The Age of Accountability - Hope in the Loss of a Baby

This is a chapter from an upcoming book, Hope in the Loss of a Baby: A Deeper Dive into what the Bible says about Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Death.

The Age of Accountability

How soon in life a child becomes responsible and accountable, is a difficult question to solve. Perhaps far sooner than many of us suppose. One thing, at all events, is clear–it is never too soon to strive and pray for the salvation of the souls of children–never too soon to speak to them as moral beings, and tell them of God, Christ, right and wrong. ~ J. C. Ryle

At what point does childlike faith fade and at what point does a new faith need to be acquired? This is a question that has been asked throughout the ages and one that is hard, but not impossible, to answer. While we cannot place an exact number on the age of accountability, we can get closer to determining a “level of accountability.” This level of spiritual maturity is generally more helpful, as an age would lead to a number of problems.

Problems with a Fixed Age of Accountability

If we’re talking about an exact age, then we would lose the importance of faith for a time. Imagine if we were given the exact date of Christ’s return, such as if we knew Jesus were returning two-hundred-fifty years from today, then where would our eager anticipation of his consummation go? There would be no need to hasten his return today and we could become lazy in our waiting (consider 2 Peter 3:11-12).

Then we could lose a sense of urgency with our younger children. One of my greatest joys was sitting on the floor with my then-six-year-old daughter one afternoon after VBS as she asked about why someone should be baptized and if she could be baptized. If there were a set age of accountability that was, say, two or three times her age, I would have been tempted to be complacent while thinking that we could just wait until she was older. Instead, we had a wonderful conversation and I baptized her four years later after I believe she was genuinely saved.

A mentor and dear friend–who has been serving Jesus for over six decades–came to Christ at five years old. He believes he was saved when he realized, “Jesus died for me, I’d better live for him.” If we thought five were too young to come to Christ, then we might quench that desire to seek the Lord by telling children they still had years to figure it out.

Another problem is that some children never grow in their cognitive and reasoning abilities to consciously receive or reject Jesus. Let’s take an example of a cognitively impaired forty-year-old who looks like an adult but thinks like a little child. He loves everyone and is full of joy, but he cannot have a lengthy conversation, he never learned to read, and he cannot express what it means to be born again or how to repent. What he does know about God he loves. If there were an “age of accountability” this person would be without hope, but if he has a childlike faith, having never passed that “level of accountability,” then we have great hope he will be saved by grace.

The last problem I see is that an age of accountability may provide a false safety net for children who have chosen to reject Jesus deliberately and early in their lives. Do you know any young children who seem to live in rebellion? I’ll use myself as an example, as my mother regularly reminded me that I was a “mean kid.” I don’t refute that one bit; regrettably in my younger years I did everything I could to prove “a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother” (Proverbs 10:1).

I haven’t found this to be a common occurrence, but I distinctly remember the moment when I first rebelled against God. As a child of five or six, I chose to steal a bag of marbles from our local store. It was inexpensive and could have easily been purchased, but I chose to steal it. The memory of that moment is as clear as if it happened this morning. Was that me deliberately declaring, “There is no God! And he doesn’t see!” (Psalm 14:1, 53:1, Psalm 94:7)? I believe so, and I believe after that moment the wrath of God began to abide upon me until I finally died to myself, repented of my sins, and trusted Christ at the age of twenty-four. Praise God for his patience and forbearance!

Augustine had a similar experience, though he was older than I. At the age of sixteen, along with his friends, he “carried off a huge load of pears.” They didn’t eat them, as they were not ripe and hence quite sour, so they gave them to the pigs. Augustine later lamented the action as possibly his greatest sin, as all other sins he felt he could in some way defend as temptation, mistakes, or perceived necessity, while that sin stemmed solely from rebellion and his love of rebellion,

I wanted to commit my theft, and I did it compelled by neither want nor poverty, but by a distaste of justice and a feast of iniquity…Behold my heart!...May my heart tell you what it sought there that I became freely and there was no cause of my evil except for evil. It was foul, and I loved it; I loved to be lost, I loved my rebellion…

Some fifteen years later Augustine was saved from his rioting and drunkenness, his sexual immorality and sensuality, and his quarrelling and jealously when he put on the Lord Jesus Christ (compare Romans 13:13-14, or as Augustine might say, “Take it up and read it!”).

For these reasons, many theologians reject the idea of an “age” of accountability, since the Bible speaks more clearly of a condition or level of accountability.

What is that age? That’s really not the question because we’re not talking an age of accountability–get this in your mind–we’re talking about a condition of accountability! Get the word ‘age’ out of this discussion. We’re talking about a condition of accountability, not an age. ~ John MacArthur

A Fixed Age of Accountability?

While I don’t believe in an actual age of accountability, that’s not to say that some people throughout history haven’t placed a fixed age on when a child becomes morally culpable.

The Council of Carthage (AD 418) would place the age of accountability at birth and require baptism to absolve infants of their guilt. It states clearly to expect no good thing for, “children who have left this life without baptism, without which they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, that is, eternal life.” It’s important to note that almost all sects of Christianity have abandoned this belief.

Thomas Acquinas gives the earliest age after birth at which a child becomes responsible, that at seven they reach what he called the age of reason. At that point they must confess their sins and may receive communion. This is the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law.

The Mormon religion believes the age is eight, based on the writings of Joseph Smith. It should be noted that this supposedly stemmed from a confused angel about when or whether babies should be baptized. The same section also directly discourages children from repenting before the age of eight, as purportedly they have nothing to repent of until then.

The Jewish religion celebrates the transition between childhood and adulthood with a Bar Mitzvah for boys and a Bat Mitzvah for girls. These celebrations are generally held at age thirteen for boys and twelve for girls. The name of the ceremony is figuratively a coming-of-age event, but it literally means when they become a son or daughter of the law. Some Jewish fathers rejoice on this date because they feel they no longer must give an account for their children’s sin (consider Hebrews 13:17 for a refutation).

I’ve given you a lot of quotes, reasons, testimonies, and histories, but we’re here for the Bible, so let’s look at whether the scriptures give an age.

Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and through the Red Sea and across the desert until they arrived on the borders of the promised land. After spying out the land faithlessness and cowardice struck all of the adults, save Joshua and Caleb. The people feared the inhabitants of the land, doubted God’s righteousness, hardened their hearts, and voted with their grumbling to reject God as their king and savior. For this reason, God swore to them that they would not enter his rest. And they all fell in the wilderness.

But God made provision for the children to enter in, speaking to our topic:

As for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. ~ Deuteronomy 1:39

How old were these little ones? Not that little, actually; well not all of them, some were probably infants. Numbers 14:29 says that those who will fall are twenty years old and upward, implying that nineteen years old and younger would inherit the promised land.

The age of twenty is repeated several times across the Torah (the first five books of the Bible), including the cut-off for which children would enter the promised land (Numbers 14:29-31), when they must give the census tax (Exodus 30:13), when they were able to go to war (Numbers 1:2-3), and when they could help in the temple (1 Chronicles 23:24). Elsewhere, Zerubbabel the governor and Jeshua the high priest commissioned those twenty years old and upward to rebuild the temple (Ezra 3:8).

For the repetitive nature of twenty-years-old, it’s tempting to say that this is the age of accountability. Certainly, many more young people would be in heaven than we currently expect if the age were that high, and if the Bible allowed me to open the narrow gates a little wider I would. But, when we read all of the verses above, it becomes apparent that the age of twenty is more of a civic responsibility measure, such as the voting age when leadership roles can be assigned and when a person becomes morally responsible to the nation, than when a child will be held accountable by God.

It's easy to get our spiritual state mixed up with our civic responsibility. My wonderful oldest daughter thought that after her baptism she would be able to vote in church business meetings. I never have been able to get her to reveal why that was so important to her, but she was crushed when she learned the bylaws didn’t allow her to vote for another seven years, though she was saved at eleven and I baptized her shortly after her twelfth birthday. Her spiritual maturity was sufficient while her civic maturity was still in work.

The age of twenty definitely has some weight from the Bible. But we have to recognize that not everyone who was older than twenty was lost (Moses for example) and not everyone who was under twenty grew up to be godly (Achan for example).

Finally, we couldn’t be faithful to the Bible about an age of accountability without considering Elisha and the bears (2 Kings 2:23-24). We’ve previously looked at it from the stance that a child can commit a sin that leads to death, but a deeper look into their possible ages will benefit us.

The Hebrew word here for boy is “na’ar” which can be used to describe anyone from a baby all the way to Joseph and Absalom when they were well into adulthood (Genesis 41:12, 2 Samuel 18:32). If just the word “na’ar” were used then those that say this was a roving gang of twenty-something-year-old boys could be right, but they miss the fact that these boys are also described with the Hebrew word “qatan” which is a diminutive, making them small in stature and/or in age. When Ninevah repented, they did so from the greatest to the littlest. The word for littlest is translated as “least” (qatan, see Jonah 3:5) in the ESV and is the same word as described the little boys. Later in Jonah they are described as not knowing their right hand from their left (Jonah 4:11).

In the New Testament a twelve-year-old (Mark 5:42) is described as a “little” girl (Mark 5:23). Though using a Greek diminutive, there is a lot of similarity. While she’s not the point of this study, it is important that at twelve she could hear and obey the voice of God (Mark 5:41-42).

While these boys were little, they were old enough to scorn God through his prophet. Acting in a group, they had no restraint and no conscience, and they faced a terrible consequence. There is an important point here that we can’t miss: when we surround ourselves with wicked people, we’re likely to do wicked things we never dreamed of when walking with the righteous, or even walking alone (Proverbs 1:10-19, 1 Corinthians 15:33).

A group of people whose express goal is not to encourage each other to godliness may prove to be the very gates of hell. An ungodly group of children may be the clearest extrabiblical argument against an age of accountability. A group of children encouraging each other to sin has a way of showing the wickedness of the human heart earlier than we could imagine. Let them be a warning to us.

I am much afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labour in explaining the Holy Scriptures, and engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which means are not unceasingly occupied with the Word of God must be corrupt. ~ Martin Luther

In the sin and death of these small boys we see that God will hold sin against sinners, no matter how little they are.

God must be glorified as a righteous God, that hates sin, and will reckon for it, even in young people. ~ Matthew Henry

Because these boys were enticed to sin, and because of how they are described, if we’re looking for an age, I believe it would be far younger than most of us would be comfortable admitting. Notice though that no age is given. I believe we do well to abandon the “age” of accountability, and focus on a “level” of accountability.

The Level of Accountability

For these reasons we should move away from an age. Many theologians have agreed and stated that a level of accountability is far better than a specific birthday. The focus should be on the heart’s ability for comprehension,

Some people call it the age of accountability; I prefer the term level of accountability because everybody’s age is different. When they go from not knowing their right hand from their left, not knowing the difference between right and wrong to knowing, ‘I’m sinning, but I’m going to do it anyway!’ These children, they are born totally depraved, there is no question about it. ~ Todd Friel

Friel speaks of children who had not yet reached the level where they understood good and evil. Elsewhere this is described as knowing how to refuse the evil and choose the good.

Before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. ~ Isaiah 7:16

Some children might learn this earlier and some might learn it later. Some might understand it immediately and some might grow into it. The Author of Hebrews speaks of discernment as something we grow into. He says,

You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. ~ Hebrews 5:12-14

Jesus, John, and Samuel grew in wisdom and stature before God and men (Luke 1:80, 2:40, 2:52, 1 Samuel 2:26). Conversely, a child can be caused to sin (Matthew 18:6), children can be provoked to anger (Ephesians 6:4), and passion can be awoken too early (Song of Solomon 2:7).

It is clear that the level of accountability can be drastically different in different children, even in the same culture, church, or family. For this reason, Paul encourages Christians not be childlike in our thinking, but to be “infants in evil” (1 Corinthians 14:20).

A child who is wise in doing evil (Jeremiah 4:22) and is sinning willfully may be well past the level of accountability living in direct sin. A brief internet search shows toddlers who know not just the gamut of curse words, but are adept at using them. A child who can’t do chores knows just how to find pornography. A child who doesn’t know a single Bible verse can sing verbatim a song about fornication and violence. The internet has helped to draw the level of accountability lower and lower every year, and it was never very high to begin with.

As we consider the eternal state of children who have died, I believe it is good to hope for the best. But while children are still alive, I know that it is good to prepare for the worst. No child should be guaranteed heaven just because they are a child. If a child approaches you because they’ve heard of God’s holiness and the horrors of hell and they’re afraid, do not assuage their fears by telling them that they are too little worry about it. That old song taught children to sing, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” I’d rather sing, “Jesus loves me this I know, and his long-suffering lovingkindness is meant to lead me to trust in his saving work on the cross and repent of my sins.” It needs some polishing, but the message is sound.

Children are in far more danger from their sins and the power of the evil one than we realize. They’ll potentially be held responsible for their sins far earlier than we or they are ready for. So, point them to the Lord Jesus Christ who loves little children and bids them come to him. Call them to repentance and share with them that hope can only be found in Jesus Christ.

How old should they be before you broach this topic? As soon as they can understand.

When Should Children Repent and Trust Christ?

As soon as you know right from wrong, you are old enough to begin taking the right way. As soon as you are old enough to be punished for doing wrong, you are old enough to give your heart to God, and to follow Christ. ~ J. C. Ryle

I was handing out gospel tracts at a major sporting event and gave one to a small boy with his father. The boy asked, “What is it?” Because of his age I simplified my answer, “It’s something about God.” He asked, “What about God?” at which point his father took the tract and flung it like a frisbee far far away. I responded to both of them by quoting George Whitefield,

Little children! If your parents will not come to Christ, come to Christ and go to heaven without them!

Understanding a level of accountability allows for such clear invitations. A child who can understand can respond. My then-three-year-old memorized James 1:19-20 (yes, the whole thing!) and loved to quote it to anyone who would listen. It was apparent from the beginning—and soon became more obvious—that he liked the attention more than the verse, but many adults were convicted that if a three-year-old could memorize God’s Word, so could they!

God spoke of the Ninevite children as not knowing their right hand from their left,

Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left…? ~ Jonah 4:11

When the wrath of God was about to fall upon the entire city these little ones would not be spared, despite their lack of knowledge or accountability. Their smallness and youth would be no protection if the city were overthrown. And we see that they responded with their parents,

The people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. ~ Jonah 3:5

Who was the greatest of them? According to the Ninevites it certainly would have been the king who decreed that the entire city should fast and repent, calling out mightily to God, repenting from evil ways and violence in hopes that God would relent and turn from his anger.

Who was the least of them? From earlier, it was the “qatan”, the littlest. Can a baby fast? Can a three-year-old memorize and understand a Bible verse? Can an infant fear God? Can a child seek God? The author of Jonah certainly thought so.

Imagine the cries of hunger from the babies. Imagine the fear of God emanating as tears from the toddlers. Is that not a mighty crying out? Was it not their version of “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all the day!” (Psalm 86:3)?

Who was the greatest spiritually in Ninevah? Wouldn’t Jesus point at one of those little ones and say “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest…” (Matthew 18:4)?

Whether it was the king or it was a baby, to be great in the kingdom of heaven every one of us needs to humble ourselves, to seek God’s face and favor. As we seek him, we’ll grow.

Grow in Grace

Every one of us started out as little babies with no understanding of our right hand or our left. We had no fear of God before our eyes. We had to learn to walk and talk and control ourselves. And we need to learn how to trust God.

Our great desire is that we will be infants in evil and mature in our thinking (1 Corinthians 14:20). Until Christ returns or calls us home we still have room to grow. By the grace of God by the time we get to heaven we will have matured significantly,

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. ~ 1 Corinthians 13:9-12

Until that day, help others grow. If a litt
le one has died not knowing the difference between good and evil we know they were received into the presence of God where they now know him better even than we know him. If there is any doubt as to whether your child had chosen to purposefully rebel against God or not, there is not an easy answer. Seek godly counsel and consider deeply.

Remember, David had two sons who died, an infant who he knew he would see again (2 Samuel 12:22), and his older son Absalom who was lost forever (2 Samuel 18:33). When did Absalom rebel against God? We can’t give a specific date or event, but we only know it happened.

God saves babies, and never has a baby eternally perished, even when they departed far sooner than we were ready for.

Remember when Jonah—petulant, quick-tempered Jonah—would have Nineveh perish, God gave as the reason why Nineveh should not be destroyed, that there were more than six-score thousand infants—persons who knew not their right hand from the left. ~ Charles Spurgeon