A number of years ago I was recruited by an outgoing youth pastor to join the transition team. My role was to mentor/advise the younger people on the team who were actually running the Jr/Sr High Youth Groups as well as to run the grade 6-12 Sunday School. It was one single class and so required some experience to wrangle.
Anyhow, on my first day I did a get-to-know-you exercise with the 80+ students where they had to tell me their first name, favourite movie, and give me one question they have always had about God, church, or faith. The questions were mostly outstanding. But one in particular has been asked many, many times before.
“Do aborted babies go to hell?”
As soon as the question was asked, the whole assembly demanded I answer it. I initially said that the Bible does not address this topic directly, so we can’t say definitively how God judges this group. You could almost FEEL the tension in the room! But I went on to say that what we know of God’s character as revealed in the Bible leads me to say that there is an ‘age of accountability’ (which is likely different for different people). And before that God will extend grace. I think that those babies will be in heaven with God.
The reason I share this story is because of what we read today. There are two applicable passages:
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those that are revealed belong to us and our descendants forever, so that we might obey all the words of this law.
Deuteronomy 29:29 (NET)
Gather the people—men, women, and children, as well as the resident foreigners in your villages—so they may hear and thus learn about and fear the Lord your God and carefully obey all the words of this law. Then their children, who have not known this law, will also hear about and learn to fear the Lord your God for as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”
Deuteronomy 31:12-13 (NET)
We can see that there are things that God has not revealed to us, the implication is that we are not accountable for those things because we are ignorant of them. Moreover, God asks that the law be read every seven years “so [the people] may hear and thus learn about and fear the Lord your God”. God wants people to choose to give their lives to Him. So, while He extends grace to those who are unable to understand, He also holds accountable those who have seen/heard/had-access-to the truth. Whether that is the General Revelation of His creation or the Special Revelation of His Word.
In summary: No, I do not believe babies will go to hell. That said, I think we underestimate BOTH God’s Grace as well as God’s Justice.