At what age is it determined that a child will go to heaven or hell?

Sincerely, Thinking of the Children

Dear Thinking of the Children,

That is an excellent question… that I can’t answer. I could leave it at that, but I have a feeling you were looking for a little more in-depth of an answer. I’ll tell you what the Bible says on the subject, but it doesn’t say much.

We know any babies that die all go to heaven. David’s son died, and David made it clear that his son was in heaven (2 Sam 12:23). Also, Paul uses the immaturity of children as an example (1 Cor 13:11). This tells us God doesn’t have the same expectation of a child’s behavior as He does of an adult’s. Children are not bound by the same rules as adults. A child doesn’t have the mental capacity or maturity to be held accountable for their mistakes like adults are.

In order to become a christian, there are several things God expects you to be capable of doing:

1. Take responsibility for your sins (Acts 3:19).
2. Hear and understand the Word of God (Rom 10:17).
3. Be responsible for your own spiritual growth (1 Pet 2:1-2).

If a child is not capable of doing those things, they cannot be held accountable for their eternal future.

This still doesn’t answer the question though because every child matures at a different rate. Everyone agrees that a five-year-old can’t be held accountable, and that a twenty-year-old can. It is the age spectrum in between where our judgment gets fuzzy. Only God, who knows our hearts (Lk 16:15), can accurately judge the hour in which a child makes that transition into accountability.

5 minutes a day 5 days a week All the New Testament in a year

At work we often have conversations about politics, religion, world events, etc. I’m the only conservative in my department, so you can imagine… it gets lively.  Our conversation was on marriage one particular day, and I pulled out my Bible and read what Paul wrote in Ephesians 5: 22-32. It is beautifully written, and I could see it impacted their thinking. However, one of them said, ”Men wrote the Bible, right? Don’t men have their own agenda; are not men fallible?” I did the best I could to answer this question, but I don’t think I did a great job. What is the best way to show that the men who wrote the Bible were inspired by God?

Sincerely, Defending the Faith

Dear Defending the Faith,

The best way to show it is to show the uniqueness of the Bible. The writers of the Bible admit that it is their hands that wrote it (Gal 6:11), but they also explain that God’s Spirit guided those hands (Eph 3:3-4). If that is true (and it is!), then the Bible would show signs that it was written by God and not man. Here are some simple reasons that the Bible is unique from every other book:

1. It is 100% scientifically accurate. Isa 40:22 mentions the earth being round. Job 36:27-28 explains the water-vapor cycle. These and other verses mention scientific principles that were not understood until centuries later.
2. It never contradicts itself. Over 40 different writers penned the pages of the Bible. They came from different walks of life and different eras, yet no one has ever found a contradiction from Genesis to Revelation.
3. It has been perfectly preserved throughout history. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint are copies of the Bible written 1,000 years apart, and yet, there is no difference in the text.
4. No book is as widely distributed as the Bible. Written in over 2,500 languages and sold by the billions, the Bible is the most published book on the planet. No other book comes even close.
5. The Bible is accurate in prophecies. The prophecies of Tyre (Eze 26:3-21) and Babylon (Isa 13:19-22, Isa 14:23) give specific, detailed accounts of the fall of those cities. Those prophecies were written many years before the events took place, and yet they came to pass exactly as the Bible foretold.

These are only short answers to the question ‘Why is the Bible unique?’, but they are a good start when discussing the issue with someone. If you want a more detailed answer, I recommend Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell and Has God Spoken? by A.O. Schnabel as great reference material on this topic.

5 minutes a day 5 days a week All the New Testament in a year

Does everyone who goes to Heaven get the same reward, or will some people have a bigger or better reward based on how good their works are in this life?

Sincerely, Preparing For Eternity

Dear Preparing For Eternity,

Yes, some will have a greater reward in heaven than others – though I don’t want you to misconstrue this as meaning heaven won’t be entirely perfect for everyone there. The most important verse on this topic is Matt 6:20. The implication is that heaven uses more than just a pass/fail entry system, but that there is a way to ‘invest’ in heavenly rewards. Jesus reiterates this idea of storing treasures for yourself in heaven when He talks to the rich young ruler (Mk 10:21).

The idea of heaven having various rewards shouldn’t be too foreign to us because God is clear that its counterpart, hell, certainly does. Heb 10:28-29 makes it plain that there is an especially dark corner of hell for those who were christians and rejected Christ later. False teachers also are condemned under a stricter judgment than the average unbeliever (Jas 3:1).

It is easy to see that verses do say that heaven and hell have varying degrees of reward and punishment, but the problem is envisioning how that works. If everyone will be completely happy in heaven (Rev 21:4), how can some have more rewards than others? At this point, we must accept our weakness in envisioning spiritual concepts. Any analogy we make is purely an attempt in our feeble minds to explain a realm too glorious for us to grasp. So take the following analogy with a grain of salt.

The example I use to explain the varying degrees of heaven uses two men with buckets. Two men go down to a river with buckets; one man has a five gallon bucket, and the other has a one gallon bucket. They both dipped their buckets in the river… whose bucket is fuller? Both buckets are equally full, are they not? I liken heaven to filling our buckets. Everyone’s bucket will be full. The only question is -how big will your bucket be?