Will young children be raptured?
Marti asks, "Will children before the age of accountability be raptured?"
This is an issue many people, especially Christian parents, wonder about. The Bible does not give any clear instruction on what happens to babies and young children at the rapture. That leads people to wonder if it is possible that Christian parents would be raptured and their babies would be left behind?
What is the Rapture? The rapture refers to the prophesied event in which believers in Jesus Christ will be suddenly taken up from the earth to meet Him in the air. This concept is derived from 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 and other New Testament passages. Although the term "rapture" is not explicitly used in the Bible, it has become a widely accepted term to describe this future event.
A critical question often asked is whether young children will be raptured, or will they be left behind?
I’m convinced that young children will be included in the rapture. Children before the age of accountability will participate in the rapture. The Age of Accountability is the idea that there is an age at which a person becomes morally responsible for their actions, and those who die before reaching this age are automatically saved. However, the Bible does not provide a specific age. But those who are unable to understand the concept of sin and the gospel are recipients of God's mercy until such time as they can understand.
I have a resource called Do Babies Really Go To Heaven When They Die. In that booklet, I deal with a different but related topic. That resource is about the death of babies, and I conclude that they will be in heaven. I believe that the same principles would apply to the rapture.
The age of accountability is not a fixed age. It varies from child to child. It refers to a level of maturity in which a child is able to understand the gospel and make a decision for or against Jesus. I further believe that some people remain permanently in that state if they are born with a mental disability that prevents them from having an informed response to the gospel. Anyone who dies prior to the age of accountability would be granted entrance into heaven. Everyone in that category will be raptured as well.
I encourage you to read the booklet that I linked above. I base my understanding on the teaching of Scripture. But I also understand that this is simply the result of God’s mercy. Children are not born innocent. We are all born as sinners. But God, in his mercy and love, covered those who are too young, or who are mentally unable to understand and respond to the gospel.
So yes, I believe that all people under the age of accountability will be taken in the rapture.
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I’ve pondered about the Rapture for years and wondered how it would impact the world.
I assume most non believers would be excited about getting rid of us annoying Christians and that the numbers raptured may not be as large as we think. But then I thought about the kids and babies of even non believers disappearing, would send the world into a frenzy.
When Jesus addressed the allowance for children to come unto Him, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven, that is not the same thing as the Kingdom of God. Additionally, Jesus was not addressing some false idea that children were not born in sin, because we were ALL born in sin.
Given that the majority of humankind will end up in the lake of Hell fire, it stands to reason that the majority of all the young children who have died to this day would have rejected Christ had they reached the POINT of accountability in their lives, and so the idea that they will be afforded Heaven regardless of their rejection of Christ had they reached that point, it simply strains at the outer edges of credulity that we can make such a leap without having attempted to kick Christ off His Throne. Therefore the reason for my interjecting some thoughts to get some people thinking before leaping!
If we take what is said about children allegedly being taken in the rapture, what about the children born AFTER the rapture in the midst of the Tribulation? Are they also taken up out of the womb, or right after birth? We're not told one way or the other. Oh, and some have tried to side-step this difficulty by suggesting the Lord will not allow women to get pregnant during the Tribulation. When I ask for a reference, the silence is, as usual, deafening.
So, we must be VERY careful to not make God out to be fickle and schismatic in what we claim is what will happen that is nowhere stated. Jesus, when speaking of the little children, was referring to their character qualities compared to the adults. He said nothing about their salvation simply on the basis of what many call their alleged "innocence" who were born in just as much sin as the rest of us who, apart from Christ, are also worthy of the fires of Hell.