What is the age of accountability? Well there are really two ways
to ask that question. One is asking for what is the
definition of this phrase age of accountability and the other
is to say at what age does a person reach this age of accountability. For our listeners who have not
grown up in the evangelical milieu, you may be unfamiliar with even
the meaning of the term. What it simply means is that
It is the affirmation that there is a particular age when children
move from being in a state of not being accountable for their
sins to suddenly being accountable for their sins. That if they
should, for instance, die before they reach this age of accountability,
they will enter into paradise. innocent creatures not because
Jesus suffered for them but because they have no sin that can be
morally accounted to them because God has determined they're not
responsible. That's what it means. What it
is is a completely and absolutely utterly made-up unbiblical notion. The Bible says absolutely nothing
about an age of accountability. It is an idea that was created
in the minds of men to deal with the sticky problem of what do
we do How do we look at children who die before they're even able
to make a profession of faith? And for many, not me, but for
many before, as they would perceive it, before the child is able
to come to a saving knowledge of Christ. And hey, presto change,
uh, we'll just stick this into our, uh, theology concepts. Uh, we won't find the first,
uh, bit of biblical support for it, but, but it will prop up
our hope. Now, I will admit, I'm perfectly
happy to actually, maybe I've been a little too harsh. Don't
hold me accountable for that, but I'm willing to agree to an
age of accountability as long as we agree that the age of accountability
is the moment of conception. We're accountable from the very
beginning. The issue isn't whether or not
we've committed this sin or committed that sin. The issue is what are
we? This is why the doctrine of original
sin is in the Bible. This is why David says in Psalm
51, in sin did my mother conceive me. He's not saying my mother
was sinning when she and my father came together in marital union. He's saying that from my conception,
I've been a sinner. And as a sinner, he is under
God's judgment unless or until he rests in the work of Christ. I do know this. The Bible doesn't
say there's an age of accountability. I believe that there's only one
way for any human being who stands guilty before the living God,
which includes all human beings from the moment of conception
with the exception of Jesus, any one of these people, the
only way to escape the judgment of God is by each of them one
by one personally Crying out for God's mercy in Christ doesn't
have to be verbal. Internally, crying out for God's
mercy in Christ. And when they do, every one of
them goes to their eternal home justified.