Bible Question: How old does a child have to be before they take accountabilty for their actions that determine if they go to Heaven or Hell? |
Bible Answer: Stephanie, Scripture doesn't actually give us any answer to this question. I recently preached on the subject of an age of accountability however and here is some small guidance for what it is worth. If a child is living we never rest on the age of accountability. If they are merely two years old still we labor to teach them the gospel. This can begin with things as simple is teaching them who God is so that later we can explain our accountability to Him, so that later we can explain the need for Christ's redemption. But we never rest on the notion for an age of accountability for a living soul. There is simply no grounds for doing so in scripture. For a deceased child we extend hope. In my experience the most common passage used to teach an age of accountability is 2 Samuel 12 climaxing in verse 23 when David says, "Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me." From this passage people reason that the child would have been in either heaven or hell and since we know David was going to heaven then the child must have been there also. There is ofcourse a chance David only meant he would join the child in the grave. But you can see from a passage such as this we should not build some notion that a child until X age has no need of the gospel. But back to my point, I think there is some valid hope here for a grieving parent. David does seem to be consoling himself with the notion that he will see his child again. So while we can not name an age, if it is at all within reason we can at least give the parent permission to hope. And in the case of infants I would go so far as to try to reassure them. But as I said, I would never rest on such a passage while a child is yet alive. Also you could probably do a search on this and get a much more broader discussion. In Christ, Beja |