Must I have children?
No. God does not require it, nor does having children save from sins or get one closer to Christ as a good work. However, God has joined the blessing of children to marriage and to the marital act. No human has the authority to separate these things God has joined together within holy marriage. So, those who stay unmarried and chaste, need not have children.
But the impulse to marry and procreate has been implanted within man by the Lord, so marriage and the possibility of children is a practical necessity for most; a gift and blessing from the Lord (Psalm 37:26). “But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion” (1 Cor. 7:9). This earthly, biological calling, for those who do not have the gift of celibacy, means either marriage, and the potential for children, or the danger of falling into temptation, grave sexual sins, and even unbelief, leading to everlasting condemnation.
Must husband and wife have children?
While it seems like children are made by man and woman, the reality is that procreation is God’s work, and He uses something unavoidable (for most), showing He desires new life to be created and brought forth. In fact, God Himself does the creating—life is not man-made, but each life is the specific act and creation of the God the Father. All life, including the multiplication of the human race, is God’s work, not man’s act or choice. It only appears man and woman are the cause of life, but they cannot create on their own. The Lord created Adam from the dust; He continues to create each person still: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb” (Ps. 139:13).
The Lord Jesus uses husband and wife as His instruments to bring forth children and populate the world, out of which the church, the body of Christ, is called. We have been given no authority or command to separate children from His institution of marriage. A child is not a project, a human-centered choice, or a consumer item—but rather a direct gift of the divine Creator. Husband and wife do not create, they are simply the vessels God uses to bring forth life—to do His work of creating.
How does God speak of children?
Man likes to take the credit and also assume control of the divine creation of life, but God says that children are His gift. The bringing forth of children is a blessing of God explicitly tied to the institution of marriage in Holy Scripture. Marriage, of which multiplying the human race is one of its holy purposes, is the very reason mankind has been created male and female. The design and capability to reproduce is good and holy, though it is fraught with difficulties and troubles since sin entered the world.
As the animals were given to reproduce, man is given the higher calling to be fruitful and fill the earth, which is given for our benefit. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:22). While the earth is currently subjected to frustration in the “bondage to corruption” (Rom. 8:21), due to sin, the blessing to Adam in paradise is repeated after the flood: “Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth” (Gen. 8:17). Sin and death have not altered God’s institution of marriage and its good design and purposes, and God continues to impel men and women to it, creating one flesh unions Himself.
Is “fruitful and multiply” a suggestion or rule?
This divine word instituted the on-going reality of God’s creation of new life, so that life is created, as God wills it, whether intended, chosen, or planned by men and women or not. “Be fruitful and multiply” is an active word still at work today, through the marital act and the human desire for it. It applies to male and female today, Christian or not.
In this natural order of the family, God is not so much a lawgiver, but rather the Creator and currently active ruler of this world. To be “fruitful and multiply” is not an option or choice, but a blessing bestowed and worked within humankind. Martin Luther wrote: “For the Word of God which created you and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ abides and rules within you; you can by no means ignore it, or you will be bound to commit heinous sins without end.”
The physical “knowing” of marriage and children go together—man with all his technology still cannot separate these or completely remove the blessing of fruitfulness. God meant the act of uniting not only for temporary pleasure, but also to strengthen the on-going physical commitment of man and wife. The blessing of children, being fruitful, is God’s blessing to further unite husband and wife.
The desire to redefine marriage and use another person selfishly in sexual immorality denies the divine order, blessing, and commitment of marriage. It has led to the wicked sin of abortion, which is murder of an unborn person made by God. Human life is not ours to decide or control. Man cannot create, though he can reject and destroy those made in the image of God. God Himself defines marriage, and its purposes most fully, since He created it.
Is every life a blessing?
Man has his own sinful opinions and thoughts, but God is clear in Scripture that every life is His blessing. No life exists without the work of our good God. Life only seems bad (to sinners), because of the curse of sin we must endure. Sinners are bound to look selfishly at the short-term troubles, cost, time, sorrows, effort, and sin connected with children and life, ignoring the divine blessing. We are not called to worship comfort, pleasure, or money, but the loving God who gives children as He graciously wills.
God really was blessing us, and continues to bless with each and every baby, but since sin and death have entered the world, children, and even the lack of children, both mean suffering and some pain to sinners. God cursed childbirth (Gen. 3:16)—but not the baby born—so the Christian is to separate what God makes good from the temporal and mortal consequences of sin. This world does not work as it should and death is our end, due to our sins against God.
A child, that is, the creation of life itself, is a preeminent work of God. Christians, who have God revealed as the gracious Father in heaven to them, should see children as His divine work and seek to be used according to God’s good will in His divine order.
Can I trust God to bless with children?
The Christian has many promises that children are indeed a blessing and will not be a curse or downfall. “Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate” (Psalm 127:3-5). Trust in the Lord, who gives children, that He will not put you to shame if you honor His work and serve Him. “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots around your table. Thus is the man blessed who fears the LORD” (Psalm 128:3-4). Children, thought by the world to be only problems and sources of trouble, are lauded by Jesus as the premier example of faith and discipleship: “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). Our Lord always speaks highly of children. Christians should as well.
Children give ample opportunity to trust in God’s promises of provision and also demonstrate true Christian love—the very love Christ first showed to us, while we were still sinners. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
Do children harm marriage?
God made marriage and designed male and female, not man. He knows marriage best and how we should honor His design and purposes in the one flesh union He makes. He uses children, and their possibility, to elevate the marital uniting above the mere passions of the flesh—and for His holy purposes.
The sexual union of man and woman is a holy union, designed by God. Man and woman become His procreative workshop, even if they have no awareness or thought of the Creator. The potential for children ascribes and imbues lasting, divine purposes to the marital act. This is God’s plan and also part of His holy marriage.
Children are a blessing that are meant to further unite and stabilize, not just the individual marriage, but also the community, the church, and the world at large. According to God’s natural law and working, a reason for marriage is to be “fruitful and multiply.” Marriage is not a selfish, individualistic endeavor, but an opportunity to die to the sinful, selfish nature. Bearing and raising children in the faith is the most basic, effective, and God-pleasing form of “church growth.”
How does the possibility of children change the view of marital uniting?
Sexual union, as God intended for marriage, is the deepest act of giving, to spouse, and later to child, if God so blesses. Uniting leads to multiplication in God’s hand. The fruitfulness of the marriage act is not meant for immorality or to be dishonored outside of the life-long commitment of the one man-one woman union the Lord makes. It makes marriage and giving of one’s body to another in marriage even more self-less. The blessing of children helps situate man and woman in their divine roles and to view their service to God in marriage as long-lasting and truly loving.
A Christian is not to serve himself, but God, our kind Master above, and also the neighbors He gives, including spouse and children. The marital knowing—as God designed it—is not meant to be transitory, selfish, temporary gratification. Understanding that God brings life through evil sinners adds a depth and understanding that actually enhances the God-given marital act. The holy union, through which God works, is not a free pleasure without consequence or meaning. It is divinely designed with holy purposes.
How will I provide for the children God gives?
Do not be your own god, but trust the gracious Lord Jesus who gives children according to His good will, not our sinful will. In the words of Martin Luther: “Let God worry about how [young adults contemplating marriage] and their children are to be fed. God makes children; he will surely also feed them. Should he fail to exalt you and them on earth, then take satisfactions in the fact that he has granted you a Christian marriage, and know that he will exalt you there; and be thankful to him for his gifts and favors.” You did not make yourself or your children—the Lord almighty did, so trust that He will care for what He has made. Christians are to firmly trust that “God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people.”
Christians are called to trust their heavenly Father, who gives only good gifts: “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lk. 11:11-13). We can depend on the Lord to care for the family He gives.
The pain and struggle in caring for children are a cross to pick up happily for the sake of Christ. While we must endure the outward curse, all sin and wrath has been satisfied for us in Jesus. The burdens we suffer in the flesh are light and momentary in view of heaven. Jesus tells us to use our resources for heavenly increase: “make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much” (Luke 16:9-10). Children are a divine gift, while parents are merely the earthly stewards of them for a time. Trust the God who makes and gives children.
Must I accept children?
Of course, no can be forced against their will to accept and also appreciate the blessing of a life God Himself gives. The blessing of children is divine—God’s personal and individual gift. To reject and speak poorly of God’s good gifts is a dangerous attitude to take. If we understood the Giver of the gift, we would not so easily dismiss the benefit of children. This is not about the bare act of bearing children, which can be done by the godless just as well as the godly. But the attitude and heart of a Christian should be full of thanks and gratitude for all of God’s gifts, especially a child for which Christ died and rose. That is the proper response to a generous and undeserved gift.
The focus should never be merely on the outward circumstances, such as the number, sex, or health of children, but rather of the Giver of all gifts and His good will. God sees the heart and desires us to put Him above children. The earthly blessing or withholding of children does not change God’s loving will in Christ, given only in the Word of faith. We are called to submit to God’s will, and be content with what He actually gives us. “If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he” (Eccl. 6:3). A gift is not to be demanded—or else it is not a free gift; yet it should be received with thanks. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (Jam. 1:17).
The truth is that you cannot bless yourself or make yourself fruitful—that is God’s work. God loves us, so He tied children to marriage. God was not cursing marital relations, rather He blesses husband and wife. The problem is never God’s work in creating life, but sin and humanity’s evil.
Why is worry about providing for one’s family sin?
It is a lack of trust in God the Father who has promised to provide through Christ. That does not mean being given a family will be easy or trouble-free, but it is an opportunity to learn how to be a well-trained child of God. Children help teach us not to be selfish and lazy, but to heed our calling to be God’s faithful servants. Christ warns: “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matt. 6:25-26).
The Christian is called to confess: “The Lord richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life.” God will care for you, even giving you what is best for you in regards to family. Children are not to be excluded as immediate and direct gifts of God, but rather esteemed as priceless treasures.
What if God does not give the children I want or when I want?
Man can reject divine blessings and turn them away easily enough in hard-heartedness. But one does not demand a blessing—it is simply given by God. The Christian is to see each life as a divine gift, not a right or assumption. Every life is truly a divine miracle—one that transcends male and female, coming from God Himself.
Couples may not choose to conceive in sexual union, no matter how much they will to conceive, apart from God’s will. Parents may not choose the sex or health of their child or even how long the child lives. To imply choice and accept it as a moral right is simply dishonest—stealing the credit from the Author of life. Man is not God and cannot create life. To assume that man has control of God’s creative power and to elevate man’s will over God’s will is idolatry.
But the Christian can trust God and go forth boldly in the name of Christ, knowing that their Father in heaven will not hurt them or cast them aside. Children are an earthly blessing, like rain, given to the righteous and unrighteous. Christians are not promised children. Christians, however, are called to submit to the divine will and trust that it is better than their own. This is what we pray in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy will be done…”.
Is it Christian to have many children?
The outward act of having children is not a Christian or spiritual work, but the product of God working within the marital union. Children are an earthly blessing only and do not indicate a person’s spiritual status before God. No amount of children grants the forgiveness of sins, which is only found in Christ.
Being fruitful is not a moral law that we can apply ourselves to, rather it is something God works outside of our choices or intentions. The Christian is to see bearing and raising children as a service to God and holy duty to be done in love for the living God. God brings forth children according to His own will. We can only receive gladly His earthly gifts, in this world deluged with sin, in faith, trusting that all things work for our good, for those who love Him (Rom. 8:28). It is certainly never a sin or un-Christian to have many children, but it is not an indication of Christian faith or the Spirit.
Can I decide how many children I have?
Only if you are equal to God and can create life, may you decide how many new people are brought forth into the world. Since man cannot make life, the attitude is not correct to strictly determine the blessing of life. Man can only deny—he cannot create—since only the Creator of all things makes people. The worldly ideas of choosing children, determining the number of children, or planning the family, suggest man has creative power—rather man only has the option to deny or misuse God’s blessing of life.
When men and women attempt to plan and determine the creation of life, they usurp God’s authority. While preventing children is the goal of many, the power to reject the gift of God does not imply the power to create or determine it. It is not a Christian, or accurate, way to speak when talking of children as if picking the quantity of items you want or ordering side dishes off a menu. Human life is not like other daily decisions. If God chooses children, then we do not.
Can a child be an accident?
Only in the view of naive and ignorant people. The mother and father do not create life, nor do they determine the value of it. Calling a child an “accident,” means their (faulty and impotent) plans were superseded by God’s will. Children don’t just happen naturally, according to schedule, or accidentally. Life requires the hand and intervention of the creating God. Parents are given the holy task to be used by God in His creative work. We may be surprised by the gift of life, or even abuse the institution of marriage, but God is never surprised by a life He planned, created, and brought into being.
How does Holy Baptism influence the view of children?
A child born is one whom Christ wills to be baptized, so a little sinner is redeemed from guilt and brought into the heavenly kingdom as a Christian. Children are not an automatic ticket to earthly happiness—rather every baby born is a sinner, dead in sin, in desperate need of salvation. Without children born and cared for, there will be no people and no church—which God graciously will not allow to happen. The application of salvation in Baptism changes how Christians are to see the frailty and burdens of bearing and raising children. The Church is not too big and heaven cannot fill up. God’s abundant grace, made available for all sinners through Christ’s death and resurrection, does not run out.
Baptism as a gift for all, including the smallest of infants, marks life as having divine and eternal purpose in Jesus. God recognizes the value of life, even if mother and father do not. Our Lord never tells us to not welcome children, but rather to value and esteem them: “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me” (Mark 9:37).
To whom do children belong?
Children belong to God the Son, through whom all life is created. He also freely redeems all sinners by blessing them with the Holy Spirit in Baptism. Christ will see to those who are His. Parents do not have to be gods, knowing, planning, and foreseeing all things that their children could do or that might happen to them. Being a godly parent requires trusting the Father above, which means simply being a child of God serving in the role He gives and living as a tangible example of Christian faith and living. Children are given by God and to be raised for Him: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6).
How do children save women?
God declares: “Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control” (1 Tim. 2:15). Raising, sacrificing, and disciplining little ones in a godly way saves mothers from the worst of their own sinful nature. Motherhood restricts the flesh and is the true self-mortification God desires for the woman, so she does not succumb to Satan’s temptation like Eve. Childbearing is not a self-chosen or voluntary work, but one that God Himself chooses.
Having children does not save in regard to sin—faith in Christ does. But the fleshly work of bearing and taking care of children saves women from the weakness of their sinful flesh and is to be seen as helpful, godly discipline. The biological function of women to bring forth life is not bad or to be looked down on, but it is lifted up and affirmed in Scripture as holy and God-pleasing: “So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander” (1 Tim. 5:14).
The act of having children does not lead to eternal salvation or merit God’s favor, so don’t worship the outward work itself. Having many children or having no children will not gain you entrance into heaven. Only Christ’s work—not ours—opens heaven’s door. Little children, however, teach parents humility in a physical way and are a school for godly feminine virtue. The real service and sacrifice of training children should be made to God Himself, in faith. “The duties of the woman please God on account of faith, and the believing woman is saved who in such duties devoutly serves her calling” (Ap 23:32).
How do children teach the husband how to be a godly head?
The mother who bears, births, and raises a child sacrifices greatly. Without a loving head, demonstrating God’s will, leading and loving her, this is a fraught and oft avoided task. God’s plan is for the husband to be the physical and spiritual head of the household. He is to show, by example, godly living and a Christian attitude in supporting his wife in her holy position, while pointing his family towards Christ. He is to honor God’s Word, life, and the role into which his wife is placed, leading her in faith to serve Christ willingly.
All Christians have a role under God the Father and the family is to be united as one under Christ, our Lord. “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3). The work of a father is not optional to God. The human father is called to reflect the just, good, and gracious Father above and ensure the child is raised for eternal life, according to God’s will.
The earthly father is to discipline and lead his family, in the stead of Christ, just as God the Father also trains us: “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?” (Heb. 12:7-9). Children teach humility and reveal the sin of fathers, but they still serve in a holy office as a little head under the living Christ, head of all things.
This divine gift of headship is reflected first by the husband submitting himself to Christ and His Word, by honoring, teaching, and inculcating it. The gift of life is not only an earthly and physical challenge, but a holy blessing, especially made known through Jesus’ all-sufficient sacrifice, death, and resurrection for all people. Children teach fathers godly responsibility: how to serve under God the Father in faith, using their God-given authority to lead well.
How are children a beneficial cross to the Christian?
Faith sees children not as a curse, which they appear to be to fleshly reason in blind selfishness, but as holy creations of God. Caring for children and family becomes the most holy earthly activity that can be done—a real opportunity to love the neighbors God has given directly to you. Furthermore, the raising of children to be Christian is a most blessed service to God for the promotion of the church, present and future.
People are required for church growth. Life must be born before it is redeemed and sanctified. The position and efforts of father and mother are to be used for Christ’s sake, not one’s own selfish plans, purposes, and pleasures. The earthly restrictions of a family are good for us. Children, and the troubles they bring, cause us to grow up and learn to trust the Father above, as a true baptized child of God. We have to be taught how to be men and women, fathers and mothers—and our sin prevents us from fulfilling these roles as God determined them. So forgiveness in Christ is to be eagerly sought and relished.
It is a joy and high honor for the Christian to care for divinely-given children, following God’s will, especially when it means not getting what the sinful flesh wants. The sinful nature needs disciplining. Children help the immature and weak grow up in faith, teaching them what love is really about. The more trials and suffering we face, the more opportunity for faith. Children help one die to the sinful nature, fulfilling our baptismal calling. Happiness on earth has nothing to do with faithfulness to God. As Christ did for us, we are shown that love is manifested in sacrifice and faithfulness to God’s will.
It will not hurt eternally to give up some earthly freedom and make sacrifices in your life to receive God’s gift of life; for the righteous Christ came to sacrifice His life for unrighteous mankind (1 Pet. 3:18). His plans are holy and unassailable, while ours are faulty and unstable. So turn from your sinful self-determination. Christ gives you His redemption and makes you a child of the Holy God to live forever. This is God’s plan for you: to live forever in His righteousness—executed in Christ, born of a woman. To reject suffering in our lives is to reject the Lord, the firstborn of all creation, and His blessed suffering.
Martin Luther citations from “The Estate of Marriage” (1522)
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