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Yeah, a question often arises from people about
children and infants, and the Age of Accountability.
There are certain traditions within Christendom
that argue for a specific Age of Accountability,
and tied to that is before that age,
then infants are or children are innocent.
They receive salvation, because they have not met that age,
and at that age, they then have to make a decision
whether they will be for Christ or not.
And so this question is often asked in theology.
It's an honest question that needs to be addressed.
If we turn to Scripture, there is no passage
that I can turn to that says
this is the Age of Accountability.
We are treated as image bearers,
who are responsible for our actions,
yet we know from natural growth
that there's less understanding of obviously an infant
and greater understanding as there is maturity.
But there's no specific passage that says
this is now the point where one was not responsible before
and now one is responsible.
There's nothing like that.
Behind this question obviously is the question of
can a child be saved?
An infant salvation?
Are they responsible for their sin?
If they haven't reached that kind of maturity,
where they're able to think of the things of God,
respond to them appropriately
or reject the revelation that is given to them.
And in previous videos of Honest Answers,
my colleague Dr. Tom Schreiner did an excellent job
in thinking through this whole question of infant salvation.
We are guilty in Adam.
We are also individually responsible.
There are some hints,
and certainly the history of the church
has said that there's some hints that
infants will before they are able to.
And we don't know what exactly that age is,
where there is a suppression of the truth
or a turning away from the truth.
But God will show mercy.
And in the end,
on the previous video that Dr. Schreiner mentioned,
he went back to Genesis 18:25,
which is very, very important.
In the end, God is just and righteous and good.
He will always do what's right.
He will display mercy,
but that mercy will not be contrary to his justice.
Yet there is hope and confidence, I think, that
those who have not matured, whether in the womb,
whether through miscarriages or certain deformities
and young children, who have not reached that ability,
not so much an age, but an ability to respond
to the revelation around them,
that God is merciful and will show himself in that way.
So I think that's how we need to think through this issue
of the age of accountability.
The fact that children do mature
and there's a growth process, we have to be very careful
that we then don't turn around and use a kind of reasoning
that Scripture would not allow.
Some may think that, well if my child is maturing,
they can't fully understand.
Maybe it's best that I don't tell them
the truths of the gospel.
I don't know when the Age of Accountability is,
we don't have that.
Yet maybe that if they are young enough
and I don't tell them,
that if they did die or something happened to them,
that would be better for them.
That kind of reasoning is just not
what Scripture gives to us.
We're not given an Age of Accountability.
We are realizing that children do mature,
yet our responsibility as parents and adults
is to raise children in the fear of the lord,
to entrust them to the lord,
to give them to his care,
to not use that kind of reasoning to
lead us from our responsibility of praying for our children,
teaching our children the things of the Lord,
and praying that God would be gracious to them
and open their eyes and open their hearts
as they do mature, to receive and to believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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