[Note: This sermon expounds Matthew 19:13–15 with Mark 10:13–16. Delivered 30 November 1980, Montreal.]
We continue in the word of God today and look at Mark 10:13–16, reading Mark because his account is somewhat fuller than Matthew's. "And they were bringing children to him, that he might touch them; and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, 'Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.' And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them." This is a repetition of the teaching in Matthew 18:1–5, and whenever the Lord repeats a point we may be sure he regards it as very important indeed.
One thing worth noting at the outset about the Lord's teaching generally is how much emphasis he places, not so much on what God does for our salvation, but on what conditions must be met on our side to enter the kingdom. This is in striking contrast to contemporary preaching, which stresses almost exclusively what God has done and says very little about what we must become. The Lord seems to say: what God does, he will take care of; you make sure you are the kind of person who can receive what he offers. And here, in seizing the occasion of the children being brought to him, he presses the point once more to his disciples: "Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom like a child shall not enter it."
Now the question arises: what kind of child is in view? Children range from infancy to twelve years old, and there is a world of difference between a one-year-old and a twelve-year-old. Fortunately the parallel passage in Luke 18:15 settles this immediately: Luke says they brought "infants" — brephos, the word used even of an unborn child (as in Luke 1, where the infant leaps in Elizabeth's womb), and also used in 1 Peter of newborn babes who desire the milk of the word. We are talking primarily about infants: babies who cannot speak, cannot feed themselves, cannot do anything whatsoever for themselves. The one defining characteristic of a babe is its total helplessness and complete dependence on others for everything.
This fits exactly into the Lord's whole pattern of teaching about who enters the kingdom. "Blessed are the poor," he says at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, "for theirs is the kingdom." What do the poor and the infant have in common? They are both utterly helpless. The poor have no wealth, no status, no power to do anything in this world. The infant has no capacity to do anything for itself. The kingdom of God, over and over again in the Lord's teaching, belongs to the helpless — those who recognise that they are spiritually impotent, that they cannot save themselves, that they depend entirely on God's mercy and grace. Your IQ, however high, will not gain you entry into the kingdom, because we are talking about spiritual things, and spiritually every one of us is as helpless as a newborn infant.
Now, this teaching creates a sharp confrontation with the doctrine of original sin as defined by Augustine and transmitted through Luther and Calvin into the mainstream of Protestant theology. In its standard form, this doctrine holds not merely that we have inherited from Adam the capacity and tendency to sin, but that we have also inherited Adam's guilt, so that every infant is already condemned from the moment of birth, regardless of any sin it has personally committed. If this were true, then the Lord's teaching that the kingdom belongs to children would be impossible to understand, since children would in that case be no better off spiritually than adults. And since infants cannot exercise faith, they would all perish — which was precisely Augustine's conclusion, leading directly to infant baptism as a supposed solution: a magical washing of water that somehow removes the guilt of sins never committed. This reduces baptism to a ritual spell, and it is a conclusion I must plainly and publicly reject.
I find no scriptural basis for the idea that we inherit the guilt of another person's sin. Ezekiel states the principle as plainly as it can be stated: each person bears the guilt of his own sin, not his father's. We may suffer consequences of another's sin — the child of a drunkard suffers the consequences of his father's actions — but suffering consequences is entirely different from being guilty. No court arrests you for a crime your father committed. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:22, says "in Adam all die" — but this speaks of the consequence of sin that has entered the world, not of inherited guilt. Death is the consequence; it is not a judicial sentence pronounced on the innocent for another's crime. The distinction must be carefully maintained.
Paul's statement in Romans 7:9 confirms the same principle: "I once lived apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died." When did Paul ever live apart from the law? He was circumcised on the eighth day and brought up as a Hebrew from infancy. The answer is plain: as a child, before Bar Mitzvah at age thirteen, he was not yet a son of the law. He was not yet answerable to the law because he had not yet come to the age of reason and responsibility. Before that age, he was without the law. When he came of age and the law came to bear on him fully, sin revived and he died — because now, for the first time, he bore full responsibility for his choices. This is exactly consistent with the Lord's teaching: the infant is guiltless not because of some magical exemption, but because guilt requires a conscious, deliberate act of which the infant is incapable.
[Continues in Part B]
# Let the Children Come — Matthew 19:13–15; Mark 10:13–16 (Part B) — Five Aspects of Childlike Helplessness; Receiving Without Pride
[Note: This is Part B of the sermon on Matthew 19:13–15 with Mark 10:13–16, continuing directly from Part A. Delivered 30 November 1980, Montreal.]
The Greek word used here is τοιοῦτος (toioutos), meaning "of such" — "to such belongs the kingdom of God." This word occurs fifty-six times in the New Testament, and in every single occurrence the example itself is included in the statement, never excluded. In 2 Corinthians 12:3, when Paul says he will boast about "such a man" who was caught up into the third heaven, the RSV even translates it as "this man" — the example is included. In 1 Corinthians 16:16 and 18, Paul says to appreciate and be subject to "such people" as Stephanas and his household — meaning Stephanas and those like him, not some hypothetical person while excluding Stephanas himself. In Matthew 18:5, "whoever receives one such child in my name" means this child and any child like it. The word never means "only someone like the example but not the example itself." Therefore, the Lord's statement cannot mean "children do not actually enter the kingdom, but only grown-ups who become spiritually childlike." The only logically coherent reading is: children enter the kingdom, and therefore to enter the kingdom you must become like a child.
One further objection is sometimes raised: perhaps the children in view are specifically children of believers, and it is on account of their parents' faith that they are admitted. It is true that those who brought infants to Jesus must have had some faith in him — at minimum, they believed he was a prophet whose blessing was worth seeking. But this falls far short of saving faith. Even the crowds who thronged to Jesus for healings had that much. More importantly, in Matthew 18:2, where the Lord places a child in the midst of his disciples, there is no mention at all of the child's parentage — it is irrelevant to the point he is making. And decisively, what the Lord says to the parents and disciples is: "You must become as this child." He is not saying the children are admitted because of your faith; he is saying that unless you become like them, you will not enter. The argument runs entirely in the opposite direction.
So we return to the central question: what is it about the infant that we must become? It is this one thing — helplessness. The infant is totally helpless, totally dependent. And this helplessness, when we look at it carefully, has five aspects that speak directly to us.
The first is innocence in the sense of purity of motive. The infant has no hidden agenda, no calculation of self-interest behind what it does. It has not the capacity for mixed or corrupt motives. We, by contrast, often become Christians, or remain Christians, for impure reasons — to find a spouse, to gain social standing, to feel better about ourselves. God looks at our motives. If the motive behind your faith is corrupt, the faith itself is already compromised.
The second aspect is that the child receives trustingly, without first analyzing everything to death. It does not say, "I will accept your love once I have resolved every intellectual question about the nature of love." It simply receives. Many people delay becoming Christians indefinitely, saying they will commit once they have worked out all the intellectual problems. But Christianity is a response of the heart and the will to God's love for us. You will never resolve every intellectual question; and even if you could, that would make Christianity a matter of intellect, which it is not. A child understands how to receive love. It responds to it, simply and directly.
The third aspect is receiving without pride. The infant in its helplessness is not humiliated by receiving — it has no pride to protect. We are often very different. When someone offers us help or gives us a gift, our pride rebels: "I don't need this; don't treat me like a beggar." I myself experienced this when I first preached a message and the treasurer of the church offered me money for transport. I protested that I had no transport cost — I had walked. A fellow student said to me quietly: "You know, it sometimes takes more humility to receive than to give." That stopped me. I realised that it was my pride that was the problem, not the offer. The kingdom of God is for those who can receive without pride.
The fourth aspect is the absence of pretense. The infant is what it is; it says exactly what it means. We grown-ups become increasingly complicated and hypocritical as we age — we say no when we mean yes, we perform emotions we do not feel, we refuse things we actually want in order to appear appropriately modest. The kingdom is for those who are genuine, transparent, without pretense.
The fifth aspect is receiving with joy. Give a child a sweet worth one cent and its eyes light up as though you had given it a diamond. It receives with overflowing gladness. How often when we give to someone they can barely manage a polite thank-you, and you wonder why you bothered. The joyful, spontaneous, wholehearted receiving of the child is one of the most beautiful things in human experience.
Paul grasped this principle deeply: "When I am weak, then I am strong." It is in recognising our helplessness that we find power, because only the helpless draw fully on God's grace. The kingdom of God belongs to the helpless, to the poor — to those who say to God, "Lord, I am nothing spiritually; I cannot help myself; please help me." If you desire to be saved, you must be willing to come as a non-entity, without resources of your own, entirely dependent on his mercy. Are you a child? Are you willing to become one?
Let us be quiet before God in prayer. Bye. Thank you.