What about Our Kids?

I had a conversation with a friend about how world trends show we are close to the return of Jesus. We agreed that most people don’t even want to entertain this idea and her specific concern was for her kids. I responded that I believed children in Christian families would be resurrected with their parents in the Rapture because 1 Corinthians 7:14 says, “for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy” (NKJ).

I think 1 Corinthians 7:14 would apply to kids before their age of accountability even if only one parent is a Christian. The Bible doesn’t give a specific age of accountability; I’m sure this varies from person to person with God being the ultimate arbiter. I tell people that my age of accountability was at 33 years of age when God opened my heart to Jesus. I know that if I didn’t accept Jesus as my Lord when the Holy Spirit convicted me of my condition before God then I was risking eternal condemnation.

It occurred to me later that this Christian mom’s concern might not have not have been so much for the eternal destiny of her kids but for what they’d miss out in terms of their worldly experiences. It is easy for us older folks to look forward to the Rapture but what of kids who will not experience marriage, having kids of their own and other joys of being an adult?

I’m convinced that children will be resurrected as fully grown adults. God created Adam and Eve as adults that would have lived forever in bodies at the prime of their lives if sin had not entered the picture. Ephesians 4:13 says we should look forward to when followers of Jesus “all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Part of being perfected in the resurrection is having a physical body frozen in time in the prime of our life.

It is pretty common to allow the faded glory of this fallen world to eclipse future blessings which we can not see. That is why materialism is so pervasive. But God has promised us that the blessings of heaven are unfathomable. 1 Corinthians 2:9 says, “as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’” God promises us that the glories of heaven will be so great that we will not give any thought to this world… “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind” (Isaiah 65:17).

What ever longing God puts in the hearts of believers that we don’t get to satisfy in this world will certainly be satisfied in the new heavens and earth. So we should not think that the Rapture will cause our Christian children to miss out on anything in this world.