Challies Controversy

There has been lots of controversy about a recent post by well-known reformed blogger Tim Challies in the past couple of days. I encourage you to read his post here:
http://www.challies.com/archives/christian-living/the-religious-hell-hole-1.php

Tim is attempting to address the very difficult question of "do babies that die go directly to heaven?" I was actualy asked that question myself less than a week ago by a 12 year old boy. In my opinion, it has no easy answer. The best we can say is that Scripture does not appear to be clear on the issue.

On one hand we have the issue of original sin and the sentence that it brings to our eternal soul w/o Jesus intervention to elect us. Taken with logical reformed consistency, it seems that elect babies who die go to heaven while non-elect babies that die do not. On the other hand, many pastors (including Piper and MacArthur) make arguments of inference from select scripture to say that God mysteriously saves all babies since they lack a natural ability to understand their sin.

I am unsure of my position. I don't see concrete evidence in the Bible of the "all babies go to heaven" stance - yet, I see enough potential evidence to keep my mind unmade on the matter. Personally, if I ever had to speak with someone who experienced such a loss regarding this, I would side with Pipers argument. I think that it would bring comfort without harming any of the essential doctrines of grace.

However, a recent comment by someone about this at "22 Words" struck me...they said:

"The real question is would you still love Jesus even if He did send some or all babies to hell?”

How true. If you find yourself answering in the negative to that question then you have a serious problem with understanding sovereignty, authority, Lordship, and submission. We must remember that God is the creator and we are the created. He has ultimate power in deciding to do what he will with us. And by definition, all of his decisions are good. They may not always seem good to our limited, finite, temporal, and fallen minds - but, we must trust that they are.

God is a God of grace and I hope that he makes a special provision, although not explicit in Scripture, for babies/ children/ and mentally handicapped who don't have the mental faculty to see his natural or special revelation to go straight to heaven. However, if he does not make such allowance and he treats those persons the same as us all (elect and non-elect without any basis from ourselves) then I will still worship and adore him. It is a painful idea, until I remember that we all deserve hell and that it is only the grace of God which saves any from eternal torment. As we see our own condition clearly (baby or not) we get a much bigger appreciation for the love that God displays in saving any rebel against him. Take comfort in that amidst the difficult questions like this one.