The Age of Accountability & The Hardening of the Heart
Since Yahweh “chose us in him before the foundation of the world,” all of our sins will be and are covered by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. So at what age then, did I become accountable for my sins?
When I was young (15-21?) and seeking adventure, I didn’t know what sin was or that I was even a sinner. Yet even then, I could feel the father’s calling on my life (this began when I was 9). I prayed to Him, and he would answer me. I often felt him watching over and protecting me. However, I listened more diligently to the world, the flesh, and the devil getting myself into many bad situations. Until at 24, I became convicted of my sin and realized my need for a savior. I repented for my unbelief and rebellion, became a believer, and was baptized.
Now at 59, I sin differently but not less grievously than before I became a follower of Christ. All sin separates us from a holy and pure God. Now I hate sin: I see it's relentless, corrosive, death inducing affect on all creation and her creatures. So when I fall short of the glory of God, I try to quickly confess and ask forgiveness.
Christians often speak of “an age of accountability” when youth become responsible for their sin. Supposedly at this point, there is no longer the child’s assurance of salvation. When did I become accountable for my sin? At 13, I became interested in spiritual things (mostly eastern religions). I remember picking up a bible at a hotel my family was staying and trying to read it. It was like reading a brick wall; it made no sense to me. Once I became saved at 24, I couldn’t read and study God’s Word enough. Could not the Lord have opened my eyes to his Word when I was 13? Why did he allow me 11 more years to experiment with eastern religions, the new age movement, drugs, sexual immorality, and have 2 children born out of wedlock who have truly suffered for my sins? I was not particularly rebellious at 13. My heart was not hard, on the contrary. My father passed away of lung cancer when I was 12. I was sensitive, open, and grieving. On vacation, I met this long haired philosopher with his model pretty wife on a fishing deck at Gulf shores. He spoke to me of mystical meditative experiences, and I was hooked. Perhaps if I had met some Christians, all would be different.
Christians often speak of “an age of accountability” when youth become responsible for their sin. Supposedly at this point, there is no longer the child’s assurance of salvation. When did I become accountable for my sin? At 13, I became interested in spiritual things (mostly eastern religions). I remember picking up a bible at a hotel my family was staying and trying to read it. It was like reading a brick wall; it made no sense to me. Once I became saved at 24, I couldn’t read and study God’s Word enough. Could not the Lord have opened my eyes to his Word when I was 13? Why did he allow me 11 more years to experiment with eastern religions, the new age movement, drugs, sexual immorality, and have 2 children born out of wedlock who have truly suffered for my sins? I was not particularly rebellious at 13. My heart was not hard, on the contrary. My father passed away of lung cancer when I was 12. I was sensitive, open, and grieving. On vacation, I met this long haired philosopher with his model pretty wife on a fishing deck at Gulf shores. He spoke to me of mystical meditative experiences, and I was hooked. Perhaps if I had met some Christians, all would be different.
I feel like I became more accountable and knowledgeable of my sin, my resistance, and my rebellion against a holy God after I became a Christian. Fortunately we also receive a new heart when we are born again: a heart that wants to please God. God touches our hearts and gives us a desire for him. Yahweh sees all my sin from the lusts of my youth to the unpleasant attitudes of my middle years. I am at once accountable for all of them and freed from all of them by God's grace and Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
There comes a time in our lives that when we reject the Lordship of Christ ("for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23), and we become more accountable for our sins. If this refusal continues throughout adulthood, “The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day,” (John 12:48). This hardening of a heart could happen at any age, but the main reason that “little children” enter the kingdom of God is their soft and open hearts. In my opinion, each individual has to make some explicit refusal or rejection of God or his ordained authority to become accountable. Not in the unthinking manner of a two year old beating the floor because s/he didn’t get a cookie before dinner, but in the deliberate and calculated manner of a reasoning adult. This rejection can happen in a number of ways: We steal something we know we shouldn’t take, and we know it is against the law. We are cruel to someone more vulnerable than ourselves, even though our heart condemns us, we continue. We deliberately refuse to obey a righteous rule given to us by our parents for our own protection, despite knowing the unpleasant consequences of rebellion.
There is only one unforgivably sin: denying the sacrifice and Lordship of Jesus Christ to our dying day. That is a hardened heart. Before that there are degrees of rebellion and hardening that only the Lord understands, so we can’t judge another’s person’s heart. Who in the early church would have believed that Saul would become one of the greatest apostles of the church? From their position, it probably looked like his heart was permanently hardened. We need to examine our own hearts before the Lord, and then “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water,” (Hebrews 10:22). The Love of God is the greatest prevention against the love of sin.
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