Children Who Die Without Baptism

The married daughter of one of our church families recently had a miscarriage. While I did not personally minister to this mother and her husband, I can relate. The same thing happened in the early years of our marriage. I remember the pain and the confusion that filled our lives for many months after that. The premature death of a child is a frequent occurrence in many families. With that so are the questions about the eternal destiny of that child, especially when the family shares the Christian faith in the mercy and love of our heavenly Father. With that in mind, I'd like to share a few thoughts, about premature death and about abortion.

In the days when the Church began it was common among pagans to kill unwanted children. Newborns were simply abandoned and left to perish. As horrible as that sounds, the crime of our modern world, abortion, is no less horrible. A mother chooses to kill a helpless child, the fruit of her own body. These children are denied both physical birth and rebirth in Holy Baptism.

What about the millions of children who die unbaptized? They must be committed to the unsearchable judgments of God: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33). Possibly He will not hold them accountable since they die by treacherous hands.

What Luther says about the uncircumcised in Israel is applicable to aborted children:

“Even though infants bring with them inborn sin, which we call original sin, it is nevertheless important that they have committed no sin against the Law. Since God is by nature merciful, He will not let their condition be worse because they were unable to obtain circumcision in the Old Testament or Baptism in the New Testament” (Luther’s Works, vol. 3, p. 103).

This concern also applies to grieving parents whose children are stillborn or who die shortly after birth. Any suggestion that all children who die without Baptism are necessarily consigned to damnation is essentially a Christianized version of Manicheanism, an ancient pagan religion that attributes to God both good and evil motives at the same time. In this teaching physical death automatically carries the penalty of eternal death. This is not the Lutheran position.

Children of believing parents come under the influence of God’s Word through their parents, even before birth. The congregation also prays for them. Even before birth such children hear the Gospel and believe. The case of John the Baptist who leaped for joy in the womb of his mother Elizabeth is critical in helping bereaved parents (Luke 1:38-44). The Word of God has power to create faith also in unborn infants. Faith is present in such children both before and at the time of Baptism. Let this be a source of comfort and encouragement. Baptism remains important for many reasons, but it is the Word of God that creates faith in children as well as in adults, both in and outside Baptism.