What does it mean that Jesus loves the little children?

Mark, who so often records the smallest details of our Lord's look, or tone, or act, tells us that "He took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them." Here the Spirit of God uses a very strong word for bless, kept for these little children alone, and used nowhere else in the New Testament. It could be translated, He "blessed them fervently." And when the disciples rebuked these mothers, Mark also tells us that the Lord was "much displeased." Again the Spirit uses a very strong word, carrying the sense of being grieved, indignant, and angry… We read in the New Testament six times of others being much displeased, or grieved, or indignant, or angry: the disciples themselves on more than one occasion, the Pharisees, the ruler of the synagogue. But only once do we ever find this word used of our Lord, and that was towards His own disciples, when they tried to stop the mothers bringing their little ones to Him.

Clearly they thought the Lord was too great to notice these little ones, and they too unimportant to attract His attention. In rebuking those who brought their young children to be blessed by the Lord, they completely misrepresented their Master, failed to see what is beautiful in a child, and denied the principles of the Kingdom that they claimed to preach.

They asked that He would put His hands on them and pray. He did more. He took them up in His arms, put His hands on them, and blessed them (Mark 10). He was not only willing to ask for the blessing; being Himself the Blesser, He was able to bless. So it always is where there is real faith. "He is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think" (Eph. 3:20).

He takes them in His arms. The arm speaks not only of might and power but also of nearness and affection… He lays His hands on them. This speaks not only of identification but here especially of His protection… He blesses them, which means to speak well of them and wish what is best for them. As parents we are supposed to wish our children the very best, but sadly we often make mistakes. The Lord never does.

Then we find the Lord greatly displeased at the disciples sending the children away — not that there was no sin in the children, but they were the expression of what God had created: the trustfulness of a child, without the distrust that grows up with a person. The world lives in distrust, miserable at root, but that is not the case with a child. It has no distrust, but a readiness to believe everything (it often gets cheated); and the Lord says that is what He likes.

It was not only that there was a warm welcome for little children with Jesus, but that we must all in spirit become little children. The wisest man on earth — the man of sharpest intellect, the man of highest achievement — must become a little child to have anything to do with Jesus… Some may say, How is this? Are we not often told that salvation is by faith?… They are just two different ways of presenting the same thing. Faith is this childlike spirit that each must have if he is to enter the kingdom of God.

How many die at an early age? Do they perish? We are not left to spiritual instinct, or to reasoning from general principles. Nor is it the unbelieving and unspiritual plea that they are "innocent." They do belong to the fallen race, for whose sake the good Shepherd came and died: "even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." Are we not entitled to look beyond those who believe, to "these little ones," for assurance that if they are taken before believing was possible, they are not to perish?

The little ones taken from us by death we may confidently entrust to the divine love that cares for them. Our assurance about them is rooted in the unchangeableness of the divine nature.