Philip asks:

My wife and I have a toddler, and my wife is pregnant with number two. Such a blessing! Currently neither of our children is capable of understanding the gospel, and therefore have not believed. What would happen to their souls if the Rapture were to happen tomorrow?

I have read some people on this but mostly from a Reformed perspective. I appreciate your wisdom on this question.

Hi, Philip.

Great question.

First, we know that anyone unable to believe will not be eternally condemned. God does not hold people accountable for what they cannot do. See this article, which covers that issue as well as the age of accountability (and children and the Rapture, too). So, whatever happens to your small children, they would not be condemned.

Second, there are many Scriptures which illustrate that when God saves believers from pending disaster, he also spares their children. Examples include Lot’s wife and two daughters, Noah’s wife and three sons and three daughters-in-law, Rahab the harlot’s entire family, etc. There is no specific verse that directly says that the children of believers are taken in the Rapture. But God will deliver the children of believers so that they too do not go through the Tribulation wrath, just as He delivered the children of Lot, Noah, and Rahab.

Third, you do not ask about the more pressing questions. If your children are taken in the Rapture with you, will that mean that they never get a chance to have children of their own, never get a chance to lay up eternal rewards, and that they will miss the rest of their childhood and adolescence? While many people concentrate simply on the eternal destiny of the children of believers at the time of the Rapture, those other questions are more practical.

My view is that they will experience the next seven years as though it were a few minutes. With the Lord, a thousand years is as a day. So almost immediately they will be in the Millennium. Most likely they will not be glorified but will go into the Millennium in their natural bodies. They will grow up, marry, have children, and live in the righteous and peaceful kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. If they come to faith in Christ, which would be highly likely with Jesus present and ruling, they will be born again and then will begin to lay up eternal rewards.

By the way, according to Isaiah 65:20-25, those born in the Millennium will live long lives like those before the Flood. Some born at the start will likely still be alive 1,000 years later. So, your children will likely not get lifespans of 80 to 100 years, but 800 to 1,000 years! And they would be relatively pain-free years as well.

John 3:16 says that everlasting life is for those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and John 11:26 says that it is for those who do so while living. Yes, God might make an exception in the case of the Rapture of children. But at least from my perspective it would better for your children to have the opportunity for full lives in a near-perfect environment when Satan is bound for the entire 1,000 years.ⁱ

ⁱ I think it likely that believing children under age twenty will not only be raptured with their believing parents, but they will be permitted to live out their natural lives in the Millennium.