
THE SALVATION ANALOGY
Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” (10:15)
The salvation of young children is an apt analogy that demonstrates that salvation is entirely by grace. It is a deathblow to any form of legalism, since such children obviously can do nothing to merit salvation. The Lord’s solemn declaration, “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all,” was a severe rebuke of the legalistic works-righteousness system of the Pharisees and their followers and, by extension, of all who trust in their good works to save them.
Drawing the passage to a close, verse 16 notes that Jesus took the children in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them. In a wonderful gesture, recorded only by Mark, the Lord emphasized the special place these children have in the kingdom. The verb translated took them in His arms is a compound verb that means, “to enfold in one’s arms,” just as one would do with a baby. He embraced them and began blessing them one by one. The sense of the verb translated blessing is that Jesus blessed them fervently, praying for each one of them with His hands on them, a very familiar blessing posture. The Lord’s acceptance pictures the reality that that salvation is by grace alone. The salvation of a child who dies without having performed any meritorious works is the greatest illustration of that foundational biblical truth. Upon the death of a child or one with a child’s mind, God applies the sacrifice of the Savior to them and they are declared and made righteous in the same moment.
The greatest blessing parents can confer on their children is to lovingly evangelize them. That is their highest priority as stewards of their children’s lives once they are old enough to understand and believe the gospel. Their children’s salvation is a sovereign work of God, but parents are the agents by which that divine work is accomplished. They are the primary missionaries in the lives of their children.