What will happen to children at the rapture?

Question 10086.

What happens to children at the rapture is one of the questions I am asked most often by parents, and it is almost never asked out of curiosity. It is asked with a catch in the voice, usually late in a conversation, by a mother or father who has just realised what the doctrine might mean for the small people asleep upstairs. That deserves a careful answer rather than a confident slogan.

Let me say at the outset that Scripture does not address this directly. There is no verse that tells us what becomes of children at the rapture, and anyone who claims otherwise is stretching a text. What we do have are clear biblical principles about the character of God, the standing of young children before Him, and the nature of the event itself. From those we can reason carefully to a conclusion I hold with real confidence but without pretending it is chapter and verse.

Start with what Scripture does say about young children

When David lost his infant son he said, “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Samuel 12:23). That is not stoicism. It is expectation of reunion, and it is the clearest statement in the Old Testament that a child who dies before understanding is safe with God.

Jesus took children in His arms and said the kingdom of God belongs to such as these, and He warned in the strongest terms against causing one of them to stumble. Isaiah speaks of a child who does not yet know how to refuse the evil and choose the good, which implies a stage before moral accountability begins. The whole tenor of Scripture is protective.

That is the reasoning behind what we call the age of accountability, and it stands behind everything I want to say about children at the rapture. If a child who dies is received by the Lord, it would be strange indeed if a child who is alive were treated differently at His coming.

Paul adds a piece to the picture when he says that sin is not counted where there is no law, and when he describes a time in his own experience when he was alive apart from the law before the commandment came (Romans 5:13). Whatever else that means, it implies a stage at which guilt is not reckoned in the way it is reckoned to a person who knows what he is doing. That principle sits underneath the whole discussion of children at the rapture.

The first view: all children at the rapture are taken

This is the position I hold. If children below the age of accountability are not held guilty in the way a responsible adult is, and if the Rapture is the gathering of those who belong to the Lord, then children at the rapture are gathered with them. The event that removes the redeemed removes those whom God does not count against.

There is a supporting argument from the character of the period that follows. The Tribulation is described as a time of unequalled distress, poured out on a world that has knowingly rejected the truth. Leaving unaccountable infants in that furnace to face the mark of the Beast before they could understand any of it does not fit the God who says His mercies are new every morning.

I hold this view warmly, but I want to be honest that it is a conclusion from principles rather than a quotation. I would not break fellowship with a man who disagreed, and I would not preach it as though Paul had written it down.

There is a further consideration from the way the event itself is described. The Rapture is not a rescue mission conducted according to merit but the gathering of a family, and Scripture consistently pictures God as gathering rather than sorting on that day. Given how tenderly Jesus spoke of little ones, and how fiercely He warned those who harm them, I find it very difficult to picture children at the rapture being passed over while the adults around them are taken.

The second view: only the children of believers

The alternative reading limits it to children in believing households, appealing to Paul’s statement that the unbelieving spouse is made holy and the children are holy rather than unclean (1 Corinthians 7:14). On this view a covenant standing attaches to the household, and children at the rapture go where their believing parent goes.

I understand the appeal, and there is something in the household principle that runs right through Scripture. But I do not think that verse is doing the work asked of it. Paul is answering a question about whether a mixed marriage is defiling, and his answer concerns the legitimacy of the family rather than the eternal destiny of the offspring. Nor does the verse say the child is saved.

There is a pastoral consequence too. This view would mean the infant of a believing neighbour is taken while the infant next door is left, which raises questions about God’s justice that I do not think the position can answer.

What about children who are old enough to understand?

Here we have to be careful, and I will not soften it. A child who has come to the point of understanding sin and the gospel, and who has knowingly refused Jesus, is in the same position as any other person who has refused Him. Age does not by itself confer safety. Understanding is what changes a person’s standing.

There is no fixed birthday for this, and it varies from child to child. It has nothing to do with confirmation classes or a particular age in the church calendar. It is the point at which a young person genuinely grasps that they have sinned against God and that Jesus died for them, and is able to respond.

Which is why I would not treat the question of children at the rapture as a reason to relax about evangelising the young. If anything it sharpens the urgency. There comes a day when the safety of infancy is behind them, and no parent can identify that day in advance.

Parents often ask how to handle this with a child who is asking questions. My advice is to answer the question they actually asked, in words they can hold, and not to import the whole prophetic scheme into a bedtime conversation. A child who asks whether Jesus will take them too needs to hear about a Saviour who loves them and wants them, not a lecture on the age of accountability. What happens to young children who die is a question best answered in the same register.

A word to grieving and anxious parents

Some who read this have already buried a child, or lost one before birth. I want to say plainly that Scripture gives you real ground for hope. Your child is not in danger. David’s confidence was not wishful thinking, and the Lord who called the little ones to Himself has not changed His disposition towards them.

Others are anxious about a teenager who has drifted. Take the anxiety to prayer rather than to speculation. The question of children at the rapture cannot be settled for your particular household by an article, but the God who answers prayer for our children has not stopped answering it. Keep asking.

I would rather you left this page trusting His character than filing away a diagram. Every parent I have counselled on this has needed the first far more than the second.

If your household is divided, with one believing parent and one who does not believe, this question can carry an extra weight of anxiety. Take heart from what Peter says about the unbelieving husband being won without a word by the conduct of his wife. God is not indifferent to the households of His people, and the prayers you offer for the children at the rapture question are prayers about your whole family’s future, which He hears.

Why God has not told us plainly

It is worth asking why Scripture leaves this open when the answer would be such a comfort. My best answer is that God has told us what we need for faith and left us to trust Him for the rest. If we had a written guarantee about children at the rapture, I suspect it would be used to delay evangelism rather than to encourage prayer.

There is also a pattern here. Again and again in Scripture God gives us His character rather than a mechanism. Abraham was not given a rulebook about the judgement of cities; he was given a question. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just? The answer to that question covers a great deal of ground that the Bible never spells out.

There is one more reason for the silence, I suspect. Scripture is written to be read by people in every century, most of whom would never face the Rapture at all but would certainly face the death of a child. What we are given, therefore, is the principle that covers both: God deals justly and tenderly with those who cannot yet answer for themselves. That truth carries a bereaved parent in any age, whereas a technical answer about children at the rapture would only serve one generation.

So, now what?

Do two things. Teach your children the gospel plainly and early, without frightening them and without assuming a comfortable answer will cover them indefinitely. And then rest. The Judge of all the earth will do right, and He loves your children more competently than you do.

If you have been carrying anxiety about this for a while, will you set it down tonight? The One who is coming for His Church is the same One who took children in His arms and blessed them. He has not changed.

But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 19:14 (ESV)