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Is the age of accountability a biblically backed teaching?
Discussion
39 comments
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Yes. God is just. What age that is, is not defined.
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No it’s not at all
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Is is loosely defined as when a young person can understand sexual sin about puberty… it is such a big part of the judgement of God that without understanding it is hard to justify that a person u derstands the difference in wrong and sin
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Well at age 20 they were old enough to fight in a war.
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There’s no scripture for it but it does imply that the person in order to be saved needs to repent. In order to repent you need to understand the concept and be able to do it. So whatever age that can be done is right i guess
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I think Isaiah 7 may hint at it “For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.
Isaiah 7:16 -
The Bible does not say the exact age but age of accountability is the age when a child can distinguish good from evil. That age is not same to each person..
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Yes. It is in the Law of Moses. 21 one and one score years.
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I will say this. I think the age of accountability is true for the faithful, most likely the children of the faithful. We don’t get saved from being raised right. We get saved when the Holy Spirit calls us. God foreknew whether we as individual souls in vessel bodies would come and have a predestiny. I think the faithful can be sure they will see their miscarried, aborted, and lost too young children again, even those that died before salvation because many of the kids of the faithful come to God, and we know that’s only partially because of proximity. Really, it’s the Holy Spirit that does the wiryk, but they choose God back. We have David as a model. God wanted us to feel secure that we’d see our children again. Now they won’t be children, nor will they be fetuses in Heaven. Spirits in the afterlife are adult spirit beings, not cherubs, not angels, not children, but grown people walking with God. Now, that’s important, because that was lost on Middle Ages Catholics so they created child limbo to help put people’s minds at ease. I don’t know how inventing a fake afterlife was supposed to be a good thing, but it wasn’t Scriptural. Moreso, if a child did go to Hell, he/she wouldn’t be a child there, nor be confined to the knowledge or mind of a child. They would know if their sins and why they were there.
Let’s stop there. I do believe in limited age of accountability. I don’t think the kids who died in the Flood or Sodom or Gomorrah or Jericho or the firstborn of Egypt had a final destination of Heaven whether they were going to live to 5 months or 500 years. If they were always going to reject God, then a just God wouldn’t spirit them away to heaven with a free pass. See, if he just opened up a gate to Hell and threw babies and toddlers in there, yeah that sounds horrible. However, if they got to see everything they did in their future like God saw and stopped them short, and all the little baby Hitlers, and baby murderers, etc see what they are truly guilty of and are tried as adults. I think either extreme, all youngsters go to Heaven or Hell creates a real problem. That puts their final destination in our hands. Literally, we could decide how many go to heaven by slaughtering them en masse so they due before accountable? Yay, more people in Heaven. Let’s be honest. That doesn’t make sense to put their fate in our hands. That almost makes it worse to let them live and maybe choose Hell. The doctrine has problems. But age of accountability works for the children of faith, i.e. the children of the Faithful.
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So the Lord in His wisdom didn’t identify a specific moment. God knows when each soul is accountable. God knows when real rejection has taken place; when the love of sin exists in the heart. When enmity with God is conscious and willful. God alone knows when that occurs.
The Jews had identified about the age of twelve, and that was when Jesus was taken by His parents to Jerusalem for the Passover and the Feast (Luke 2:41-42), and there He was in the temple questioning the doctors. You have a good illustration there, and Jesus was asking profound questions at that point. This then seems to be the age when those kinds of questions begin to be personal in the heart of a child.
So I have always felt that somewhere around age twelve, the transition from childhood to adulthood takes place. It’s probably not totally disassociated from puberty, where there is a consciousness of one’s own impulses, feelings, drives, desires, and therefore sinful attitudes and passions, and whatever else starts to emerge.
With this in mind, I believe that it is absolutely essential, all along the way with children, that every time they desire to make a commitment to Jesus Christ, at whatever age, you (as someone giving spiritual oversight to them) encourage them to do that. Because you don’t know, we can’t know, when their desire is indicative of genuine saving faith. When a young child says, “I want to invite Christ into my life,” then you need to encourage them to do that. Every one of those, I see as a step towards God. At what point that becomes saving faith—only God knows for certain.
But, I also believe, that up until that point of real saving faith, God in His mercy, would save that child, should that child die.
What about the children before the age of accountability, when they die, do they go to heaven?” I think the answer is “yes,” and I think it is a strong “YES,” based upon the confidence of David who said, when his little baby died: “He cannot come to me, but I shall go to him.” And David knew where he was going; David knew he was going to heaven—he knew that. There wasn’t any question in his mind about that.
So when he said, “I shall go to him,” in those words was the anticipation and the joyful hope of reunion. Now, some people have said, “Well, all he meant was, ‘I am going to be buried next to him.'” There wouldn’t be any reason to say, “He can’t come to me, but, oh I’m so glad I am going to be buried next to him!” There would be no joy in that; that wouldn’t satisfy anything. So I think at that point, he was expressing the confidence that he was going to heaven; he knew that was where he would find his son, who had died before the age of accountability.
Another interesting thing that occurs numerous times in the Old Testament, is that children (including those who die) are referred to as “innocent.” The Hebrew word that is used for “innocent” is used numerous times in the Old Testament to refer to “not being guilty”—literally, “being taken to court and found ‘not guilty.'” In fact, the Old Testament refers to the babies that were passed through the fire to Moloch [false god] as the “innocents,” so I believe that God, prior to the “age of accountability” treats them as “innocent.” It doesn’t mean that they are not fallen; it doesn’t mean that they are not sinful—it does mean that God mercifully treats them as “innocent” in spite of that, and He has to exercise grace to do that, just as He exercises grace to save those who believe.
In summary, the “age of accountability” is not clearly identified in Scripture. I think it’s up to parents; every time a child wants to respond and open the heart to Christ—you need to encourage that, all the way along, until they come to that point where it is genuine, and the Lord knows that even if you don’t.
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The short answer is no, it’s not.
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Just like children being called up in the rapture. That is NOT taught anywhere in the bible, but many believers argue this with a vengeance since it’s extremely difficult to think a loving God would “send” children to hell. That does NOT negate the fact it’s NOT in the bible.
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no such thing
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James 4:17So any person who knows what is right to do but does not do it, to him it is sin.
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Yes. Read Romans 7. When we’re old enough to recognize the law and good from evil then it says sin revived and I died.
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When a child knows the difference between left and right.
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I’m not aware that it’s stated in scripture, but it’s a given when free will in is place. I mean, before someone can come to salvation in Christ, or reject it, they must have an awareness of right vs wrong and be able to act upon it. Adam and Eve were held accountable, as was Cain for killing Abel. Each of us is accountable and will answer to God for our choices, so at some point in a person’s life they are held accountable for the choices they make, or by default, the choices they don’t make, ie; by not choosing salvation in Jesus one chooses to serve Satan.
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no age of accountability
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No
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Yup. it varies.
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Nope … Pure fantasy
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Jesus as as preborn, as an infant, as a child, at 12 then at 30-33…has something to tell us…
At 12, “…must be about my Father’s Business” -
Numbers 14. The age is 20 that God held them accountable for their sin in grumbling against him.
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Age of accountability begins at age seven when the child steps into first grade. If that’s biblical, I don’t know.
But it’s the Catholic view.
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What’s the bible say about it?
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It isn’t explicit but is implied in Rom. 7, in particular verse 9.
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Yes…but the age has probably been reduced in accordance with maturation rates today. God knows the heart and God knows the age.
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2 Samuel mentions that David would meet the child he sired with Bathsheba in Heaven after it died.
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It depends on the individual
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as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 3:10-18,23,6:23 –
John 3:3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
John 3:16 “whosoever Believes…” no other way -
It seems to me it’s not an age but rather a level of development that involves the intellectual capacity to understand and believe he gospel when they hear it.
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I don’t understand which way to honestly believe, because of so many arguments on both ways. Old Covenant, new covenant. But what about the bible sections that say you have to accept in your heart he is Savior, and believe in the death and resurrection. But also to verses that say you have to hear the good news and the free will to make that decision. So to think let’s say a two year old, who knows right from wrong because even at that age they know when they have done things wrong and try to hide that from their parent, or the middle aged mentally deficient person who doesn’t comprehend most anything. I would like to believe that as said above God knows the heart and there are certain people that aren’t really given the opportunity to make that decision, that God would punish them and send them to eternal damnation. Like I said I don’t have the answer, but I know it is one I will have answered when I get to Heaven. May God continue to bless you all.
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No
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Never saw mention of it. But King David his dead infant son couldn’t come back to him, but he could go to the son which indicates to me the baby went to heaven. This may touch on that issue.
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Deuteronomy 1:39 “Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there; to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.”
There is some implication there but it isn’t definitive. There seems to be a period in one’s life where one lacks knowledge of good and evil. It counts for something since they were allowed to enter the promised land, but not sure how it works exactly.
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No but when one comes to know what is right and fails to do James4:17
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Romans 5:13 says that ‘sin is not imputed when there is no law’. So, a child without the ability to know good and evil is not culpable. so, a child is not accountable for something they are not capable of committing. To me this principle captures the ‘age of accountability’ concept
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yes, but it doesn’t give us what that exact age is, 1 Corinthians 13:11
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