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The Death of Infants Proves Original Sin | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. Today we're doing a deep dive
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into something universal, something frankly quite
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sobering. The reality of death.
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We're not just talking biology here, the heart stopping and all
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that. We're looking at the theology
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behind it. Where did death come from?
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Why is it here? And maybe most importantly, what
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does its universal grip on humanity tell us about God,
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about justice, and about our own condition?
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That's right. And the sources we're looking at
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today, they set up a really stark contrast.
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On one side, you have death presented as a a righteous
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judicial sentence, a direct consequence of sin rooted in
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God's law. But there's this other view,
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arguing that death isn't really a punishment at all, but more of
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a spherical benefit, maybe even a favor.
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So our mission here is to really understand these arguments,
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especially looking at the evidence, the sources used for
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inherited sinfulness, specifically the fact that
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everyone dies, even infants. Right, so the core question
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driving us is why death in a world God made good?
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Why does this ultimate negative exist?
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What's its theological significance?
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Let's start at the beginning, the origin point according to
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these texts. OK, so first point from the
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sources, man wasn't created mortal death wasn't part of the
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original blueprint, so to speak. It came afterwards, and
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crucially, it came because of man's sin.
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Yes, that sequence is absolutely the key.
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Paul lays it out very clearly. Sin entered into the world and
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death by sin. It's presented as a direct
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causal link. Sin happens and the consequence,
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the penalty that follows is death.
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This immediately takes it out of the realm of just, you know,
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natural processes and puts it into the framework of covenant
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law and judgement. OK, so it's legal, not just
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biological, but help us understand the distinction the
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sources make. Why does it matter if death
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entered by a sentence from God as judge versus just say God as
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creator deciding life should end?
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Ah, that's a vital point. If it were just God as creator
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acting sovereignly, withdrawing life, well, that doesn't
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necessarily carry a moral judgement on the person dying.
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It's simply the creature returning to the Creator.
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But the sources insist it entered by a sentence pronounced
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by God as judge. This means it was ordered
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according to the righteousness of a judge.
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It's about justice, about guilt, about a penalty being assigned
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because the law was broken. Death becomes intrinsically
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linked to transgression. So it's not just an event, it's
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the execution of a sentence. That's quite a heavy thought.
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The sources even say death entered when God was showing his
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great displeasure. Exactly.
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And because it originates from this judicial act, the language
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used to describe death in Scripture, according to these
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sources, is consistently severe. It's called the chief.
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Calamity is often referred to simply as wrath.
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It's not just the end of life, it's a testimony to God's anger
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against the sinfulness of those who experience it.
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There's that fascinating story the sources mentioned about Paul
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on Malta after the shipwreck. It seems to touch on this deep
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human intuition connecting disaster and guilt.
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Yes, it's quite revealing. Paul survives this terrible
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shipwreck, washes ashore, and then a Viper fastens onto his
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hand. The immediate reaction of the
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locals wasn't oh, bad luck, it was this man must be a murderer.
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They saw this potentially deadly event and instantly interpreted
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it as divine vengeance catching up with him.
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Vengeance suffers him not to live, they said.
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So even without knowing his background, they linked this
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imminent threat of death to some kind of hidden guilt.
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Right. And, the source argues, if even
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the threat of a deadly calamity was instinctively seen as divine
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judgement, how much more should the actual calamity of death
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itself be understood? It points away from random
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chance and towards death being a manifestation of divine
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displeasure, a penalty reflecting a universal human
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transgression. And this solid establishment of
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death as punishment really sets the stage for the conflict we
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need to unpack next. OK, so we've got the strong view
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from our sources, rooted in Reformed thought, that death is
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a judicial sentence, a direct result of sin.
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But then the same sources introduce this counter idea
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linked to figures like this. Doctor T and his view tries to,
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well, soften death quite a bit, doesn't it?
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It really does. It attempts to reframe
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affliction and even common mortality not as punishment, but
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as a great benefit to humanity. The argument is that these
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things are designed only for our spiritual good.
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Think of them like chastisements from a loving Father intended to
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correct us. Therefore, Doctor T concludes
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they are not punishments in their nature.
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He goes so far as to suggest death itself came as a favor, a
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benefit, not a calamity. A.
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Favor. That seems counterintuitive
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given everything we just discussed about wrath and
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calamity. This reframing it feels like
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it's trying to avoid the whole issue of original sin.
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Perhaps if death isn't punitive, you don't need universal guilt
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to explain it. What specific benefits does this
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view claim death brings? Well, they're all focused on
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moral improvement. Things like restraining our
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desires, our lusts, mortifying pride and ambition, making us
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think more soberly about life, seeing the vanity of earthly
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things, and ultimately supposedly leading us towards
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fearing and obeying God. So in this view, death is like a
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necessary, if unpleasant, medicine.
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OK, I can see the appeal, but let's push back with Edward's
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counter argument as presented in the sources.
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If suffering and death are only for spiritual good, what does
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that imply about our condition before the suffering?
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And that's where Edward's logic really bites.
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He argues, and the sources emphasize this, that the
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consistent testimony of Scripture is that divine
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chastisements are always linked to the sin of the person being
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chastised. They're evidence of God's
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displeasure with that sin. The very necessity of using
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something as severe as death to achieve these supposed benefits
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is itself proof of our deep seated corruption.
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But couldn't someone say, well yes, but God uses suffering to
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refine even believers? How does the source material
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differentiate loving correction from judicial punishment here?
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The key difference lies in the severity and the implication of
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necessity, Edwards argues. If humans were basically good,
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truly innocent at heart, shouldn't God's blessings, life,
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health, prosperity be enough incentive for love and
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obedience? Why would a wise father need
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such sharp medicines, such severe and terrible means like
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the constant threat and reality of death, just to keep a
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fundamentally good child on the right path?
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The need for such extreme measures points backwards, he
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argues, to an already perverse and vile disposition.
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The problem isn't just preventing future sin, it's
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dealing with present inherent sinfulness.
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So the benefit only view seems caught.
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If we're innocent, death seems unjustly harsh.
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If death is necessary, we can't really be innocent to begin
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with. That's exactly the dilemma
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Edwards highlights. He uses that striking analogy.
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It would be a strange sort of chastisement for a wise father
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to inflict something like, say, breaking his child's bones if
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the child were perfectly innocent.
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And importantly, if the chastisement was purely
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preventative, inflicted that just to stop a future fault.
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That would seem cruel, punishing someone before they've even done
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wrong. Justice in the judicial sense
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requires the punishment to fit an existing crime or guilt.
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Seeing the universal severity of death forces the conclusion that
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it's subjects must already be guilty.
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The severity of the effect points back to the severity of
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the cause. OK, so if Doctor T sees death as
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the sort of gentle corrective, how does Scripture actually talk
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about it? What kind of language does it
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use? Is it the language of benefits
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or something else? Well, according to the sources,
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the scriptural language is pretty overwhelming and points
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in One Direction. Death is consistently described
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using superlatives that just don't fit the benefit idea.
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It's called the Chief of Calamities and even more
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starkly, the most extreme and terrible of all natural evils in
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this world. Right, And we should pause on
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that. Most extreme and terrible Why?
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The sources root this in our very nature as humans.
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We're creatures capable of foresight.
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We can conceive of immortality. We have this deep, innate,
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earnest desire after it. And because of that, we also
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have an extreme dread of its opposite of annihilation.
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So to impose death, this ultimate finality, on a creature
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designed with that capacity and longing is inherently the
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greatest temporal suffering imaginable.
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An animal without that foresight wouldn't experience death with
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the same kind of existential terror.
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It makes death the benchmark for suffering, doesn't it?
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We talked about deadly destruction, deadly sorrow.
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It's the ultimate negative comparison.
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It is, and the sources point out that even the peak of Christ own
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suffering is captured by the phrase that he suffered unto
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death that confirms its status as the absolute apex of temporal
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affliction. If deaths were just a quiet
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release or a spiritual tool, that language would lose all his
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power, all its judicial weight and.
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Beyond just the natural terror it inspires, Scripture attaches
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specific judicial labels to it. Calamities ending in death
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aren't framed as helpful lessons.
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They're called judgments and wrath.
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This seems to underline that God brings them as a judge executing
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a sentence. Yes, and the psalmist connects
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this directly to our common mortality, the fact that human
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life is short and ends. Psalm 90, verse 7.
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For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we
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troubled? He's not just talking about a
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specific war or plague there. He's attributing the general
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human condition of mortality directly to God's anger, his
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fury. Wow.
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So the everyday reality of death is seen as an ongoing expression
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of divine wrath. The source material then argues
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that the sheer scale of it, the universal havoc which death
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makes of the whole human race, is the most undeniable proof of
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God's anger over human sinfulness.
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It's an argument from magnitude, really.
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If smaller disasters like a flood or a city's destruction
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are seen as signs of God's displeasure, what about the one
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disaster that gets literally everyone, everywhere, in every
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generation? That universal destruction, the
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sources argue, must be the ultimate, most glaring
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manifestation of God's anger against the sinfulness of
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mankind. And it maintains, as the source
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puts it, that awful appearance, that gloomy and terrible aspect.
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There's nothing inherently comforting or beneficial about
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decay and dissolution. It looks like displeasure.
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And if death really were a favor, then Christ's mission
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looks very odd. He came as the second Adam
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specifically to undo the effects of the first Adam, which
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prominently includes death. Precisely. 1st Corinthians 15 is
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crucial here. Christ doesn't treat death as a
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helpful tool or a neutral event. He treats it explicitly as an
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enemy. Paul states Christ must reign
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until he puts all enemies under his feet, and then he adds that
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definitive statement. The last enemy that shall be
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destroyed is death last. Enemy.
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You really can't get much further from spiritual benefit
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than that, can you? It positions death as the
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ultimate opponent of God's purposes.
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Exactly. If death is the penalty for sin,
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then Christ's final victory involves removing that penalty
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entirely. The fact that the Son of God
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himself engages in cosmic warfare against death, aiming
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for its utter destruction, confirms its identity.
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It cannot be a good thing if it requires conquering by God
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himself. It has to be a curse, a
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consequence of guilt. OK.
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So we've landed here. Death isn't a benefit, it's a
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judicial penalty, the ultimate sign of divine wrath against
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sin. If we accept that premise, which
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the sources argue compellingly for, then the next step seems
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unavoidable. Since death reigns universally
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over every single human being, that must imply universal guilt.
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That's the link to original sin, right?
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That's. The logical conclusion the
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sources drive towards it combines the argument about
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justice with the argument about scale.
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The assertion is that the righteous judge of all the earth
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simply will not inflict the greatest temporal penalty,
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something associated with being worthy of death, guilty of death
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upon countless millions who are hypothetically worthy of no
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punishment at all. If death is the wage of sin, and
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everyone receives that wage, then everyone must somehow
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partake in sin from the outset. And this.
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Leads us to what the sources present as the most potent,
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perhaps irrefutable piece of evidence against the benefit
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only view the death of infants how does infant mortality fit
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into a picture where death is supposedly from moral correction
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or is only the result of adult choices it really.
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Doesn't fit at all. Infants are the critical test
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case because they are incapable of actual personal
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transgression. They haven't committed any sins
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themselves. So if death and suffering are
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only meant to, say, restrain lusts or mortify pride, Edwards
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asked, why does death fall so heavily on infants?
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They can't make any such improvement from it.
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They have no adult pride to mortify, no lust to restrain in
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that sense. And the.
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Sources point out the stark reality that statistically, more
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humans die in infancy than in any comparable span of life.
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If these infants are perfectly innocent, just objects of God's
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favor, then subjecting them to the most extreme and terrible of
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all natural evils seems not just pointless, but frankly unjust by
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the standards the benefit view itself seems to imply it.
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Becomes inexplicable under that framework.
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Their death must therefore point to some kind of sinfulness or
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guilt that belongs to them before they commit personal acts
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of sin. It has to be an errand and to
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really drive this home, the sources then go through these
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historical instances of divine judgement where no distinction
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was made to spare infants. They were included under the
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umbrella of Wrath, right? Let's look at those first Sodom.
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Abraham pleads with God, based on God's own justice, not to
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slay the righteous with the wicked.
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The assumption is that the innocent shouldn't suffer the
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fate of the guilty. Yet the infants and Sodom
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perished along with everyone else in that display of dreadful
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vengeance and. Think about the implication, the
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sources argue. If those infants were perfectly
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innocent, their innocence should have been a far stronger plea
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for their preservation than Lot's relationship with God was
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for his frankly wicked daughters, whom God went to
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great lengths to save. The fact that the judgement was
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total suggests A guilt that encompassed everyone, regardless
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of age or personal actions. Then there's.
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The flood Again, God takes meticulous care to save Noah and
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his family. But the sources asked, if the
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potentially hundreds of thousands of infants who drowned
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were perfectly innocent, why weren't they spared?
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The sheer scale of the destruction covering all but
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Noah's family suggests A corresponding scale of judgement
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covering universal guilt. And then you.
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Get to passages that are even more explicit, where God himself
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commands the inclusion of infants in judgement.
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Thinking about the Canaanites and Amalekites, that commands
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were direct. Infants were not to be spared.
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They were to be utterly destroyed without any pity.
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That language utterly destroyed without pity makes it impossible
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to frame this as some kind of beneficial chastisement.
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It sounds purely like the execution of a severe judgement.
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It really. Does it resists any kind of
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softening interpretation and even in?
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Cases where God did make a distinction, specifically
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marking out righteous adults for preservation, infants were often
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still included in the general destruction.
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Take Ezekiel 9. God marks those who lament the
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city's sins, but the command to the destroying angels is
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chillingly specific. Slay utterly old and young, both
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maids and little children. Infants are explicitly named as
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subjects of the slaughter, reinforcing that the judgement
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applied to them too. And finally.
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The sources point to the destruction of Jerusalem in
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8070. Christ warned his followers.
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They escaped, but the infants of the city overall were not
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spared. They were caught up in that
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horrific event for feeling prophecies, as the sources note
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that the destruction would involve even the suckling.
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Also yes. And that destruction was
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presented by Christ Himself as divine wrath, reaching its peak,
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assigned to all nations. If infants were swept away in
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that judgement without distinction, it implies they too
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were subjects of that wrath. So the consistent inclusion of
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infants in these large scale, undeniable acts of divine
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judgement is presented as the final proof.
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If God is just and death is the penalty for sin, then infants
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must participate in sinfulness some way from the very
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beginning. Their vulnerability.
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Becomes the strongest theological argument for an
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inherited original sin. That's the.
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Conclusion The sources draw universal death, especially
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infant death, confirms universal guilt.
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Hashtag tag outro so. Wrapping up this deep dive, the
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central argument we've traced through these Reformed sources
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is that death isn't neutral, and it certainly isn't a benefit.
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It's presented fundamentally as a judicial penalty for sin, the
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chief calamity, the clearest sign of God's wrath, and it's
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universal reign. Particularly, its claim over
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infants who haven't committed personal sins stands as powerful
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evidence for universal original guilt.
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This contrasts sharply with attempts to see death merely as
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a favor. That's right.
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And understanding death this way, retaining that awful
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appearance, that gloomy and terrible aspect the sources
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speak of, is actually crucial. Seeing death as the deserved
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fruit of guilt is what frames the absolute necessity and also
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the incredible glory of Christ's work.
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He came to conquer this specific enemy, to pay the specific
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penalty and since. As we discussed, death is
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confirmed in Scripture as the last enemy that shall be
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destroyed by Christ. Maybe here's a thought to ponder
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as you go about your day. What does the final, utter
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destruction of death itself, this ultimate temporal
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consequence of sin, tell us about the scope and completeness
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of Christ's victory? What does it imply about the
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restoration he brings, not just spiritually, but to the physical
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creation itself, potentially restoring that original state
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free from death? Something to think about.