The Book of Mark
Why Jesus Blessed the Little Children
Mark 10:13-16
Matthew, Mark and Luke are known as the synoptic gospels or the synoptic writers if you are talking about the person rather than the book. That is because they give us a synopsis of the life of Christ.
Whereas John focuses more on select miracles and statements made by Jesus, these three give us their accounts of the same basic series of events. Sometimes one will include something the others don’t, and sometimes more than one will mention the same events, but they more or less chronicle the same series of events.
There is a subtle truth found in observing what they cover and that is if all three cover the same event, it must really be important. That’s not to say any of it is unimportant, but we should really pay close attention when all of them share the information.
Such is the case with what we find in Mark 10: 13-16. Matthew, Mark and Luke all record this event. So let’s take a look at it and see what we can learn.
Mark 1013-16
I set the scene for you by underlining the fact that all three mention this set of circumstances because many commentators hardly give this passage a glance, much less really get into its meaning. For them, it is merely incidental and could be overlooked.
But in reality, quite the opposite is true. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is one of the most important passages in the gospels.
I say that, in part, because of the questions it answers about what happens to babies that die. That is one of the most emotional questions a Christian will ever deal with and almost every family has been touched by it. In our family, I know of at least three babies who’ve died in infancy.
Our family experienced such loss in the death of my mother’s infant brother, her sister’s infant son and my brother’s son. And our family is certainly not the exception to such losses.
Since the beginning of time, multiplied millions of children have died in infancy or early childhood and they continue to do so in the world today. So it is a huge question to consider. What happens to the souls of all those children that have died?
Well, this passage, more than any other in the Bible answers that question and the answer it provides is very clear and easy to understand.
Now you know I tend to approach things in very logical and basic terms. What we find here is the Lord blessing little children.
Now here’s my question in regard to that: does God bless anything that is cursed? As far as I can tell, Jesus never pronounced a blessing on anyone that didn‘t belong to Him and His kingdom.
Now here we find Jesus blessing little children and that didn’t fit with the Jewish theology of the day.
Common Jewish belief of the day was that you earned your way to heaven by doing good works. Children couldn’t do that. They didn’t know the difference between good and evil and righteousness and unrighteousness. So typically, they weren’t even included in discussions regarding the Kingdom of God.
So it must have been especially shocking when the Lord makes these children the center of attention and blesses them. That was shocking not only to the crowd and the Pharisees in particular, but it must have been shocking to the disciples as well.
Children are irrelevant when it comes to the Kingdom of God and eternal life and spirituality, and Jesus is using a child as an illustration of who gets into Heaven. Inf act, I don’t know that there is a more powerful illustration of salvation by grace than what we find here in Mark 10.
I say that because babies and children do nothing to earn salvation, and yet they are a part of the Kingdom of God. And Jesus goes so far as to say you and I won’t get in unless we are like them.
So let’s get into the story and see what we find. We find people were bringing their children to the Lord. That was not an uncommon thing. We’ve already seen Jesus giving tender attention and time to children. The word used for the children in this story indicates they were probably anywhere from tiny babies to three or four years.
Parents are bringing their babies to Jesus because they’ve seen His love and power and heard His preaching about the Kingdom.
And these are parents who care about the future of their children. They want their children to know God and be a part of the Kingdom of God and have eternal life.
And just to add some commentary, Matthew tells us they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them and pray for them. The idea is that of a request for God’s blessing.
They also wanted Jesus to touch their children. Jesus did everything by touching. He blessed with a touch. He healed with a touch. That was exactly the opposite of the Pharisees and scribes. They never touched anyone. You could get defiled doing that. But Jesus was compassionate and tender.
So the purpose in bringing them was that He might touch them and bless then and heal them, and apparently that’s all right with Jesus because He obliges them and does what they request and desire.
But this is so contrary to the conventional wisdom of Judaism that immediately the disciples rebuked these parents.
Verse 13
Now the disciples, remember, are the ones who believe in Jesus. They are the ones who have left legalism and Judaism behind and, yet they are the ones rebuking these parents for bringing their children to Jesus.
And the word for rebuke is a very strong word. It literally means they reprimanded them. They turned on these parents and publicly scolded them.
But as they are about to find out, they were absolutely wrong to do that.
Verse 14
Again the words are very strong, only this time it is Jesus rebuking the disciples for their actions. He was “greatly displease”. He was indignant. He is very angry that they would treat children this way.
It’s not the parents who are wrong in bringing their children to Jesus. It’s the disciples who are wrong for threating the parents the way they do. In fact, after He rebukes His followers, Luke says He then called for the parents who had probably turned and were moving away and calls for them to come and bring their babies to Him.
And then in verse 14, He turns the spotlight on the children.
Now notice, he gives no insight into the spiritual condition of either the parents or the children. He doesn’t talk about their faith or their unbelief because those things are non-issues.
A baby can’t have faith. A baby is neither a conscious believer nor non-believer. A baby is neither a compliant child nor a rebellious child by choice.
So the Lord blesses little babies who were neither believers or non-believers, neither receivers or rejecters of salvation truth. Now that is extremely significant because Jesus doesn’t pronounce blessings on people outside His Kingdom.
And these babies getting to come to Him was so important, it made Him mad if anyone interfered with it.
Why? The end of verse 14 tells us.
The Kingdom of God belongs to babies and children like this and there are no qualifiers there. There are no conditions there.
He doesn’t say the Kingdom of God belongs to these, as if somehow these particular babies were in the Kingdom. He says the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these, meaning the whole category, or the whole class of beings to which these babies belong.
And just so we’re clear, when He talks about the Kingdom of God, he’s talking about salvation. He doesn’t say anything about the covenant or faith or baptism or circumcision.
Nothing is said about any rite or ritual or promise. He just makes a statement that gathers up all the babies in the world and says they belong to the Kingdom and the Kingdom belongs to them.
Now it occurs to me if the Lord were ever going to endorse infant baptism, this would have been the time to do it. All He would have to have said was, “These children will possess the Kingdom if you baptize them.” But He doesn’t say that. He said nothing and neither does anybody else in the Bible say anything about infant Baptism.
He simply says babies belong in the Kingdom.
So what does that tell us, first of all, about the souls of babies that die and second, about salvation itself?
Well, first of all it’s telling us that babies, before they reach a point in time when before God they become accountable for believing or not believing, are under special divine care. God takes care of babies and children who can’t be held responsible fro their actions.
Jesus says, simply and categorically, babies are in the Kingdom. The Kingdom belongs to them.
Now that doesn’t mean they are saved and it doesn’t mean they don’t have a sin nature that will eventually manifest itself. But children, at this stage of life have not chosen consciously to sin. They don't realize they are rebelling against a holy God, and God doesn’t hold them responsible for their behavior.
Now when they reach the age where they can make choices, and they get there pretty quick, and they make bad ones, God gave them parents to correct and instruct them and point them toward God. There comes a time when they are responsible for what they do and we all have to answer to God.
But in the early years, they’re not responsible for their spiritual lives and they live under special grace by which they belong to God until the time when they reach the condition of being personally accountable. And that’s the message of these verses regarding the souls of children.
And the go-to illustration of that is the death of the child of David and Bathsheba recorded in 2 Samuel chapter 12.
David sins with Bathsheba. She became pregnant. David has her husband murdered. They wind up getting married and having the child, but the child gets sick and David is crying out to God to save the life of the child. But the baby dies. And the folks who work with David say, “We better not say anything to him because he’s been so upset about the baby being sick. There’s no telling what he’ll do when he finds out he’s dead.”
But when he finds out, he gets up and washes his face and put on clean clothes and came out and it was over. And he said, “He cannot come to me, but I will go to him.”
Now I have actually read commentators who say David found comfort in the fact that he would be buried in the same cemetery as his son.
Are you kidding me? Is that not ridiculous? That’s not what he was saying. David knew where he was going and he knew where that child was. So how did he know where that child was? Because God had given him the confidence, the child had entered into His presence. This is not some strange doctrine.
God takes care of the babies. There’s a special place in the heart of God for those who are in infancy and not responsible for spiritual choices. And that’s what we see in this passage.
But there is a companion truth that grows out of this assurance and it has to do, not just with babies, but with everyone who will be saved.
Verse 15
Now He moves from saying children are in the Kingdom, to saying anybody else who comes in the Kingdom has to come like a child. You have to come the way children come and if you don’t come like that, you don’t get in at all.
And it’s a very simple thought and it’s so foundational to the faith that it’s amazing people don’t think this passage is important or significant.
First He talks about these children being in the kingdom and then He says everyone has to come like they do. So how do the babies and children get in the kingdom?
By grace.
This is the greatest illustration you’ll ever find of how those who get into the Kingdom get into the kingdom!
It’s by grace. You don’t earn it. It’s not because of your achievement. You have achieved no more than a baby could achieve. It’s a gift of grace. These children are born with a sin nature. They are as David said, conceived in sin. Given enough time, that nature will express itself in unbelievably wicked thoughts and actions.
But God is gracious and in his grace He allows that potential sinner, if that child dies before recognizing its responsibility, to live forever with Him in heaven. How can He do that? He’s gracious.
And He does the same thing with us. We are saved by the grace of God, and by the way, that’s the only way you can be saved.
And when the Lord makes this statement, He was handing down a severe rebuke to the scribes and Pharisees of the day. This is a deathblow to legalism.
The only possible way these children could ever be in heaven would be by sheer grace. And by the way, that’s the only way anybody will ever be in heaven.
And then, as the exclamation point to the comment, notice
verse 16
Even though Matthew and Luke record the event, only Mark mentions this part. In a show of tender affection and love, He hugged the little children up close and held them in His arms and blessed them.
He didn’t view them as little heathen pagans. He didn’t curse them as the little sinners they were. He took them in His arms. It’s a beautiful verb that means to enfold in your arms. Just like you would do with a baby, Jesus did with these children. It’s tender and careful and attentive.
He embraced them and blessed them. And the word “blessing” is a very intense word meaning one by one by one. He pronounced intense blessing on them. He blessed them fervently, you could say, by praying for each one of them one at a time with His hands on them.
He is sealing the most important truth they will ever hear. Salvation is by grace alone and the greatest illustration of that is the salvation of a child who dies before ever believing or rejecting the gospel.
I hope you’ll remember this picture the next time a child is on your nerves or you wish they’d leave things alone. Guess what? You’re probably on God’s nerves also! I’ll bet He wishes you’d leave things alone too!
Why not try extending the same kind of grace and tenderness to the kids around you that He extends to you? See, the greatest blessing we can ever give to a child is to help them know Jesus and His grace. As parents and church parents, that’s the greatest ministry we have to the children who pass through these doors.
We are stewards of their lives. Ultimately their salvation is between them and God, but we are to be the agents by which that work is done. We are the primary missionary in the life of these kids.
So those two things are going on this passage. One, children have a special place in the heart of God, and two, only those like children get into His kingdom. I find it interesting that the very next incident Matthew, Mark and Luke record is the story of the rich, young ruler. He is actually a continuation of this lesson.
He is the classic example of a self-righteous religious Jew who thought he had earned a place in the kingdom of God when in reality, he didn’t. It’s interesting, isn’t it that while this good, moral, upright man had no place in the Kingdom, little babies and children who couldn’t keep the Law at all were given the Kingdom. We better make sure we know into which group we fit.
Let’s pray.
