Hebrews 12:22-24 “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, (23) to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, (24) to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.”
Heaven is currently populated with three separate classes of God’s creations. The angels of God are one class and the saints of God which is the church, being another class. But there is a third class of God’s creations in heaven today, and that is all children. All children across the earth, from conception until the age of thirteen, remain spiritually alive to God, and as such they are His children, for God is the Father of all spirits (Hebrews 12:9). Everyone living on the earth dies in spirit when they reach the age of thirteen. The reason they die, is because from the age of thirteen, God holds them accountable for their sin, and because all sin, all therefore die (Romans 7:9). And so, that is the reason why we must be born-again. But because all children are still alive in spirit, they do not have to be born-again, as the saints do. And so, when children die physically, they ascend directly into heaven. When saints fall asleep in the Lord today, they also ascend directly into heaven (2 Corinthians 5:8). It wasn’t always like that though, for under the old covenant, when the saints died, they went to a place Jesus referred to as Abraham’s bosom, which was located under the earth (Luke 16:22). And so, it was only after Christ was raised from the dead, that the old testament saints could be born-again, and it was only then that they could ascend into heaven with Christ for the first time (Ephesians 4:8). Children that died under the old covenant, however, never went to Abraham’s bosom, for they were still spiritually alive to God, and so whereas their believing parents went to Abraham’s bosom, the children went directly to heaven. The prophet David understood that concept, which is why he said of his baby boy that died, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me” (2 Samuel 12:23). In the above passage of scripture, the Holy Spirit speaks about the three different classes of God’s creations in heaven today. For He mentions the angels as one class, and then He mentions the saints as another class, which He calls “the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven”. And then He speaks about the third class of God’s creations, which He calls “the spirits of just men made perfect”. The phrase translated “the spirits of just men made perfect”, can also be translated “the spirits of the innocent made perfect”. It is children, that God deems to be innocent (Psalm 106:38), and so we see that this class of God’s creations mentioned in this passage, are in fact the children of God.
Michael E.B. Maher
Comments