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Transcript 459C — The Age of Accountability
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: I listen to your program all the time, but tonight I seemed to get a lot of questions. For one thing, you say that you have been a Christian since you've been born?
HC: Let's put it this way. I have never known when I was not a Christian. And so I presume that at a very early age God opened my heart.
CALLER: Yes. Well, that's marvelous. The thing that bothered me tremendously is when you say that babies go to hell. And I don't see anything in the Bible about that. I find that a child is innocent until the accountable age.
HC: You know, Let me make two observations, very quickly. First of all, I know that every time the question is raised to me about the eternal destination of babies that die, I know that I hurt lots of people's feelings. And I'm a human being, and I'd like to be able to believe that all babies go to Heaven, also. But I have to read the Bible and be true to the Word of God.
Secondly, there are many who talk about the age of accountability. Now that is not found in the Bible. That is a doctrine that is taught that has no Biblical validity of any kind. There is nothing in the Bible that speaks about an age of accountability.
CALLER: Now where does it say that babies go to hell?
HC: Like I indicated, when we look at such passages as Psalm 58, where God speaks about the wicked going astray from their mother's womb. They're under the wrath of God, you see, from the moment they're born. When we look at the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, where God indicated that there none righteous in those cities, except the family of Lot. And if there are none righteous, then they're subject to hell.
Another way of looking at it is this way. We know that the Bible teaches very clearly that once we are born again we cannot lose our salvation. We know this. And we also know that the only way to go to Heaven is by being born again. There is no way to the Father except through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now if you looked at a group of a thousand people who lived and died unsaved, it would mean that as babies they were unsaved. And had they died as little children or as babies, they would have been just as unsaved as they would have been as adults.
CALLER: I would have to see that in scripture. I can't believe that. I can believe as adults. I have little grandchildren of six and seven years old who have made decisions for the Lord. But I can't believe that a tiny baby, that has no awareness of the sin in his life, the sin that he is born with.
HC: Well, you see, it isn't a matter of what I can or cannot believe. When we go to the Bible, we have to be very careful that we do not design the salvation program. Now I'd like to design a salvation program. In myself there are a lot of things that I'd like to say about this. But I know this, that my mind is not trustworthy. I am part of the sinful human race, and I cannot really look at myself objectively, nor the human race objectively. I don't really understand the perfection or the holiness of God. I don't know the wonder of the perfect justice of God. These are things that my sinful mind is not capable of understanding altogether.
So the only thing I can do is patiently read the Bible. And I'll find occasionally things in the Bible that I don't like at all. And yet, because God has so declared, I must accept them, even though I don't like it.
Let me say, first of all, that under no circumstance may we say categorically of a baby who dies in infancy and his parents are unsaved that that baby went to hell. That would be contrary to the Bible, because God gives us an instance, for example, of a baby that was born to very sinful parents, parents that were so sinful that God makes a big description of how His curse was upon them, so they would not even be buried. This was the family of Jeroboam, the first king over the ten tribes of Israel. And yet Jeroboam had a young son, in this very sinful household, who died in infancy. And he was buried, and God said He took him because He had found something good in that child. Well, the only thing that was good there would be what God had put there. In other words, that would be language to indicate that God had saved that child.
And so there's an instance where in the most sinful conditions God chose to save this baby. But God does not make that a promise. He does make a promise to the children of saved parents. He does say to them, "I will be a God to you and your children." And so when David's baby died in infancy, he could say very confidently, "I will go to be with him." In other words, he expects to see his son in Heaven.
But an unsaved person does not have that promise. And you may as well read this. It's ugly language. I don't like it, but God gave it to us and we can't turn away from it. Psalm 58:3 & 4: "The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent. They are like the death adder that stoppeth her ears." Now that doesn't sound nice at all. It's terrible language.
When we see the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the fact that all the babies were killed right along with the adults, because God said there are no righteous here, when we see the destruction of the world in Noah's day, so that the babies were killed right along with the adults, and the only people that were saved were those who were in the Ark, we don't like these things, but that is the fact.
Now incidentally, this is the reason that we have a compelling desire to send for the Gospel, because the Gospel is the Gospel of salvation. And marvelously, if a parent turns to the Lord Jesus Christ, and if a parent becomes saved, then God has special blessings for his family, too. Then God comes to that family and says, I will be a God to you and your children. And if you bring them up in the fear and the nurture of the Lord, in their old age they'll not depart from it. In other words, God has special blessings that flow to the family of the believer.
CALLER: And if a believer's child never accepts the Lord, then that promise has kind of . . .
HC: But you see, the problem is that we as parents are not faithful to our commitment to bring up our children in the fear and the nurture of the Lord. Even at best we do a poor job of it, and I admit that it's only God's grace that any of our children are saved.
But the fact is that with parents who earnestly claim these promises and diligently work at bringing up their children in the fear and the nurture of the Lord, they'll also find that a high percentage of their children will eventually show that they, too, have become born again, either as infants or later in life. Sometimes these promises don't find their full fruition until a child has turned the age of sixty or seventy. We have to remember that God is very patient in these matters.
CALLER: I would want more scripture on the babies. Do you have more than the Psalms?
HC: Yes. You see, in Romans, for example, we read, As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. Now the only ones who are made alive are those who are in Christ. And we only become in Christ when we are born again. The New Testament says that there's no way to the Father except through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so salvation is necessary for the baby in the womb just as much as it is for the adult. There are no two paths to God, two reconciliations. We must all come through the Lord Jesus Christ. And if the babies that are born are born again, then they'll grow up as born again people. You aren't born again for a little while when you're a baby, and then grow up to show that you're still a slave of Satan. That's an impossibility.
CALLER: Well, that's eternal salvation, and I believe in eternal salvation.
HC: Then you can see how consistent we have to be in all of this. If babies are born saved, then they're going to grow up saved. There's no way that a baby can be born saved and then show up later on as being eternally lost. That's an impossibility.
CALLER: How can he be born saved when he can't acknowledge that he is saved through Christ?
HC: Because the work of salvation is altogether God's work. Now in the case of an adult, or an older child, the evidence of salvation is seen in the fact that we reach out in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, and we turn away from our sins. If faith and works are not there, then it shows that we're still dead.
CALLER: Good-by.
HC: Thank you. Good night.