[Ali Imran]

I want to believe that infants and young children who die are in heaven, but how are they who have never trusted in Christ saved? There's no definitive scriptural passage that clearly spells out the eternal destiny of children who are too young to comprehend the gospel. Ditto those who are mentally impaired and fail to grasp as well because of their intellectual limitations and are therefore childlike.

If faith in Christ is the basis by which everyone else in the world must be saved, then how is God able to bend the rules for children? I believe I can say with confidence that children who die are graciously welcomed by God into His heaven. God has a soft spot for children. He values their lives and grieves over their deaths (Ps 139:13-16) and condemns cruelty toward children. (Ezek 16:20-21)

"Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all." And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them. (Mark 10:14-16)

Jesus was using children as an illustration of the humility necessary to receive God's gift of salvation. Now because of Adam's original sin against God, every person has been infested with the sin virus. "Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." (Rom 5:12) Physical death is the proof we've contracted the sin virus, and the fact that everyone dies - incl children - is proof that no one is immune to this disease.

Obviously, God differentiates between children's inherited sin - over which they had no choice - and the willful disobedience of adults. Children have no ability to distinguish between good and evil and they have no ability to be charged with the same offence as their parents: unbelief. In the Bible the sin of unbelief isn't simply failing to believe God; it is the deliberate choice not ot believe what God has said. Unbelief is the willful rejection of God's revelation.

"And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief."(Heb 3:18-19) "Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the Living God. (v 12)

The Bible is clear: the sin of unbelief prevented them from entering "His rest." The consequence of a person's unbelief - the deliberate choice not to believe what God has said - is that he or she isn't able to enter into heaven.

In these modern times, rejecting the Bible as God's revelation is understandable, given the scholarship already in existence. 

Are people going to be put in hell because the Bible isn't giving anybody any confidence that it is a revelation from God?