“Where do babies go when they die?”

The titular question finds its way into conversations of people trying to process tragedies, or curious about God’s process of judgment. 

No real answer to this question can be found in the Bible. Yet sometimes Christians feel the pressure to provide a response and speak for God on the matter of judgment. And fall into the error of putting words in God’s mouth in the process. 

This is the same kind of approach usually employed in addressing similar questions like:

- Where do Christians who committed suicide go when they die?
- What about the good people that lived and died and never knew Christ?

This post is not an attempt to answer the question “Where do babies go when they die”. In fact, the original title of this post was “God as judge”. There is a revelation we get of God as Judge, that exposes the problematic root of these kinds of questions.

If we know God is good…

and we know God is just…

and we know God is the judge…

…why do we need to ask, or contemplate, what the yardstick for judgment will be?

As innocent as these questions appear, they read like an attempt to micro-manage God. 

Hear me out. 

We have a God that will spare an entire city because of 5 righteous souls in it...

And we want to deliberate on His ability to discern who will be saved from eternal judgment?

We have a God so intent on giving humans a fair chance that he condescends to take on the inferior cloak of flesh to perform the ultimate act of saving humanity...
...and we still think we need some quorum to agree on how He decides who goes to hell and who doesn’t?

God has no obligation to reveal His ways to us, but He still does. He is very intent on being a just judge, and being known to be a just judge. He takes time to walk us through His approach to justice, over and over again in the scriptures (Ezekiel 18, Ezekiel 30, to name a few). Any attempt to expatiate on His process of judgment beyond what He has revealed to us is bordering on disrespect. Let’s not fall into the error of attempting to teach God His work. 

God is the very epitome of love. No matter how much we love our loved ones, we must always remind ourselves God loves them even more. We cannot love people more than God loves them. We cannot want their salvation (or eternal preservation) more than God does. And because of this, God is and remains the final moral authority on who goes to hell and who doesn’t. 

We have God's past records on this matter - He is a good judge. So we trust He will make the right decision. We really do not need the details of how He will do it. The response “I don’t know, but God is a good judge and will make the right decision” can be enough, and should be enough for us.

As Christians, we must get comfortable not knowing the answers to some questions, but trusting in the God we serve that things will be executed right.