The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my mind and heart in Psalm 33:4-5,
"For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love."
If we take to heart what the psalmist says here, if we believe what this passage has to say, then we know some important things about our God. We read here that God's word (what we have in our Bibles), is "right and true." If we believe that, then we believe all that is said in our Bibles. We also read here that God is faithful in all he does. He will not do anything different than he says he will do. What he says he will do is a settled matter and won't change.
We read that the Lord loves righteousness and justice. We also read the earth is full of his unfailing love. Not just any kind of love... "his unfailing love." We see both on display in the cross of Jesus Christ. God's sense of justice is satisfied with the payment Jesus Christ made for our sins... and yet that very sacrifice of his one and only Son is the greatest expression of love the world has ever seen. The greater the cost, the greater expression of love. To make a way for us, for us to enter into eternal life, the cost was nothing less than the miserable, torturous death of the Son of God's love on our behalf on that cross.
These things being true, what is it we can expect from our Lord? In life, there are some things not spoken directly of that we may have question of. As an example, what does the Scripture have to say about aborted babies? Do they go to heaven? While we can deduce all kinds of things from Scripture, sometimes it is difficult to find a directly stated answer. In the absence of a direct answer, we make deductions from what it is the Scriptures do say. The dicey thing here is that we wind up relying on our own abilities of deduction. We may be spot on, and then again, we just might not. Where different groups disagree, somebody's ability to deduce an answer to an issue is faulty.
An example that can be heart-rending to consider is what happens to aborted babies? One group believes that babies are not sinners, but are innocent of all until they hit some arbitrary "age of accountability." Therefore, since aborted babies are not sinners, they go to heaven. The conclusion is made out of a concern that if babies are born sinners, all aborted babies would be headed for hell since they did not have access to the gospel. The Scriptures don't actually speak to the issue so this deduction is offered. Allusions can be drawn, but a direct statement is not provided us in the Scriptures. One allusion might be David's son of Bathsheba that did not survive.
Following David's adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband, Uriah, the prophet Nathan told David "the son born to you will die." 2 Samuel 12:14. Following the baby's death David said, "I will go to him, but he will not return to me." Verse 23. The thinking is that since we know David was heaven bound, his statement that he would go to the baby, in speaking of his own death, reveals the infant went to heaven. Therefore, we can extrapolate that babies and the unborn or still born go to heaven if they die - because they have not reached this age of accountability.
I can't buy into this line of thinking though. Not because I believe that the unborn and infants go to hell. On the contrary, I believe they do go to heaven - for another reason. But getting back to the line of thinking above, my problem with it is there is no such thing as an "age of accountability" or anything like it ever mentioned in the Scriptures. We also have David's admission himself of his sinfulness from the womb, "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." Psalm 51:5. Also in Psalm 58:3 he says, "Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies."
Rather than attempting to speak where the Scriptures do not, I find it best to rest in what the Scriptures do say. There is always the temptation for me to reason it out on my own and I constantly have to check myself. Sometimes I'm better than than at other times. For the issue of where aborted babies go following their deaths, I look to God and take great confidence in him being "right and true", his faithfulness, being just and loving as the psalmist says above. Since God himself is judge, there is nothing to worry about, nothing to be concerned about. I know that redemption is found in the cross of Jesus Christ, who atoned for the sins of all mankind, 1 John 2:2, that salvation depends upon our embrace of the gospel message, trusting in the Lord, and yet, I know that a just and righteous judge will provide for those without mental capacity, those who never had an opportunity to hear the gospel, the aborted, those with severe mental retardation, Cerebral Palsy and the like. A just judge is faithful in these things and our God reveals himself as nothing other than this.
If we know our God, if we believe what the psalmist has to say above, we can find solace in knowing the loving and just nature of God. We can know that whatever an unknown answer is to our question, it will be righteous and just, there will be a righteous and just outcome, an outcome we will be entirely satisfied and happy with. It will be an answer and an outcome that is consistent with our Lord who is right and true, who is faithful, who loves righteousness and justice, who fills the earth with his unfailing love.
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!
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