Of course they're a blessing!
In the OT times women that could not bear children were considered to be cursed.
What we have to concentrate on here is BIBLICAL evidence that a baby, infant, child could sin.
God set up certain rules and regulations, which Paul spoke of, and we have to use these rules to decide if children can be
responsible for sinning or not.
I don't see any such evidence, but see the opposite.
A child cannot sin because he doesn't know what a sin is.
God will hold us responsible only for the light we have....
agreed they are not considered sinful until they commit a sin. Thats the biblical principle. Many passages say children are not guilt of the sins of their fathers/parents.
ts appalling to condemn innocent children- Even the calvinst Gill agree's from Jer 2:34- they are INNOCENT not guilty of sin,
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents,.... Either of
the innocent infants of poor persons, who were sacrificed to Moloch; or of the poor prophets of the Lord, whom they slew,
and here from Jeremiah
Jeremiah 19:2 and go out to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you…4 Because the people have forsaken me and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with
THE BLOOD OF INNOCENTS…6 therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
God judged them by having the Babylonians doing to them what they did to their children. The Jews Slaughtering their innocent children and God had them slaughtered by the Babylonians.
Psalm 106:34 They (the Israelites) did not destroy the peoples (the Canaanites), as the Lord commanded them, 35 but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. 36 They served their idols, which became a snare to them. 37 They SACRIFICED THEIR SONS AND THEIR DAUGHTERS TO THE DEMONS; 38 they poured out
INNOCENT BLOOD, THE BLOOD OF THEIR SONS AND DAUGHTERS, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.
conclusion: how many time does God/Jesus have to say children are
INNOCENT not guilty before you will believe ?
Jesus affirms the above in the N.T. Woe to those who cause any little ones to stumble.
And more scripture from Jesus
Matthew 18:2-5
And He called
a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself
as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven
Matthew 18:10
“See that you do not despise one of
these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 18:14
So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of
these little ones perish.
Matthew 19:13-14
Then some
children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, “Let
the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs
to such as these.
Mark 9:36-37
Taking
a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, “Whoever receives
one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me.”
Mark 10:13-16
And they were bringing
children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “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.
Luke 9:47-48
But Jesus, knowing what they were thinking in their heart, took
a child and stood him by His side, and said to them, “Whoever receives
this child in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me; for the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is great.”
Luke 18:15-17
And they were bringing even
their babies to Him so that He would touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them. But Jesus called for them, saying, “Permit
the children to come to Me, and 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.”
conclusion :There is no transmission of a fallen nature, a sin nature that originated with augustine. Lets see what God declares about sin.
Ezekiel 18:4
For everyone belongs to me, the parent as well as the child—both alike belong to me. The one who sins is the one who will die
Ezekiel 18:20
“The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son.”
Deuteronomy 24:16
Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.
2 Kings 14:6
Yet he did not put the sons of the murderers to death, but acted according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, where the LORD commanded: "Fathers must not be put to death for their children, and children must not be put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin."
Jeremiah 31:30
Instead, each will die for his own iniquity. If anyone eats the sour grapes, his own teeth will be set on edge.
And we have the wisdom of Job below who knew had he died as a child he would be at peace with the Lord as an innocent and not condemned in hell as guilty as some falsely teach/believe. Job knew there was no torment and suffering if he had died as a child.
Job 3:11 “Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire?…13 For then I would have lain DOWN AND BEEN QUIET; I WOULD HAVE SLEPT; THEN I WOULD HAVE BEEN AT REST.
The Bible is in one accord on the innocence of children and that there is no guilt of sin.
1 John 3:4 " Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness."
Ezekiel 18:20, "The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.”
Matthew 18:3, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."
Matthew 19:14, "But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
If children are born sinners as TD and original sin teaches then Jesus teaches that to be His disciples we must be corrupt like the little children which is an oxymoron.
The teaching above by Jesus, Ezekiel and John confirms I’m correct and original sin is not. One becomes a sinner when they sin and become guilty of that sin not before. Babies are born innocent, not guilty. There is no DNA gene making one a sinner that is folklore.
The errors of the Gnostics were continually rejected by the Early Church, but the Gnostics continued to try to penetrate the Church with their views. The Gnostics even wrote their own gospels, known as the Gnostic Gospels today, where they stole credible names like Mary and Thomas to try to give validity to their teachings.
While many of the attempts of the Gnostics to infiltrate the Church failed, and many of their views are widely rejected today, it seems that their particular view of human nature, free will, and the nature of sin has found wide acceptance in the Church today.
On Free will
Regarding the term “free will,” John Calvin admitted “As to the Fathers, (if their authority weighs with us,) they have the term constantly in their mouths…”
[31]He said, “The Greek fathers above others” have taught “the power of the human will”
[32] and “they have not been ashamed to make use of a much more arrogant expression calling man ‘free agent or self-manager,’ just as if man had a power to govern himself…”
[33] He also said, “The Latin fathers have always retained the word ‘free will’ as if man stood yet upright.”
[34] It is a fact that cannot be denied even by those who most ardently oppose the doctrine of free will, that the doctrine of free will and not that of inability was held by all of the Early Church.
Walter Arthur Copinger said, “
All the Fathers are unanimous on the freedom of the human will…”
[35]Lyman Beecher said, “the free will and natural ability of man were held by
the whole church…”
[36] And Dr Wiggers said, “
All the fathers…agreed with the Pelagians, in attributing freedom of will to man in his present state.”
[37] This is a very important point because whenever a person today holds to the belief that all men have the natural ability to obey God or not to obey Him, or that man’s nature still retains the faculty of free will and can choose between these two alternatives and possibilities, he is almost immediately accused of being a heretical “Pelagian” by the Calvinists. This accusation is being unfair to the position of free will since all of the Early Church Fathers held to free will long before Pelagius even existed.
On Original sin
Harry Conn said, “Augustine, after studying the philosophy of Manes, the Persian philosopher, brought into the church from Manichaeism the doctrine of original sin.”
[51]
The corruption of our nature, or the loss of our free will, Augustine credited to the original sin of Adam. Augustine said that the “free choice of the will was present in that man who was the first to be formed… But after he sinned by that free will, we who have descended from his progeny have been plunged into necessity.”
[52] “By Adam’s transgression, the freedom of’ the human will has been completely lost.”
[53] “By the greatness of the first sin, we have lost the freewill to love God.” And finally he said, “by subverting the rectitude in which he was created, he is followed with the punishment of not being able to do right” and “the freedom to abstain from sin has been lost as a punishment of sin.”
[54]
Consider the following facts:
- All of the Early Christians, before Augustine, believed in man’s free will and denied man’s natural inability.
- The Gnostics in the days of the Early Church believed in man’s natural inability and denied man’s free will.
- Augustine was a Gnostic for many years, in the Manichaeism sect, and converted to the Church out of Gnosticism.
- After joining the Church and being appointed a Bishop, Augustine began to deny the free will of man and to affirm the natural inability of man
- The Church, under Augustine’s influence, began to believe in the natural inability of man, which it never before held to, but which it formerly would refute.
The reason that John Calvin rejected all ancient theologians and dismissed all of their writings on this matter, except for Augustine, is because all ancient theologians affirmed the freedom of the will in their writings, except for Augustine. Gregory Boyd said, “This in part explains why Calvin cannot cite ante-Nicene fathers against his libertarian opponents…. Hence, when Calvin debates Pighuis on the freedom of the will, he cites Augustine abundantly, but no early church fathers are cited.”
[80] That is why George Pretyman said, “…the peculiar tenets of Calvinism are in direct opposition to the Doctrines maintained in the primitive Church of Christ…” This we have clearly seen, but he also said, “…there is a great similarity between the Calvinistic system and the earliest [Gnostic] heresies…”
[81]
The Reformers sought to return the Church to early Christianity, but actually brought it back to early heresies, because it stopped short at Augustine. The Reformers did not go far back enough. Rather than returning the Church to early Christianity, the Reformation resurrected Augustinian and Gnostic doctrines. The Methodist Quarterly Review said, “At the Reformation Augustinianism received an emphatic re-enforcement among the Protestant Churches.”
[82] The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics said, “…it is Augustine who gave us the Reformation. For the Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine… the Reformation came, seeing that it was, on its theological side, a revival of Augustinianism…”
[83] The Reformation was to a great extent a resurrection or revival of Augustinian theology and a further departure and falling away from Early Christianity.
Gnosticism, Augustinianism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism have much in common. Augustinianism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism teach Gnostic views of human nature and free will but under a different name. It’s the same old Gnosticism in a new wrapper. Other doctrines also seem to have originated in Gnosticism, from Basilianism, Valentianism, Marcionism, and Manichaeism, such as the doctrines of easy believism, individual predestination, constitutional regeneration, a sinful nature or a sinful flesh, eternal security or once saved always saved, and others. But no Gnostic doctrine has spread so widely throughout the Church, with such great acceptance as the doctrine of man’s natural inability to obey God.
https://crosstheology.wordpress.com/augustine-gnostic-heretic-and-corruptor-of-the-church/
hope this helps !!!