brianbbs67 wrote:Sinning is defined as Breaking God's law. Since infants don't know and understand the law, they can't be condemned for it. So, death doesn't prove sin, necessarily. Death proves life as a human.
Well argued secular interpretation for a hard theological doctrine. BUT:
death is the wages for sin has a real meaning and was written to instruct us in something.
Wages and the person earning them is a pretty strict metaphor - no one is paid the wage if they do not deserve it. And if anyone can die without earning death by sin then this verse is meaningless so I must ask how you fit it into your understanding.
Please consider:
1.
Ezekiel 9:5 As I listened, he said to the others, “Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. 6 Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary.� So they began with the elders who were in front of the temple. This suggests GOD's wrath includes children. There is no hint here that HE is killing them to save them.
Gen 6
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.
12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.
13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. Babies too were destroyed in this judgment upon sin.
Also, when God smote the nations did He not order the killing of everyone? Do we not see that as judgement for sin?
Ex 12:29 The Lord kills all the first-born in the land of Egypt.
Num 21:3 The Israelites utterly destroy the Canaanites.
Deut 2:33-34 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Sihon.
Deut 3:6 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Og.
Children are not treated as innocents, are they?
2.
IF babies who die prior to the age of accountability automatically go to heaven without any free will choice to become saved or to reject salvation, by a God who does not want people to go to hell as per:
2 Peter 3:9: ....He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance, THEN
WHY are NOT all humans saved this way if it is a legitimate way to be saved?
Why do some die to automatically go to heaven and some live to get tested, some to their annihilation or eternal torment? Why some and not others? I feel left out of the automatic heavenly club - God should have killed me as a child!! What a lot of suffering it would have saved the people I've hurt.
3.
Romans 5:
13 For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses
People's New Testament commentary on
5:13:
For until the law sin was in the world. Paul now shows that all must have sinned in Adam. Until law is given sin is not imputed. Yet sin must have been in the world from the time of Adam until the law of Moses, because death, which is due to sin, reigned. The prevalence of death proved the existence of sin.
Death between Adam and Moses proves sin.
Without law there is no sin.
Therefore these deaths prove they broke a law.
Some interpret Paul as saying that they were included in Adam's law breaking, "Do not eat..." which may seem necessary even though a blasphemy if you do not know of any other law. Others contend that they broke a law in the spirit world before being born on earth, the command to
"come out from among them and touch not the unclean thing" given to HIS elect so the non-elect could be judged and later repeated to HIS sinful church,
and
1 John 2:7 I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. I cannot help but think that John was alluding to
Isaiah 40:21 Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? If he is not alluding to Isaiah, he certainly is referring to the same truth in my opinion, and Isaiah's
beginning is the foundation of the world when we were supposedly taught something...
1 John 3:11 For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. I believe that John is referring to the loving purpose GOD has for each of us.
1 John 3:23 And this is His commandment, That we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment.
Also if death reigned over these people due to sin, breaking a law, then GOD's judgement and execution of them was justified, as in the Flood and at Sodom and Gomorrah.
It is said that since babies have
no understanding of the law so there can be no imputation of sin until an age of accountability (finally understanding the law, aka the difference between good and bad), therefore they die innocent and go to heaven.
But here we see that pre-Moses "no imputation of sin" unto those who had no sin imputed to them after their birth were not saved from GOD's righteous judgment of their evil unto their destruction.
4.
Can babies sin in the womb?
Genesis 25:22 And the children [Jacob and Esau]
struggled together within her. Hebrew tradition has them trying to kill each other as the word translated as struggle, wrestle, really means
to crush each other to pieces and the euphemisms were chosen to purposefully avoid any hint that they were being sinful.
Now, if they were fighting, at least one, if not both, had to be being evil, that is, doing evil works, or we'd have to admit that they were each fighting the other by the will of GOD.)
We know from this story that babies can fight in the womb, that they therefore know at least some of their future on earth and the status of themselves and others and that they already had chosen to become sinful, ie murder for themselves not trusting in GOD.
We also know that their future life is important to them in the womb and they are emotionally involved with it no matter that we all forget this as we forget most of our earliest years on earth. It also lends support to the interpretation of
Ps 51:5... sinful from the time my mother conceived me. as being straight forward truth.
The answer is not found in their innocence but in their election: elect babies go to heaven no matter at what age they die and non-elect babies return to Sheol from whence they came: Ps 9:17 The wicked shall RETURN to Sheol, all the nations that forget God.
Peace, Ted
PCE Theology as I see it...
We had an existence with a free will in Sheol before the creation of the physical universe. Here we chose to be able to become holy or to be eternally evil in YHWH's sight. Then the physical universe was created and all sinners were sent to earth.
This theology debunks the need to base Christianity upon the blasphemy of creating us in Adam's sin.
