Terry James has made an effort to answer my issues raised in the post I shared of his yesterday.

His further answer presented in this Post is also replete with problems. I’ll begin, with the first of his statements, and I quote.

“The adult whom the Holy Spirit has called to salvation through Jesus Christ is ‘accountable’ for his or her own soul at the point he or she then accepts or rejects. The child is not called to salvation because he or she hasn’t, at that point in his or her young life, achieved through growth the cognitive ability to make such decisions. These are not ‘accountable.’ The child who hasn’t reached the ‘age of accountability’ has a position in Jesus Christ, the same as the adult who has ‘believed’ unto salvation. If the child were to die before becoming responsible for his or her own decision to accept or reject Christ, that child would go directly into the presence of God, for all eternity.”

This basically is the very same argument that Terry used in yesterday’s share. But it gets better.

He continues:

“Remember King David. He put off his robes of mourning for his baby when the son died, because David said that the baby couldn’t come to him, but that he, David, would go to the child. The baby was in heaven with God, for all of eternity, where King David would surely go upon his death.”

This again changes nothing. David was the saved, sanctified parent and the child was thus sanctified as Paul states and is in heaven. This in no way proves “all children” to be saved.

He continues to advocate for this without scripture:

“All children before they reach the age of accountability are positioned securely in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose shed blood is the only remission for the soul-destroying thing called sin.”

Again this is nothing new. He uses again “all children”, without scriptural support.

He continues:

“-rapture and salvation–are inexorably linked in God’s great economy. This truth is based upon a vast body of scriptural proof text, but is wrapped up by the Apostle Paul in one particular scripture, I think: ‘For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ…’(1 Thes. 5:9).”

This argument by Terry, I guess, is to tie all the saved children to the rapture. And I have no argument concerning saved children going in the rapture when it occurs at the end of Tribulation at the coming of Jesus, because Tribulation is not God’s wrath which all Christians are promised to escape. That wrath is for all unsaved mankind, both those who have died and those who are alive. Tribulation can in no way be proven to be that wrath.

He continues:

“Paul, again through divine inspiration, had just gone through the facts surrounding the rapture of believers (the Church). He used the personal pronouns “we,” “us,” “your,” etc., as opposed to “they,” “them,” etc., to separate believers from unbelievers. Believers (Christians of the Church Age) were not, Paul said, appointed to wrath, because they were children of the day (the light found in Christ). The unbelievers were children of the night –the sin-blackened darkness of the fallen realm. Paul prophesied that the day of the Lord will begin like a thief-in-the-night experience. The children of the night would be taken by surprise, but the children of the day (believers) would escape the coming wrath of God, which the day of the Lord will bring upon a rebellious world of earth-dwellers.”

Actually Paul says that the day of the Lord will not surprise believers, Paul or no one else in scripture mentions a church age. He does state that we will not be in darkness that that day should overtake us as a thief. This darkness represents understanding of the days that are upon us believers at that time. I’ll not go into this here but the day of the Lord follows tribulation. Joel instructs us on that point.

He continues:

“This escape from God’s wrath will come, Paul said, through salvation, which is in Christ Jesus.

This is the same escape foretold by Jesus –through John—in Revelation 3: 10: ‘Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth’ (Rev. 3:10).”

This really has nothing to do with his argument for “all children”. I have taught on this verse in the past in another post. But his defense here is not concerning the children it is basically smoke and mirrors as if it concerns his premise that all children will be raptured.

He continues:

Children below the age of accountability are individual souls within Christ’s salvation –the salvation that keeps the individual believer out of hell, eternally apart from the Creator –out of the time of God’s wrath, which will come upon the whole world of rebellious earth-dwellers –unbelievers.”

Terry provides no support from scripture refuting Paul on this subject. He just concludes all children to be protected from hell which is the wrath of God. If his premise is correct that “all children” will be delivered from the Tribulation; then a Rapture must occur each time a child is born during the Tribulation. Otherwise his premise is wrong. Think about what I have stated here fr just a moment. If every child below a certain age of accountability is promised by this claim to be kept from Tribulation then every child born during tribulation must be immediately raptured.

He continues:

“Again, God does not deal with human beings collectively, or corporately, when it comes to salvation of the soul. He, mercifully, deals with us one on one. Jesus asks each of us: “Who do you say that I am?” Unbelievers are those who, individually, have rejected the Holy Spirit’s call to salvation. Each will be left behind at the time of the rapture. Children, like all of lost mankind, are sinners, but those who haven’t reached the age of being able to understand God’s grace gift are not unbelievers. They are covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.”

Again, With no scripture to support what he is saying, even his logic becomes flawed for there are possibly billions in the world since Christ’s sacrifice, who have never heard the gospel. If the gospel is offered by the Holy Spirit to every man when he reaches the age of accountability then there might be some truth to his argument, but Paul says faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, and that without a preacher how will they hear. Many have never heard God’s word well beyond being a child. So are they saved because they never heard. But Terry somehow fails to recognize this he says people are individually responsible, yet he groups all children as the same, even when Paul refutes him.

He goes on:

“The meaning becomes clear, when thinking on the fact that each and every individual’s name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. The name remains there until the person is shown that he or she is a sinner, and is convicted or called by the Holy Spirit to repent of sin –to “believe” in the Lord Jesus Christ. When the person fully realizes that call, and that Jesus is the ONLY way to reconciliation with God the Father, but refuses or rejects God’s grace gift offer, that name is “blotted out” of the Lamb’s Book of Life. The individual who rejects that grace gift offer of salvation until his or her death will die in sin and spend eternity apart from his or her Creator.”

So he introduces the Lamb’s book of life and his theory concerning it. He claims based on his belief that no christian can be blotted out of this book, which is true only if his understanding is correct. They can’t be blotted out until they reject Christ. Yet this verse is written to the church:

“He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels” (Rev. 3:5).

Overcoming Satan and standing firm in the faith is at issue here. If we deny Him He will deny us. That one will be blotted from the book of life. Otherwise if ones name is already there, it would be better that he never hear of Christ, because when he does according to Terry he loses his protection as “an innocent” with immuned protection from the shed blood of Christ.

This then is all that Terry has got — no scripture, no logic, only his belief devoid of scripture. I want you to read his post for in it he fails to explain beyond what I’ve shown here, why the theory that he begins with is completely overlooked in his explanation surrounding it. His premise still begs an answer, an explanation from him relative to God’s word.

His full article now begins:

Most always the confutation over the issue of children and the rapture of the church is wrapped around the scripture: “For the unbelieving husband is…

Will all children be Raptured?