Is it better to die as a baby and go to Heaven or die at 90 and go to Heaven?
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Huh?
I'm seeking feedback on what might be the pros and cons to being born and then quickly going to Heaven as opposed to living a long life and then going to Heaven.
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Bob
Well-Known Member
Thank you for your question.
So first, a clarifying question: Better for whom?
Certainly not better for the baby’s family. Certainly not better for the baby’s community. Etc.
Not clear why you are asking. Yes, many, many people die before they are able to contribute to others (by loving their neighbor). But if they die tragically, we should try to learn from the tragedy and possibly prevent a similar death in the future. When people care and want to help, those that died ”early” will not have died in vain.
God loves us unconditionally and will help us in our times of need.
Blessings.
So first, a clarifying question: Better for whom?
Certainly not better for the baby’s family. Certainly not better for the baby’s community. Etc.
Not clear why you are asking. Yes, many, many people die before they are able to contribute to others (by loving their neighbor). But if they die tragically, we should try to learn from the tragedy and possibly prevent a similar death in the future. When people care and want to help, those that died ”early” will not have died in vain.
God loves us unconditionally and will help us in our times of need.
Blessings.
Stumpmaster
Well-Known Member
VictoryinJesus
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I don’t think it’s a strange question. It reminds me of: Job 3:9-17 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day: Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the spirit when I came out of the belly? [12] Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? [13] For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest, [14] With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; [15] Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver: [16] Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. [17] There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.
Personally I don’t think it’s speaking of infants better off never born. Maybe Job was full of melancholy. But it is a strange verse concerning better off to have not been, as infants which never saw light….
Thanks.
I can't help but surmise that there is a purpose and a benefit of us living lives in this world. Therefore, I can only wonder what souls who die as infants (or in the womb) miss out on, aside from the obvious.
I wonder if we all realize some sort of shared experience upon reaching Heaven. After all, we all have differing experiences in life and so, perhaps, all of our experiences are imparted among everyone else. That's my guess. I am simply curious if others have thoughts on how this works.
Thanks again.
Beebster
Member
Sorry if it came across like a complaint or an attack; that wasn't my intention.
Pros: You will be like the angels in heaven who have never known pain, suffering, sickness, or loss.
Cons: You will miss out on the human experience and all that comes with it, such as having children. You will miss out on the heavenly rewards for works done in this life. Your character will be tested and refined by the trials and tribulations in this life (This may not be a negative as the things we learn in this life may serve us in eternity in our future roles).
Cons: You will miss out on the human experience and all that comes with it, such as having children. You will miss out on the heavenly rewards for works done in this life. Your character will be tested and refined by the trials and tribulations in this life (This may not be a negative as the things we learn in this life may serve us in eternity in our future roles).
Things like this will happen according to the plans and purposes of God for every particular saved person.
And we do not have the mind of God to be His councilor.
Missing out on the pain and suffering in this world has it's attractions but that is according to the flesh as no one generally desires to be poor, miserable, suffer in this life, but it happens to lots of people.
And we do not have the mind of God to be His councilor.
Missing out on the pain and suffering in this world has it's attractions but that is according to the flesh as no one generally desires to be poor, miserable, suffer in this life, but it happens to lots of people.
Profiting from Trials
2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces [a]patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be [b]perfect and complete, lacking nothing. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.The Perspective of Rich and Poor
9 Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, 10 but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. 11 For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.Loving God Under Trials
12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.A Heavenly Inheritance
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance [b]incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been [c]grieved by various trials, 7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 8 whom having not [d]seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.
People are a spectacle to men and to angels in this life.
A similar thing Job experienced when His faith was tried by fiery trials, Christians can also expect to come their way.
In order to experience salvation, we have to be sinners who need saving.
Luke 7
40 And Jesus answered and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”
So he said, “Teacher, say it.”
41 “There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?”
43 Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”
And He said to him, “You have rightly judged.” 44 Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. 45 You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. 46 You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. 47 Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
48 Then He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
49 And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
50 Then He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
A similar thing Job experienced when His faith was tried by fiery trials, Christians can also expect to come their way.
In order to experience salvation, we have to be sinners who need saving.
Luke 7
40 And Jesus answered and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”
So he said, “Teacher, say it.”
41 “There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?”
43 Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”
And He said to him, “You have rightly judged.” 44 Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. 45 You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. 46 You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. 47 Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
48 Then He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
49 And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
50 Then He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
No one goes to Heaven unless they are truly born again in fact !
That does not mean that one will go to Hell if you are not born again, because many go to Purgatory in fact.
Hell is set for people who turn their back on God !
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
@NotTheRock This is a really good topic to raise. Excuse the length of this but the Bible is a big book….
It’s interesting to me that people talk about going to heaven as if it’s a given….an expectation for all….but it never was.
No baby who dies goes to heaven or anywhere else for that matter….and neither does the 90 year old. When God told Adam he would die….he meant it…..death is the opposite of life, not a continuation of it in spirit form, somewhere else.
God said to Adam…
”In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.”….
There is no mention of an afterlife here at all. Adam understood what death was because animals are not created to live forever like we humans are. He would have seen dead creatures and known that there was no life in them, once breathing ceased. (Eccl 3:19-20)
So how did humans arrive at the idea that we live on in spirit form after the death of the body? Several things contributed to this idea…..the main one was the first lie that the devil told in the garden of Eden.
We see that God told Adam that if they ate the forbidden fruit, they would surely die.
At Gen 3:2-4….after the serpent had tempted the woman…she repeated what her husband had instructed her…
“…the woman said to the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. 3 But God has said about the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden:‘You must not eat from it, no, you must not touch it; otherwise you will die.’” 4 At this the serpent said to the woman: “You certainly will not die.”
Did God lie…or did the serpent?
Because the devil had to back up his first lie in the face of human death, he invented a way for humans to go on living…in another form, invisibly, in another place. But that is not what God told Adam. He said that Adam would “return to the dust” out of which he was made….the elements of the earth would reabsorb the elements that his body was made of.
Nature takes care of death by consuming the dead bodies of creatures either by carrion creatures, or by insect larvae, or by decomposition in the action of bacteria. Nature’s clean up crew take care of the animal kingdom….but humans were never suppose to have death as a normal part of their Iives. We alone are created in God’s image, and were given the opportunity to live forever right here in mortal flesh on earth. The rebellion in Eden did not change that.
God’s original purpose for mankind was entirely earthly…..it did not mention heaven at all, mainly because God already had a large family of spirit sons there…..so earth and material creation were started in a material realm, rather than an immaterial invisible one….called heaven.
”In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”….material creation including the Universehad a beginning that science supports. So when rebellion happened, God implemented a way to use this rebellion in an instructive way so that in the future humans would be able to consult history and see where life without God would take them. We are living in that reality right now….satan is the pretend god of this world who has the ability to use his evil personality to fool people into believing his lies. (2 Cor 4:3-4) Especially about an immortal human soul…..there is actually no such thing ever mentioned in the Bible.
How does the devil fool people into believing that we don’t really die? He has other rebel angels to do his bidding, as well as easily led humans saddled with sin and easy to deceive. These wicked spirits can impersonate the dead and mislead the uninformed, pretending to be what they are not.
When Jesus was on earth, he introduced a new idea to his disciples….one that was a clearer understanding than what his Jewish worshippers were expecting. He would set up a kingdom with humans at the helm but these would rule from heaven over earthly subjects. God would hand pick these ones to join Jesus in heaven as “kings and priests” (Rev 20:6) for those who would need their help when satan’s entire world system was to be destroyed. Who else would be compassionate rulers for redeemed mankind, than those who had lived in the flesh and understand what it is like to be a mortal humans?
The subjects for these rulers will be on earth as Rev 21:2-4 says….
“ I also saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them. 4 And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”
And there you have the restoration of all that began in Eden, given back to the human race who have never experienced what rulership by God will mean for them. Think of all that Adam and his wife were given in the beginning…a beautiful paradise home, with all the varieties of fruits there for the taking…..no hard labor, just a meaningful life, taking care of all that God had made…..and gradually extending the borders of their paradise home until the whole world looked like the garden of Eden. This is why we are here….we didn’t need heaven to live in paradise….we were put here for a reason….
Gen 1:28-31….
“Further, God blessed them, and God said to them: “Be fruitful and become many, fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving on the earth.”
29 Then God said: “Here I have given to you every seed-bearing plant that is on the entire earth and every tree with seed-bearing fruit. Let them serve as food for you. 30 And to every wild animal of the earth and to every flying creature of the heavens and to everything moving on the earth in which there is life, I have given all green vegetation for food.” And it was so.
31 After that God saw everything he had made, and look! it was very good.”
What more could we have asked for? Death was not even in this picture because God had two trees in the garden…one that gave everlasting life….and the other carried the death penalty. If they were careful to avoid the tree that God had claimed as his own property, they would have had free access to “the tree of life” and lived forever. (Gen 3:22-24)
So in answer to your OP……a baby who dies has no advantage over a 90 who dies….both will “sleep in death” and be resurrected to paradise here on earth to begin the life they should have had all along (John 5:28-29).…what God starts….he finishes. (Isa 55:11) The devil forced a detour, but he did not derail God’s first purpose at all.
Thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God’s plans for the human race will be restored, as if the journey they had to endure to get there, never happened. Eternity is a long time to look back on what was only a brief ripple in God’s counting of time.
The Bible is one story from start to finish…..what we lost in Genesis is restored in Revelation…and all the things in between are how God gets us back to where we should be. Never again will there be a devil to take God’s purpose off track…
See you in paradise….?
It’s interesting to me that people talk about going to heaven as if it’s a given….an expectation for all….but it never was.
No baby who dies goes to heaven or anywhere else for that matter….and neither does the 90 year old. When God told Adam he would die….he meant it…..death is the opposite of life, not a continuation of it in spirit form, somewhere else.
God said to Adam…
”In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.”….
There is no mention of an afterlife here at all. Adam understood what death was because animals are not created to live forever like we humans are. He would have seen dead creatures and known that there was no life in them, once breathing ceased. (Eccl 3:19-20)
So how did humans arrive at the idea that we live on in spirit form after the death of the body? Several things contributed to this idea…..the main one was the first lie that the devil told in the garden of Eden.
We see that God told Adam that if they ate the forbidden fruit, they would surely die.
At Gen 3:2-4….after the serpent had tempted the woman…she repeated what her husband had instructed her…
“…the woman said to the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. 3 But God has said about the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden:‘You must not eat from it, no, you must not touch it; otherwise you will die.’” 4 At this the serpent said to the woman: “You certainly will not die.”
Did God lie…or did the serpent?
Because the devil had to back up his first lie in the face of human death, he invented a way for humans to go on living…in another form, invisibly, in another place. But that is not what God told Adam. He said that Adam would “return to the dust” out of which he was made….the elements of the earth would reabsorb the elements that his body was made of.
Nature takes care of death by consuming the dead bodies of creatures either by carrion creatures, or by insect larvae, or by decomposition in the action of bacteria. Nature’s clean up crew take care of the animal kingdom….but humans were never suppose to have death as a normal part of their Iives. We alone are created in God’s image, and were given the opportunity to live forever right here in mortal flesh on earth. The rebellion in Eden did not change that.
God’s original purpose for mankind was entirely earthly…..it did not mention heaven at all, mainly because God already had a large family of spirit sons there…..so earth and material creation were started in a material realm, rather than an immaterial invisible one….called heaven.
”In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”….material creation including the Universehad a beginning that science supports. So when rebellion happened, God implemented a way to use this rebellion in an instructive way so that in the future humans would be able to consult history and see where life without God would take them. We are living in that reality right now….satan is the pretend god of this world who has the ability to use his evil personality to fool people into believing his lies. (2 Cor 4:3-4) Especially about an immortal human soul…..there is actually no such thing ever mentioned in the Bible.
How does the devil fool people into believing that we don’t really die? He has other rebel angels to do his bidding, as well as easily led humans saddled with sin and easy to deceive. These wicked spirits can impersonate the dead and mislead the uninformed, pretending to be what they are not.
When Jesus was on earth, he introduced a new idea to his disciples….one that was a clearer understanding than what his Jewish worshippers were expecting. He would set up a kingdom with humans at the helm but these would rule from heaven over earthly subjects. God would hand pick these ones to join Jesus in heaven as “kings and priests” (Rev 20:6) for those who would need their help when satan’s entire world system was to be destroyed. Who else would be compassionate rulers for redeemed mankind, than those who had lived in the flesh and understand what it is like to be a mortal humans?
The subjects for these rulers will be on earth as Rev 21:2-4 says….
“ I also saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them. 4 And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”
And there you have the restoration of all that began in Eden, given back to the human race who have never experienced what rulership by God will mean for them. Think of all that Adam and his wife were given in the beginning…a beautiful paradise home, with all the varieties of fruits there for the taking…..no hard labor, just a meaningful life, taking care of all that God had made…..and gradually extending the borders of their paradise home until the whole world looked like the garden of Eden. This is why we are here….we didn’t need heaven to live in paradise….we were put here for a reason….
Gen 1:28-31….
“Further, God blessed them, and God said to them: “Be fruitful and become many, fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving on the earth.”
29 Then God said: “Here I have given to you every seed-bearing plant that is on the entire earth and every tree with seed-bearing fruit. Let them serve as food for you. 30 And to every wild animal of the earth and to every flying creature of the heavens and to everything moving on the earth in which there is life, I have given all green vegetation for food.” And it was so.
31 After that God saw everything he had made, and look! it was very good.”
What more could we have asked for? Death was not even in this picture because God had two trees in the garden…one that gave everlasting life….and the other carried the death penalty. If they were careful to avoid the tree that God had claimed as his own property, they would have had free access to “the tree of life” and lived forever. (Gen 3:22-24)
So in answer to your OP……a baby who dies has no advantage over a 90 who dies….both will “sleep in death” and be resurrected to paradise here on earth to begin the life they should have had all along (John 5:28-29).…what God starts….he finishes. (Isa 55:11) The devil forced a detour, but he did not derail God’s first purpose at all.
Thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God’s plans for the human race will be restored, as if the journey they had to endure to get there, never happened. Eternity is a long time to look back on what was only a brief ripple in God’s counting of time.
The Bible is one story from start to finish…..what we lost in Genesis is restored in Revelation…and all the things in between are how God gets us back to where we should be. Never again will there be a devil to take God’s purpose off track…
See you in paradise….?
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