Saying the word “Limbo” will provoke different thoughts to different people – maybe even different thoughts to the same person. You’ll be betraying you lived in the 1960’s if you think of a dance – a West Indian dance where the person shuffles forward and tries to squeeze under a bar whilst leaning over backwards. Competitions would be held where the bar would be progressively lowered until only one person could make it under the bar. Some of you might remember the song about the Limbo with the line, How low can you go?
The word has more uses than that. It is used in some circles as a slang for prison; many people use it to describe some sort of intermediate condition between two extremes, where they feel useless or unable to act – “I was in limbo”.
However the specific meaning I want to address is The supposed abode of infants dying without baptism. Some might not have heard of that. You might be thinking, “Where is that in the Bible, I’ve never come across it?” The answer is simple: Limbo is not to be found in the Bible. A previous Pope said some years ago that Limbo was only a “theological hypothesis”, but how many new parents lived in fear of it? TIME magazine reported (9/1/06) that a commission of top Catholic theologians has reported that the Catholic church’s teaching on Limbo was “in crisis”. (Whether it has been resolved I do not know but it matters little since it has nothing to do with the Bible).
If the doctrine of Limbo is not from the Bible, from whence did it spring? Limbo was conceived in the Middle Ages to solve a problem relating to the doctrine of original sin. You might ask, “What is original sin, I’ve never heard of that either?” It is the doctrine that says the guilt of Adam and Eve’s sin was inherited by all human beings. This doctrine says that when we are conceived, we are conceived in sin and carry the stain of Adam and Eve’s disobedience. Since baptism is for the remission of sins, supposedly including “original sin”, what was the eternal destiny of babies who died before they were baptised? Augustine, a famous theologian of the fourth century, said that such infants must go to Hell. In the middle ages there were theologians who didn’t like that thought, and so they counter-proposed the concept of Limbo – a place where they would not be punished, but would be denied the actual presence of God and presumably that of the parents (assuming they went to heaven). Now, in our time, there is another set of theologians who do not like the idea of Limbo and they advocate shutting the place down. So now it is anticipated that the Pope will probably soon approve a document recognizing unbaptised dead babies’ full rights to enter into heaven.
Of course, and maybe you have already anticipated this, there are those theologians who are nervous about the idea of throwing Heaven’s gates open to the unbaptised, for then the question of the essentiality of baptism also comes up for review. As a subtitle in the TIME article said, Closing it (Limbo) will send more souls to heaven, but will baptism lose its primacy?
I’m not a Catholic (nor a Protestant for that matter) and have no part in their debate, but I’m all for shutting down Limbo. No such place exists and if this will remove one more piece of mythology from the minds of many, then that has to be a good thing.
However, this discussion raises a number of considerations. As the article said, It’s hard to give in one area without taking away elsewhere: if it is a “win” to get rid of Limbo, then the “loser” is baptism. It illustrates the old maxim, if you tell a lie you will have to tell others to cover it. Or more precisely in this case, if you construct one false doctrine, you will be forced to invent other false doctrines in order to try and be consistent. And when one of the doctrines is shown to be false, then it will have repercussion throughout the whole edifice. When cracks appear in a building, it is evident that the foundation is not as stable as it ought to be. Cracks are appearing with respect to Limbo because the foundation that supports it is faulty. It is to be hoped with respect to doctrinal matters, that if cracks appear in the superstructure, then cracks may also appear in the foundation so that the whole building may come crashing down and all things be rebuilt on truth.
What is the foundational lie that spawned the need for Limbo in the first place? It was not the doctrine of baptism because baptism was only ever commanded of those who were old enough to believe (Mark. 16:16; Col. 2:12). It was the doctrine of ‘original sin’. This was the brainchild of Augustine, the same theologian who said that unbaptised babies must go to Hell. The writer of the TIME article said of him that he “applied more logic than compassion”, but you can see Augustine’s dilemma – if baptism is for the remission of sins and babies are guilty of ‘original sin’, and since the wages of sin is death then unbaptised babies must be lost. Who was it (Tillitson?) who said that all false doctrines begin with something outlandish and proceed fairly logically after that. It wasn’t God who asked us to choose between compassion and logic with respect to departed babies. What a wicked web we weave when first we practice to deceive, holds true for doctrines too. Because the doctrine of original sin consistently applied meant that those who died in childbirth would be lost, it spawned the unscriptural doctrine of infant baptism. Because people believed that they had fulfilled the Lord’s command to be baptised when they sprinkled infants (which is the sprinkling of impenitent unbelievers), adult immersion of penitent believers (which is Scriptural) was spurned.
Because the infant has no faith or any sort of cognitive response, a “faith-by-proxy” godparent system sprang up. Further, to cover the lack of personal commitment in infancy, a system of “confirmation” evolved. All of these are, of course, without scriptural command or precedent. Still further, since Jesus was born of a woman, to save Him from being born in sin and thus rendered less than sinless, the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary was spawned. Because she was immaculately conceived, this made her different from every one else and so doctrines sprang up around her, such as being able to pray to her, and the assumption of her body to Heaven at her death.
So many false doctrines get their start in the misapplication of poetic or figurative passages. For examples, man being supposedly totally mortal; premillenialism etc. The doctrine of original sin comes from Psalm 51:5 where David in his remorse hyperbolically says, in effect, “I was rotten from birth”. But notice he also expresses hyperbolically the sinfulness of the wicked in Psalm. 58:3: The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. Question: Do they really speak lies from birth, and if they are conceived in sin why do they wait nine months to go astray when they are born? Conversely, hyperbole is used in the opposite sense in Ps. 22:9-11 where David overstates his case in his appeal for help.. you did make me to hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts…you are my God from my mother’s belly…be not far from me. Question: Did David really place his hope in God at birth? Job does the same thing in Job 31:16-18 where in pleading his case he claims to have looked after widows and orphans from his infancy! From infancy? Really?
None of these passages teach the doctrine of original sin, and even if we reject Ps. 51:5 as being hyperbolic poetry, why does in sin did my mother conceive me not refer to David’s mother, rather than David himself? That is, why is it not affirming that his sinful mother brought him into a sinful world. The fact of the matter is there is no plan of salvation for infants because one is not needed: of such is the kingdom of heaven. Gen. 8:21 informs us that man is evil from his youth, not his conception. Further to that, Paul declares in Rom. 9:11 that Esau and Jacob had done no good or evil in the womb even though conception was passed. God is the Father of our spirits (Heb. 12:9) and He is the giver of every good gift. If, as Ezekiel 18:4-20 informs us, the son does not bear the iniquity of the father, how can we rattle the chain all the way back through the preceding generations and bear the iniquity of our forbear, Adam?
But what does this furore in Catholic circles over Limbo illustrate? For one thing, there is a great gulf of difference between the doctrines of men and the doctrines of God. Jesus once asked the Jews, The baptism of John, was it from Heaven or was it from men? In asking this question Jesus highlights that there two possible origins for the doctrines that circulate in the world, and the importance of authority. Many religious doctrines have their origin in the minds of men. Assumptions are made that the traditions of men are the commandments of the Lord. This is illustrated by a number of confrontations between Jesus and the Jewish hierarchy – Matt.12:1-9; 15:1-9. As Jesus pointed out, in carrying out the traditions of men, one can transgress the commandments of the Lord.
God’s words are not like the words of men. They are “god-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet.1:20,21); fixed (Ps. 119:89, 160; 138:2); infallible (2 Tim. 2:17; Ps. 19:7; 33:4); unchanging (John 10:35) and everlasting (Matt. 24:35; 1 Pet. 1:24,25). Is it any wonder then that God warns us not to tamper with His word. It is not a dead letter (Heb. 4:12). It is not to be added to or taken from (Deut. 4:2; Prov. 30:6; 1 Cor. 4:6; Rev. 22:18,19).
The changing nature of the doctrines of men simply proves they are false and should never have been accepted in the first place. Before 1910 the Methodist Manual said that babies were born in sin – after 1910 it said they were born in Christ. Well, what is it? If it was right before 1910 it is wrong now. If it is right now, it was wrong before 1910. What confidence can one have in the changing creeds and catechisms of men that are continually updated and revised. There was no Limbo, then there was a Limbo, and now there is no Limbo! The Bible needs no revision, it needs no updating.
Remember this, the Bible will be opened on the day of judgement and it will be the standard of judgement – John 12:48.