Episode 8: What is the Age of Accountability?

Summary

Question: Is there a certain level of maturity required for a person to be accountable before God?

Romans 3:19-20 The idea first of all is that the world is accountable. The first people under the law were the Jews but God extended it to the whole world through the Gospel. Accountability is a Scriptural issue, and tied to that is the knowledge of sin.

James 4:17 A person has to actually know what sin is in order to be accountable. If you don’t know, then it’s not sin. So how old does a person have to be? The tree in the garden of Eden was not the tree of the knowledge of right and wrong, it’s the knowledge of good and evil.

Both your dog and your two year old know there are certain things they shouldn’t do. Human being however are much more complex than animals, they have a moral center that animals don’t have, which is part of the fact that man was made in the image of God. Animals have a body and soul but don’t have a spirit, man does (1 Thess 5:23). Man has a moral center, the question is when does that moral center kick in.

Romans 7:9 When Paul uses alive in this verse he means in fellowship with God. When he uses dead, that means apart from the fellowship of God. Just like with Adam, God told him the day he ate the fruit, he would die. Adam ate the fruit and died, but he lived another 930 years. This is talking about a spiritual death, not a physical death. The same thing in Paul’s case. There was a period of time in Paul’s life when he was alive, that is, in fellowship with God. That means that children are not born sinners, which is very critical. There was a period in his life when he wasn’t accountable, you have to know sin in order to be accountable.

Romans 7:7-10 In the context of Romans 7, the particular sin that got Paul was the one that said, “you shall not covet.” At some point he had to know what coveting was and he had to be mature enough to covet in an evil way, with the knowledge of good and evil. At some point in Paul’s life he becomes accountable and he’s operating at a mature level.

In Galatians 3 and 4, Paul talks about when a person is under the law they are under a tutor, or school master. The purpose of the tutor is to lead them to Christ. When they are under Christ they are no longer under a tutor.

Galatians 4:1-2 Let’s say you’ve got a person growing up who is going to inherit an estate, and the father dies before the child is old enough to manage the estate. The idea being then that the guardians and managers are going to handle it until the child becomes of age and can take responsibility. Paul uses this to point at that as long as the system of law is in place that mankind as a whole is not prepared for the responsibilities of sonship in Christ. There has to be development process that God is bringing man through to prepare them for Christianity.

The individual then has to be at a mature enough level to manage their own life. They have the capacity to live on their own, handle their own finances, be married if necessary, all these sorts of things.

When the nation of Israel was leaving Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, God held everyone 20 and above accountable. That is actually the upper limit of the age range.

Every individual is different, they mature at a different rate. Some people will never reach an age where they are accountable, they don’t have the mental capacity for that, so they are special children of God forever. But as long as the brain functions well enough, the individual is going to be held accountable before God at some point. For obvious reasons the Scripture is not going to put an age on that because some people are never going to hit that. So, it’s not 8, it’s not 12, it’s going to be where a person crosses that line. Individually people know when they went from little girls to big girls, and little boys to big boys. All of a sudden they are not functioning in a state of innocence anymore. Generally, that is going to be middle or late teens. The Scripture is not going to put an age on it, but it is going to put a maturity level on it. If God puts it there, that’s where we’re going to have to put it. It has to be the individual’s decision, there isn’t a parent that says, “okay it’s time for you to get immersed.” It has to be the individual’s decision driven by the fact that through the law comes the knowledge of sin. When that knowledge is strong enough, and the conviction is strong enough that the individual decides they have to do something about it, that’s when they’re ready, and not until.