Do stillborns or children who die at a very young age get a second chance at life?
Question:
Hello. I have one question. If you are a baby and you die as a stillborn or die at a very young age, do you get a second chance to prove yourself to God?
Thank you.
Answer:
"And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).
It is because each person comes to this world just once that Solomon concluded that children who die young have a distinct advantage. They enter heaven because they have not sinned. "Therefore I praised the dead who were already dead, more than the living who are still alive. Yet, better than both is he who has never existed, who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 4:2-3).
"If a man begets a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with goodness, or indeed he has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better than he -- for it comes in vanity and departs in darkness, and its name is covered with darkness. Though it has not seen the sun or known anything, this has more rest than that man" (Ecclesiastes 6:3-5).
While they have the advantage of not being exposed to the wickedness in this world, they are at a disadvantage because they did not have the opportunity to do good either.
"But for him who is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 9:4-6).
