Matthew 18:2-14 “Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, (3) and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. … (10) "Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. … (14) Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”
In the above quoted passage of scripture our Lord Jesus confirms the truth to us that all little children are part of the kingdom of God. And so currently all children that die under the age of thirteen go straight to heaven, for they are all still spiritually alive to God. At the end of this current dispensation when the church is finally caught away from the earth, at the same time all children under the age of thirteen will die. Someone will say, but why would God be so cruel as to kill all children on the earth at that time? The answer to that question is that it is not the cruelty of God that will kill all children but rather His mercy, for God will not allow children to be exposed to His wrath being poured out on the earth after the church is removed from the earth. And so He will remove them from the earth to be with the Lord Jesus in heaven. God did a similar thing when He judged the earth with the flood during the days of Noah and when He judged Sodom and Gomorrah. On both of those occasions the children were killed along with their parents. The difference being however, that the parents went to hell while the children went to heaven. Some have thought that all children will receive their resurrected bodies at the same time that the church receives theirs. But that is not the case, for the scripture teaches us that when the church receives their resurrected bodies, that the rest of the dead will not live again until the thousand years are finished (Revelation 20:5). The rest of the dead in this passage is referring to all children, for they are the only ones that will still need to live again. Therefore all children will receive their resurrected bodies only after our Lord’s millennial reign has ended. And so we see that from the time of the rapture until God the Father creates the new heavens and the new earth, there will be no more children born into the earth. We know that the saints will no longer have children, for our Lord taught us that they neither marry nor are given in marriage (Luke 20:35). Similarly, the unbelievers left behind on the earth after the rapture of the church will also not have children anymore. Some have mistakenly thought that the unbelievers will continue to have children during our Lord’s millennial reign. But if that were true then God would be unjust, because all children born during that time would be condemned to the second death. The reason for that is because they would be born into bodies that are still contaminated with the sin virus inherited from Adam (Romans 7:23). And so because sin will still be present in the earth during the millennium period, at the age of thirteen their spirits would die when they committed sin and they would thus be separated from God (Romans 7:9). In order for one to be born-again one must be baptized into Christ, thus becoming a part of the bride of Christ. But because the bride of Christ would already be complete by that time, no more people will be able to be baptized into Christ and so there would be no way for them to be born-again. And so just like their unbelieving parents, children born during that time would be condemned to the second death. God is not unjust however, and so He will not allow any more children to be born until He creates the new heavens and the new earth in which only righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). When our Lord Jesus returns to the earth after God’s wrath has been completed, He will return with His saints only i.e. the church. All children that have died from the time of Adam until the rapture will remain in heaven and will not return to the earth for the period of the Lord’s millennial reign. It is conservatively estimated that there are approximately twenty-five billion children in heaven today that have gone there since the time of Adam. Obviously most are not children anymore, as they have grown and matured just as they would have had they remained on the earth for their full number of days. But even though most are adults in heaven today, they are still not part of the bride of Christ and as such, will remain in heaven waiting for the new earth that our Heavenly Father will create at the end of the current age. It is at that time that they will live again by receiving their resurrected bodies, and it is at that time that they will leave heaven to take up residence on God’s new earth.
Michael E.B. Maher
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