729. Now, people who die as children and teenagers and do not reach the age at which they could come forward worthily to take the Holy Supper are made a part of heaven by the Lord through their baptism instead. The chapter on baptism has shown that baptism brings people into the Christian church and at the same time brings them into the company of Christians in the spiritual world [677-680]. In that world, the church and heaven are one. Therefore making these young ones a part of the church is also making them a part of heaven. Because they are raised under the Lord's supervision, they are regenerated more and more and become his children; they do not recognize anyone else as their parent.

As for children and teenagers who were born outside the Christian church, once they develop faith in the Lord, they are made part of the heaven that is designated for their religion, but they come there through a different means than baptism. They do not mix with people who are in the Christian heaven.

There is no such thing as a race of people anywhere on the entire planet who cannot be saved if they acknowledge God and live good lives. The Lord redeems all such people. We are all born spiritual by nature and therefore we all have a capacity for receiving the gift of redemption.

People who accept the Lord, that is, who have faith in him and do not practice evil in their lives, are called "children of God" and "those born of God" (John 1:12-13; 11:52). They are also called "children of the kingdom" (Matthew 13:38) and "heirs" (Matthew 19:29; 25:34). The Lord's disciples are also called "children" (John 13:33), and so are all the angels (Job 1:6; 2:1).

340. 2. Briefly Put, Faith Is Believing That People Who Live Good Lives and Believe the Right Things Are Saved by the Lord

We are created for eternal life. All of us are capable of inheriting it, provided we use in our lives the means of salvation that have been prescribed for us in the Word. On these points all Christians agree, as do all non-Christians who have religion and sound reason.

There are indeed many means of being saved, but each and every one of them relates to living a good life and believing the right things. Therefore they all relate to goodwill and faith, for goodwill is living a good life and faith is believing the right things. These two universal categories of means of being saved - goodwill and faith - are not just prescribed for us in the Word, they are commanded.

From the fact that they are commanded it follows that goodwill and faith give us the capacity of providing ourselves with eternal life through a power that is assigned and given to us by God. The more we use that power and look to God, the more God increases the power until he turns every aspect of our earthly goodwill into spiritual goodwill and every aspect of our earthly faith into spiritual faith. In this way God brings dead goodwill and faith to life, and brings us to life as well.

[2] Two things have to come together before we can be said to be living a good life and believing the right things. In the church these two things are called our inner self and our outer self. When our inner self has good intentions and our outer self has good actions, then the two unite. Our outer self acts from our inner self, and our inner self acts through our outer self; we act from God and God acts through us. On the other hand, if our inner self has evil intentions, but our outer self still has good actions, nonetheless both are acting from hell. Our intentions come from hell and our actions are hypocritical. Our hellish intentions are inside every hypocritical thing we do, like a snake inside a plant or a grub inside a flower.

[3] If people know not only that we have an inner and an outer self but also what they are and that the two can work together either actually or seemingly, and also that our inner self lives on after death but our outer self is buried, they have access to an abundance of secrets about heaven and the world. People who unite these two in themselves for a good purpose become happy forever, but people who divide them, or worse yet if they unite them for an evil purpose, are unhappy forever.