A
PASTOR FRIEND RECENTLY DROPPED ME
an email asking my position on the
“age of accountability.” This term refers to the concept
that those who die before reaching an age at which time
they can understand sin and salvation are automatically
saved by God’s grace and mercy. As I shared with my
pastor friend, this question is, indeed, one of those
that opens the proverbial “can of worms,” but it is one
that arises often and one of great
importance.
A typical argument against
this concept is: “The only ones under the blood of
Christ are those whom God has chosen before the
foundation of the world. (Eph. 1:4).” While that is most
certainly true, applying that here is little more than a
straw man argument. How do we know, for
example, that the more than one million
babies murdered in this country every year by
abortion are not elect?
On the other hand,
we should also point out that Scripture does not
explicitly state such an age by number. In other words,
Scripture nowhere says, for example, “Each person is
responsible at the age of 12.” It is interesting that
the age of 12 or 13 (Jewish sources are not unanimous)
was the age at which the Jews identified a child as
being “an adult.” The consensus of opinion is that at 13
a boy become bar mitzvah (son
of the Law), that is, he was now mature enough and
responsible to keep God’s Law. It is, in fact, in
keeping with that tradition we find the Lord Jesus in
the Temple at the age of 12 (Lk. 2:42). All males of a
mature age were required to appear in the Temple three
times a year.
All this, however, is just
that—tradition. There is no Scripture that states a
specific age that a child is now mature. While an
argument can be made for “puberty” as being this age—as
a child is now self aware and conscious of impulses,
motives, drives, attitudes, and so forth, and probably
capable of discerning sinfulness—Scripture does not say
that. Besides, every child matures differently, so one
child will be accountable earlier or later than
another.
It is because of
just such ambiguity that I personally do not like the
term “age of accountability,” simply because
there is no explicit age. I would submit, however, that
there is a “point of
accountability” and that point is different for each
child. I do believe there is biblical precedent for
this principle for four reasons.
David and
His Son
The classic illustration,
of course, is David in 2 Samuel 12:13–23. This passage
recounts the death of the son born from David’s adultery
with Bathsheba. In mental agony David pleaded with God
to spare the child, but God’s judgment was final. No one
could console or comfort him. He couldn’t eat, sleep, or
even get up. The lessons in this are, of course,
numerous.
Like turning on a light
switch, however, David’s response to the child’s death
changed from inconsolable despair to joyful
expectation. He knew that while that child could not
come to him, he would one day go to that child. In other
words, David knew he was going to heaven and knew
that his child was there as well.
What made David’s reaction
even more significant was how surprised his attendants
were at it. Why? Because it was the custom in the East
to mourn and not even leave the deceased for three or
even four day (cf. Jn. 11:17), and relatives and friends
would bring food and clothing. But David didn’t act that
way. There was an obvious assurance that “to be absent
from the body [is] to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor.
5:8).
I have not read a single
compelling reason to doubt this obvious, unambiguous
meaning. In fact, one writer who disagrees with the
position presented in this paper is really puzzling when
he says that verse 23 simply means “David will someday
die as his child did. The child will not return to him
but he will go to the child. He is united with the child
in the fact of death, which all humans must face.” But
we must remember that David is rejoicing in all this.
Why would he be rejoicing in future death if he wasn’t
assured of heaven? More puzzling is that while the same
writer goes on to say of verse 23, “The child was saved
and went to be with the Lord and David would someday
follow him as he goes into the presence of Christ upon
the moment of his physical death,” he then denies that
this passage is a precedent for all other children. But
we must ask, How did David know the child was saved? We
would submit that it was because the child was, in fact,
“innocent”—a term we will detail later—and that other
parents can have the same assurance.
The beloved Puritan
Matthew Henry, therefore, well brings out the comfort of
verse 23:
Godly parents have great reason
to hope concerning their children that die in infancy
that it is well with their souls in the other world; for
the promise is to us and to our seed, which shall be
performed to those that do not put a bar in their own
door, as infants do not. Favores sunt
ampliandi—
Favours received should produce the hope of
more. God calls those his children that are born unto
him; and, if they be his, he will save them. This may
comfort us when our children are removed from us by
death, they are better provided for, both in work and
wealth, than they could have been in this world. We
shall be with them shortly, to part no more.
We would also submit that
David’s rejoicing came from his deep theological
understanding of God’s mercy and grace. It is insisted
by some that no person (including an infant) can go to
heaven without receiving the message of Christ in the
Gospel. But does not David’s reaction indicate that he
understood God’s character in showing mercy to an
“innocent” child? Is it not probable that God does,
indeed, look upon an “innocent” infant with a special
mercy and grace?
An
Understanding of Sin
“Where there is no
law there is no transgression” (Rom. 4:15), and “sin is
not imputed when there is no law” (5:13). Therefore, how
can a small child, especially an infant, understand sin?
And if they cannot understand sin, it is not imputed to
them, and they are therefore innocent. This is what
is meant by “the point of accountability.” If one has
not reached the point of understanding sin, he
cannot be
held accountable for it. Some might
object, “Ignorance is no excuse,” but we are not
implying that it is. As we will see in a moment, there
is a great difference between ignorance and
innocence. This leads to a
related principle.
Hearing by
Faith
Paul clearly
proclaims that a key truth of salvation is that “faith
cometh by hearing and hearing by the word
of God” (Rom. 10:17, emphasis added). Hearing is
the noun form of the Greek
verb akouo, from which we get
such words as acoustics (the science of sound). It not only means to
hear in general (e.g., Matt. 2:3), but also to hear with
attention (e.g., Mark 4:3, “hearken”), understanding
(e.g., Mark 4:33), and even obedience (Lk. 6:47; 8:21;
11:28; Jas 1:21–25). In the Septuagint, for example,
akouo is used to translate the Hebrew
sama, as in
Genesis 3:17, where God said Adam “hearkened unto the
voice of thy wife” (cf. Isa.
6:9–10).
A graphic example of this word appears in the
Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31);
when the rich man asked Abraham to send Lazarus back
from the dead to tell his five brothers about the
torment of hell, Abraham answered, “They have Moses and
the prophets; let them hear them” (v. 29). His point was
piercing. As he goes on to explain, if they would not
hear (obey) God’s Law as revealed, they would not be
convinced by someone who rose from the dead. That truth
is proven every day as people reject the resurrected
Lord Jesus.
We, therefore,
submit that since an infant cannot hear in this
capacity, faith cannot come. As we know, even faith is a
gift of God (Eph. 2:8; cf. Jn. 6:65; Acts 18:27; Phil.
1:29; see TOTT #15), but a gift that cannot be received is a
gift that cannot be used. This leads us to one final key
word.
The Meaning
of “Innocent”
A word that is often
overlooked, and even more often misunderstood, is the
word innocent, which we’ve mentioned already. For
example, Jeremiah 19:4 refers to how Judah had been
drawn into pagan worship, including the practice of
child sacrifice, having “filled this place [Valley of
Hinnom] with the blood of innocents.” The word
innocents
translates naqiy, which means blameless,
innocent, guiltless, free, exempted, clean (of
hands), and even carries a judicial connotation. It
is often attached to blood, as in Proverbs 6:17, where one
of the seven abominations God hates are “hands that shed
innocent blood” (the Hebrew dam refers to literal blood, whether
animal or human, and is synonymous with “life”; Gen.
9:4). This paints the picture of an innocent person, a
life that is clean and free from guilt.
Naqiy is, in fact, also used several
times of someone being taken to court and found not
guilty. We would submit, then, that this is a
strong indication that such children, while not
unfallen, are indeed
innocent, that is, not
guilty.
This should make it
clear that there is a difference between
ignorance and innocence. Ignorance is a choice, innocence is not.
Ignorance is a lack of desire to know, innocence is an
incapacity to know. It’s, therefore, not a child’s
ignorance that is the issue, but rather his innocence.
We would submit then
that there are, indeed, more than valid reasons to rest
in the thought that children who die before a point
where they can hear and understand the Gospel are under
God’s special mercy and grace.
Dr. J. D.
Watson
Pastor-Teacher
Grace Bible Church
Book
Review:
The Church Effeminate and Other Essays
By:
John W. Robbins, et.
al.
The instant I saw
the title of this book, The Church Effeminate and
Other Essays (Trinity Foundation, 2001), I was
immediately curious. The cover art quickly gets
your attention; it is the painting, Mary Queen of
Heaven, by the unidentified Early Netherlandish
painter Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy (fl.
1480–1510), who worked in Bruges, now a city in Belgium.
When I then read the book description, I was
charmed:
This anthology of the best
that has been written on the purpose, structure, and
function of the Christian church in the past five
centuries is an indispensable resource for the
twenty-first century Christian. The authors analyze and
refute the errors of feminism, popery, clericalism,
Episcopalianism, Erastianism, ecumenism,
experientialism, revivalism, aestheticism,
fundamentalism, and irrationalism; and they sketch a
revolutionary blueprint for a Christian church modeled
according to the Scriptures.
But when I then
started reading this book, I was
captivated. Here is a no
holds barred examination of today’s church from some of
the greatest pens in her history.
Several books have been
written in the last twenty years or so that address what
their authors feel is the steady decline of the church.
The “problem” with these (in the minds of critics, that
is) is that they are just coming from the pens of men
who are narrow-minded, intolerant, change-phobic, or
just simply curmudgeonly in their old age. Such critics,
however, refuse to take their heads out of the sand long
enough to look honestly at what is happening today,
which in turn in the result of the past. That’s what
this book is about. As the back cover describes with
unflinching bravery:
The churches at the dawn
of the new millennium bear little resemblance to the
model institution authorized by Jesus Christ and founded
by the Apostles and Prophets. Its doctrine has been
corrupted and perverted; its function, distorted; its
government, subverted; so that today’s churches hardly
deserve the name “Christian” at all.
These 39 essays all call
the Christian church back to its pristine purity and
power—to be the spotless bride of Christ. The work of
the Reformation was not completed in the Sixteenth
Century, and the churches of the Twenty-first Century
require an even more thorough Reformation. Far from
being the Church Militant, today’s church is the Church
Effeminate.
Part 1, “The Church
Belonging to Jesus Christ,” consists of three chapters:
“The Church” (Robbins); “The Apostolic Church” (Thomas
Witherow); and “The True Church” (J.C. Ryle). While you
might disagree with some points in these chapters
because of your denominational distinctives and polity,
the need for such foundation cannot be ignored, and that
is the point to glean here.
Part 2, “The Purpose
of the Church,” begins with an article by Martyn
Lloyd-Jones, whose book, Preaching and
Preachers, changed my ministry
some 26 years ago; in my personal opinion, this is one
of the most important books a man can read in
preparation for biblical ministry. The article from that
work reprinted here is, “The Primacy of Preaching,” a
mandate that has all but vanished in our day. Following
this article is a wonderful one by Jay Adams, “Preaching
to the Heart,” which examines the false notions of what
“heart” refers to in Scripture and then challenges us to
preach to what it really is. Other articles include:
“The Fallibility of Ministers” (Ryle), “Scripture and
the Ordering of Worship (The Geneva Service Book of
1556), and others.
Part 3, “The Officers of
the Church,” was the heart of the book for me. Its first
four chapters—“The Teachers of the Church” (John
Calvin); “The Presbyterian Doctrine of Ordination”
(Gordon Clark); “Paul on Women Speaking in Church” (B.
B. Warfield); and “The Ordination of Women”
(Clark)—slowly build to the article from which the book
title is taken: “The Church Effeminate,” by the book’s
compiler
(Robbins).
I will warn the
reader upfront that this chapter might knock you for a
loop. Most of what it says I had already discovered in
my own study, but I have never read anything that puts
it as succinctly and as articulately as does this essay.
Much of my own study would have been rendered repetitive
had I read this first. Robbins first documents the rise
of Mary in Catholicism and the resulting feminizing of
the church (not to mention the blasphemy of Christ). He
then goes on to recount that “during the nineteenth
century, there were three major movements in American
Protestant churches that began the process of feminizing
their leadership” (p. 238): the Sunday School Movement;
the Foreign Missions Movement, and the Deaconess
Movement (see TOTT
#21). While Robbin’s discussion will
definitely upset some readers, his history and arguments
are unimpeachable. These movements, he insists,
blatantly disregarded the clear biblical precedent of
male leadership and have slowly eroded the leadership of
the church.
The last two articles in
Part 3 are: “On the Councils and the Church” (Luther)
and “The Relation of Church and State” (Charles
Hodge).
Part 4, “Autocrats in the
Church,” includes articles such as: “The Roman
Church-State” (Calvin); “The New Babylonian Captivity of
the Church” (Godwell A. Chan); “The Reconstructionist
Road to Rome” (Robbins); and others.
Part 5, “The Growth of the
Church,” will also rattle some cages and challenge some
of the sacred cows that have been venerated in
supposedly orthodox Christianity. The essence of these
articles is again based on history and Scripture,
challenging the so-called idea of “revival” and even
what biblical evangelism is. These articles include:
“Ought the Church to Pray for Revival?” (Herman Hanko);
“The Great Revival of Religion, 1740-1745” (Charles
Hodge); “The Power of the Word” (Luther); “What is
Evangelism?” (Clark); and “Art and the Gospel” (Clark).
I strongly urge the reader to read these before jumping
to any conclusion, such as, “I already know
what they’re going to say.”
The last section, Part 6,
“The Purity and Peace of the Church,” includes the final
10 essays: “The Necessity of Reforming the Church” (John
Calvin); “Idolatry” (Ryle); “Pharisees and Sadducees”
(Ryle); “The Good Fight of Faith” (J. Gresham Machen);
“Apostolic Fears” (Ryle); “The Separateness of the
Church” (Machen); “The Sin of Signing Ecumenical
Declarations” (Robbins); “Fundamentalism and Ecumenism”
(Thomas M’Crie); “The Unity of the Church” (Calvin); and
“The Church Irrational” (Robbins). The latter, for
example, is another critical call to discernment, a
steadily vanishing attribute of today’s church. As
Robbins writes:
To fail to object when
error is being taught and truth denied is to condone
error by treating error and truth as if they were the
same. If Christ is under attack and a Christian keeps
silent, he has not maintained neutrality; he has denied
Christ. (p. 660)
I simply cannot recommend
this book highly enough. I have never seen a compendium
on the church that equals it. It should be required
reading, if not part of the core curriculum, in every
Bible college and seminary that claims to care about the
church, both its history and its contemporary meltdown.
For those already in ministry, if you care at all about
our Lord’s Church, you will get this book and devour
it.
As Christ hath His saints in Nero’s court; so the
devil his servants in the outer court of the visible
Church.
—William
Gurnall
We read not that Christ ever exercised
force but once, and that was to drive profane ones out
of His Temple, and not to force them in. —John Milton
Like many
ministries, TOTT is feeling the impact of these tough
economic times. We would like to ask our readers for
their prayer support in meeting these
needs so that this ministry can
continue.
