Are Babies Good or Evil?
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Romans 3:23
Because of Adam’s sin, death entered the human race and babies are born with an inherited evil nature. In Romans 3:23, Paul says that sinful humans, with their sinful nature, are incapable of fulfilling the requirements of God’s law and of establishing their own righteousness.
The only possible way to obtain righteousness is by faith in Jesus Christ. By this experience of faith, humans can obtain a right relation with God (Romans 3:24), and new hearts are created within them, and they are enabled by faith to live once again in obedience to God’s law (Romans 5:1).
People have fallen short of the glory of God. The glory of God that was revealed to Moses (Exodus 33:18, 22) is the character of God—goodness, mercy and forgiveness. This glory can be reflected in God’s children who surrender their lives to His transforming work.
Paul speaks of men as “the image and glory of God” (1 Corinthians 11:7). As God’s glory which is revealed in Christ shines from the scriptures into the hearts and minds of the believers, it transforms them into “light in the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8). By beholding God, believers change. “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
So, when babies are born, they start their life with a clean account of sins which means they are not born with a sinful record. But rather they are born with an inherited evil and a tendency to sin. If a baby is born in a Christian family and he dies, he will be raised at the resurrection to join his righteous parents in heaven. For he was sanctified by them (1 Corinthians 7:14). But if the baby lives and grows old, he will be held accountable for his own decisions.
In His service,
BibleAsk Team
