Age of accountability

         The question of babies going to heaven and how old does someone have to be to be held accountable has been bandied about since probably Jonah's day. I'd like to take a quick look at that question...

         Take a look at Romans 7:7 Paul says "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have KNOWN sin except through the Law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, "You shall not covet." 8. But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the Law, sin was dead. 9. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.
         Absolutely All have sinned and fall short. This includes little babies and little children. However, in God's mercy and with Paul's eloquent teaching we learn that the Law as set down by Moses was to specifically convict of sin. As I'm sure you know any conscience can be numbed by constant justification and rationalization. Except babies and children only understand their immediate environment. I'm hungry. Feed me! I'm thirsty. I'm dirty or wet or just uncomfortable. I'm tired. Their world is filled with I...Me...Mine. As soon as their horizon broadens to incorporate understanding the difference between right and wrong only then can they begin to understand choices and free will. 
        So many have held to the belief that a spouse and children of the couple are saved just because one of the parents is saved. That is not true. 
        John 3:15 and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and expectant, will gain a real life, eternal life. 16 "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. 17 God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. 18 Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person's failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.
         I looked at several different versions and this one is The Message. I like it because it emphasizes each person is responsible for his/her own belief in Jesus the one and only. It also points out how crucial it is to salvation for a person to not only hear but to believe and to trust in Him. Babies don't have a clue how to believe in anything. Nor do they trust. How can they when they don't even have the strength to do much more than eat, sleep and cry.
         The whole point here is freedom of choice. When we believe in Jesus we are freely choosing to trust Him. A baby or small child has no such choices. They have to drink the milk given to them; accept the clothes put on them; sleep in the brand of diapers put on them; sit in the car seat they are put in; go where their mother drives them; listen to the kind of music the mother (or father or brother etc.) chooses...
         They live in a world of no choice whereas older children, teens, young adults, adults all live in a world of choices. We choose to believe Jesus or we choose not to believe. (And here's the sticky part) We choose to live a godly, Christian life or we choose to be a Sunday Christian. Life is all about choices.


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