This post is a chapter from the book, Hope in the Loss of a Baby: A Deeper Dive into what the Bible says about Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Death, which is the culmination of much study, counseling, and sermons shared over twenty years. Since this book was meant to bless the church I am also making it available on this blog.
Your child is not dead, but only
fallen asleep in the lap of Jesus. He has taken the little one from the storms
of this world into the quiet nursery of the Heavenly Paradise. ~ George
Whitefield
Isaiah 11 describes the new heavens and the new earth after
the kingdom of the Christ is established. This chapter is where we get the idea
that the lion will lie down with the lamb. In the new creation we have
wonderful promises that wolves will not devour lambs, that panthers will be
friendly to young goats, that lions shall return to their vegetarian diet.
Ultimately there will be peace all around.
The picture is of a restored paradise, and while some readers
think this is figurative language, I believe it is literal. One reason I read
it literally is because when it talks about babies and infants, it doesn’t use
abstract language like, “Children could tend lions…” or “Babies could
play with cobras.” It uses concrete language,
a little child shall lead them. ~
Isaiah 11:6
and
The nursing child shall play over
the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s
den. ~ Isaiah 11:8
These little ones shall be in the new heaven and the
new earth. They shall lead and play.
Heaven is a Nursery
Concerning these and other verses, many authors have described
heaven as a nursery. While some have said that heaven has a nursery, many
have observed that it is more accurate to say that heaven is a nursery.
Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to
such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14, emphasis mine).
He also said, “Do not despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that
in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven”
(Matthew 18:10).
The number of babies who have been lost and carried to
heaven is staggering, and while Jesus was most directly speaking of the faith
of children that lay hold of the kingdom (Matthew 18:3), he also may very well
have been speaking of the sheer numbers of babies who inhabit heaven. Spurgeon
said, “I rejoice to know that the souls of all infants, as soon as they die,
speed their way to Paradise. Think what a multitude there is of them!”
Notice that there are three types of infants mentioned in
Isaiah 11 who indwell the new creation,
1) a
small child
2) a nursing infant
3) a weaned child
Do Babies Grow in Heaven?
A question that I cannot answer is whether babies grow in
heaven. Based solely on God’s will for growth (Ephesians 4:13, 1 Thessalonians
4:3), I suspect that they will grow up. But there is something sweet and
longing in my soul for perpetual babies who have that wonderful dazzling
continuing exploration and joy for all eternity.
Thomas Chalmers doesn’t shed much light on a final answer,
but he seemed to likewise long for continuous growth,
A child who dies in infancy is but
transplanted to a grander nursery, where the instruction is perfect and the
growth is everlasting.
Perhaps we will all have that childlike wonder in growing in
heaven, as Abraham Lincoln observed,
Surely God would not have created
such a being as man, with the ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for
a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.
Whether babies grow or not in heaven, God’s plan is perfect
and I’ll be happy with either outcome.
Will I Know my Baby in Heaven?
I have also been asked by several grieving mothers if they
will be able to nurse their own babies in heaven. It’s a complex question
because the Bible doesn’t answer it directly, but I think I can give you a
fairly solid answer.
First, let’s start where hope is not. Some religions, like
the Watchtower Society, have said that our memories cease at death, so you
won’t remember anything in heaven, only God will remember you. Various
reincarnation religions believe they are unable to remember past lives, leading
to the idea that while you can be punished for a past life, you won’t remember
why.
That’s not what the Bible says, the Bible speaks of us
knowing fully, even as we are now fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12). God is a
God of knowledge and relationship, as Charles Spurgeon said,
He who counts the stars and calls
them by their names is in no danger of forgetting His own children. He knows
your case as thoroughly as if you were the only creature He had ever made, or
the only saint He ever loved.
So, God knows you, but that’s not what we asked. Eric
Clapton, in his hauntingly painful song for his four-year-old son, asks
longingly, “Would you know my name, if I saw you in heaven?”
King David gives us great hope that we’ll know our babies
and they’ll know us. He said, “I shall go to him” (2 Samuel 12:23). David
clearly expected to see his infant son again. He wasn’t just being hopeful, he
wasn’t just lamenting the seeming finality of death, and he wasn’t just
consoling himself with platitudes.
How do I know that? Later, when he lost an adult son who died
in full-blown rebellion, David was inconsolable because he knew for a fact that
he would never see Absalom again, because Absalom did not go to the same place
David was going or the baby had gone (See 2 Samuel 18:33 to 19:7, especially
verses 18:33 and 19:4). David was confident that he’d see the baby again.
Clapton also asked, “Would you hold my hand?” Jesus, after
his glorification, told his disciples to “touch me and see. For a spirit does
not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). Resurrected
bodies are made of real and imperishable skin; it is skin that can be touched
and held and loved.
One songwriter believes that her reunion with her precious
baby who she lost in the womb will look something like this,
What a sweet day that will
be
to meet you on the golden streets.
I’ll run to you with open arms
and tell you just how loved you are.
Then you can take us by the hand
and lead us through the Promised
Land.
There we’ll bow before the Throne
and praise the God from whom all
blessings flow. ~ Shelly
Johnson, Heaven Someday
Beloved, I can’t think of a better person to ensure that the
nursing baby is nourished than its mother. But this answer comes with one
caveat: you have to be a citizen of heaven yourself. Clapton captured this
danger when he sang, “I know I don’t belong, here in heaven.”
You must ensure that you are seeking the city to come
(Hebrews 13:14) and that it is your dwelling place forever (Psalm 23:6). Pay
close attention to yourself and Christ; ensure you’re trusting fully in him and
his atoning work. Seek him until you know for a fact that you have eternal life
and that you do belong in heaven (1 John 5:13).
I’m sure of this very sad thing: because of the difficulty
of the path and the narrowness of the gate, there will be many babies in heaven
who don’t have their physical parents to nurture them, but I am sure there will
be many loving adoptive parents who are happy to love on them (compare Job
29:12, 31:18). God himself says, “Leave your fatherless children; I will keep
them alive” (Jeremiah 49:11). He is the “Father of the fatherless…in his holy
habitation” (Psalm 68:5).
Until that day, endeavor to be faithful in publishing
Christ’s peace to the world so that as many people as are appointed to eternal
life might come to know the living Saviour who is bringing all things into
subjection (1 Corinthians 15:27).
It is both a horrible fact of sinful life and a wonderous
fact of eternal glory that there will be so many babies who were “born into
heaven,” as Ashley Opliger said of her daughter who stepped straight from her
womb into the throne room of grace. Heaven is a nursery of little ones
beholding their Saviour, adopted into the family of God.
It is exceedingly sad that they did not get to grow up on
earth, but it is glorious that the first face they saw was the face of God.
Safe in the Arms of Jesus
Fanny Crosby, blind from infancy, said,
Do you know that if at birth I had
been able to make one petition to my Creator, that it would have been that I
should be born blind? Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall
ever gladden my sight will be that of my Saviour.
Because of that statement, when I comfort a grieving family
whose child died before birth, I often say,
If your
baby could send us a message from heaven it might sound something like this:
I so
looked forward to meeting you,
Of seeing your face and feeling your touch,
But the first face I saw was the face of God!
His embrace is tender and strong.
I
cannot come to you, but you may come to me,
Our creator has loved us and made a way
And we may yet meet.
Your
little baby,
Safe in the arms of Jesus
The safety and security of heaven is assured. Isaiah speaks
again of the new heavens and the new earth and makes this promise:
No more shall there be in it an
infant who lives but a few days… ~ Isaiah 65:20
But for now, many an infant has lived but a few days. It
helps us to look forward to a time of eternal safety and rest. Fanny Crosby penned
the words to Safe in the Arms of Jesus after the loss of her own
daughter and in expectation of heaven,
Safe in
the arms of Jesus,
Safe from corroding care,
Safe from the world’s temptations,
Sins cannot harm me there.
Free
from the blight of sorrow,
Free from my doubts and fears;
Only a few more trials,
Only a few more tears.
On earth we sing the lullaby, “Hush little baby, don’t you
cry; Papa’s going to sing you a lullaby,” in which the father purchases the
baby a mockingbird, a billy goat, a dog named rover, and a horse. In heaven we
get to add cobra, adder, lion, and any other dangerous animal you want, maybe a
tyrannosaurus rex, a leopard seal, or a Harpy eagle, etc. I’m not a hymn or
lullaby writer, but maybe in heaven we’ll sing,
Hush
little baby, don’t you cry,
daddy’s gonna sing you a heavenly lullaby.
Hush
little baby just so you’re aware,
my first present to you is a friendly grizzly bear.
Hush
little one, make no mistake,
don’t forget to walk your rattlesnake.
And
while we’re singing this chorus,
why don’t we go saddle your stegosaurus?
And
after you’re done patting its head,
our Komodo Dragon can nap in your bed.
And
through it all my sweet little one,
we’re going to worship God’s own Son.
Hush
little baby, if we cry,
Jesus will wipe every teardrop dry.
Tears in Heaven
It has been erroneously stated that there are no tears in
heaven. It is nearly accurate, but it misses the heart and love of God. It has
been said that “Grief is love with no place to go.” Mourning is not a sin, and
therefore is not banned from heaven. In fact, Jesus told us, “Blessed are those
who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).
On earth we watched Jesus—holy, blameless, and undefiled—as
he wept on earth over the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11:35) and lamented
over the sinfulness of Jerusalem (Matthew 23:37–39). Nehemiah took his mourning
straight to the throne of grace (Nehemiah 1:4), and we are encouraged not to
mourn as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Mourning and weeping
abound on earth, so how about in eternity?
In heaven we see three places where Jesus and his Father
wipe away tears (Isaiah 25:8, Revelation 7:17, 21:4), implying that there are
tears in heaven. Psalm 56:8 says that God has kept your tears in his bottle,
and that both your tossings and weeping have been recorded in his book. If
there are no tears in heaven, where is he keeping these bottles?
And why are there tears being actively shed in heaven? Probably
for all of the reasons there are tears on earth; some are tears of joy at
seeing Jesus face-to-face (compare Jeremiah 50:4–5), others are tears of
gratitude, some may be tears of mourning at seeing the scars from the Lamb of
God who loved us and died for us (compare Zechariah 12:10). Likely some are
tears of sorrow knowing that such suffering still exists on earth, and
especially if our beloved are still in the midst of suffering. Others are tears
of mourning for people we expected or hoped to see in heaven who are not there.
Maybe other tears of mourning are for people we knew wouldn’t meet us in
heaven, but now they’re confirmed. I surely hope that some tears will be of
relief when we see people we thought died without Christ worshipping at his
feet.
Whatever the reason for tears and mourning, the rest of Revelation
7:17 and 21:4 tell us that this is the end of death, mourning, crying, and
pain. God’s perfect justice, mercy, and grace shall reign in the man Christ
Jesus—the King of kings and the Lord of lords. We do not mourn as those who
have no hope, but we do mourn while we eagerly await the perfect consummation
of history, when we’ll be welcomed into heaven and will behold him face-to-face
who loved us and gave us an eternal hope of glory.
But beloved, we have to consider that for those who would
not kiss the Son and who did not have faith like a little child, theirs is
weeping forever (Matthew 8:12, 13:41–42, 13:49–50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30, Luke
13:28).
But that is not for those who have a childlike faith, and
who has more childlike faith than a child?
Conclusion
Heaven is a nursery, and however that works out will be
glorious. You would never let your child play with a cobra on earth because sin
and death and venom abound, but God lets babies play with cobras
indiscriminately in heaven because sin and death and venom have been defeated.
Weeping may tarry for this life, but in the life to come God
is ready to dry our eyes and theirs. The only person who loves your baby more
than you is God, and no matter how great a parent you are, he is better.
The God who holds our infants in the nursery of heaven is
the same God who dries every eye and who opened the gates of heaven to everyone
who will put their faith in him. Christ promised that heaven belongs to
children, and he died to ensure his promises were fulfilled.
'Twas
love that lived, 'twas love that died,
With endless life to bless us;
Well hast Thou won Thy blood-bought Bride,
Worthy art Thou, Lord Jesus! ~ William Dickinson
No comments:
Post a Comment