Beth-El Baptist Church
6/13/04
What is the Age of Accountability?
Many people believe that the Bible teaches that there is an age of accountability. We will be looking at this question by asking a series of questions of people and the Bible to come to a conclusion.
1. What do people mean by the term “Age of accountability”?
According to Dr. Norman Geisler, “According to the Bible, every child who dies before the age of accountability goes to heaven to spend eternity in the presence of God”
2. What texts do the proponents of this view use to support the age of accountability?
Isaiah 7:16
The proponents for the age of accountability key off the phrase “before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good” to indicate that there would be a time in which they are capable of refusing evil and choosing good. Prior to that time they are incapable of selecting between good and evil and a just God will not condemn before they reach that age.
2 Samuel 12:23
The proponents for the age of accountability point to the fact that the child is in heaven where David will be going and had not lived long enough to know about God and thus recognize his sins and repent of them and trust God by faith.
These are the primary texts that the proponents for the age of accountability look toward in order to justify their case.
3.
What is the situation of a person at birth with respect to
God?
Genesis 8:21
Romans 3:10-18
Romans
5:12-14
Romans 9:11
Romans 10:16-17
Proverbs 20:11
Psalm 51:5-7
Psalm 58:3
1 Corinthians 7:14
Genesis 18:32
1 Corinthians 15:21
Job 25:4
Each of these passages clearly demonstrates that sin is present with a child, even before birth. A child is not born completely innocent and then learns to sin as they get older.
4.
What about the eternal state of a child who dies before
professing faith in Jesus Christ? Especially in the case of an infant.
Ezekiel 18:4
The most important thing to remember is that the soul belongs to God so it is his decision as to its eternal destiny. Ultimately it is up to God’s divine plan as to what happens to any individual soul since “the secret things belong to the LORD”.
Acts
2:39
2 Samuel
12:23
The premise in both of these passages is that the family are believers and if a child dies in infancy, then it would not be unreasonable to assume that had the child lived, then the parents would have taught the child the word of God and he would have believed. This is an assumption and cannot be guaranteed, but it can be held onto for the sake of hope.
5. What about the infant children of unbelievers?
Ezekiel 18:4
Matthew 7:17
Matthew 5:19
1 Kings 14:1-13
The 1 Kings 14 passage is the most intriguing. The child Abijah, the son of Jeroboam, becomes sick and then dies. Jeroboam was the first king of the northern tribes of Israel and he was wicked. Most of the rest of the kings of Israel are compared to Jeroboam in that they “did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD… in the way of Jeroboam”. Jeroboam was the evil king by which all other kings were measured for being evil. Notice carefully verse 13 though. This child was saved, not because he was a child, but because “in him there was found some good thing toward the LORD”. God saw in this child something good and saved the child. Perhaps God chose to take the life of this child because He saw something good in the child and did not want him to live with such an evil man.
6. What about Isaiah 7:16?
This is about the Christ Child who is to be born of a virgin. It is pointing to a time after the child is born but before it is considered old enough to make “good” decisions. There is no reason to see this passage as indicating that the age associated with refusing evil and choosing good has anything to do with salvation.
7. Who is Good?
Luke 18:19
When talking about good and evil, it is important to remember that good is essentially a comparative term and the comparison is not amongst ourselves, other people, but with God.