Evidently, it’s nearly 500 years since old Martin defaced the door at Wittenberg.
A lot of Baptists are celebrating this anniversary of the Reformation. There have been conferences and symposiums (symposia?) honoring and studying and analyzing every aspect of the work of Luther, Calvin, and the rest of the bunch. From my social media feeds, I can tell you that Sola Sermon series are all the rage in Baptist pulpits across the land – five-week series of five-point messages, I would assume. (with tulips decorating the pulpit?).
On the other hand, several have been questioning the celebration. Why cheer those who anathematized and persecuted the forebears of the Baptist faith? The Puritans and the Reformation churches used the power of the government to suppress dissent and inflict pain on our spiritual ancestors.
Is Roger Williams turning over in his grave?
Should we be joining in the festivities or protesting the Protestants?
We have benefitted greatly from the Reformation. Those who first sought to reform the corrupt medieval Catholic church then finally broke from it restored important biblical doctrines. They held a great place in church history and we are blessed immeasurably by what they did.
We do not venerate the Reformers, though. We see them as both theologically and practically flawed. They began to reform the church but did not go far enough. They kept unbiblical doctrines such as infant baptism and had unhealthy views about intertwining civil government and the church. While they fought to restore doctrine they too often held onto the practices of Catholicism. We do not view the Reformers as the end of the process of restoration, but the beginning of it. They started it, but the Anabaptists and English Separatists (you historians can fight that battle) fought to reform the reformers to establish an even more biblical and New Testament church.
So, celebrate but don’t venerate. We were blessed by the Reformers but shaped by the next generation who saw the errors that the Reformers failed to correct. They were a waystation, not a final destination.
Anyone know when Spurgeon Adulation Day is?
Yes we are planning a Presbytery wide joint worship service on Oct. 29. It will be held at our church. These Reformation services are always a rich time of worship. This semester of Sunday school also features two adult classes related to the reformation: The History of the Reformation and The Theology of the John Calvin.
BTW, here is a great little resource on the five solas. http://www.freepresbyterian.org/wp-content/uploads/FPC-5-Solas-A5-v5.pdf
Les, this would mostly be a Baptist question. Of course you would be.
I know Dave. Just couldn’t resist. But I do hope Allen Calkins will join us Oct. 29 for worship. He could report back here about all our craziness. 🙂 I like Allen. He’s a great guy doing really good ministry here in the STL area.
I will ignore it because I believe Baptists are not a byproduct of the Reformation but rather of the Anabaptist movement…and because I am not a Calvinist, do not sprinkle babies or believe there is any such thing as a covenant family. Luther certainly did break away from the RCC. But he did not travel very far!
Aw Allen, come on over that Sunday night. You’re only about 20 minutes or so from my church. We can sit together. I think you’d be pleasantly surprised with the worship service we have planned. 🙂
Allen, others (Baptists) would disagree that our roots are in the Anabaptists, but more in English Separatists. probably draw from both.
It seems a little petulant to me to say we owe nothing to the Reformers or do not swim in their wake.
“Probably draw from both.”
Yes, I think we draw from both streams.
Sorry, Allen. Without Martin Luther, you would likely not be a Baptist right now.
I’m dressing up with a cute black scholar’s cap and knocking on doors saying, “You might go to hell and not be able to do a doggone thing about it.” I have a few candidates in mind but don’t think I am allowed to burn any heretics.
If I were pastoring, I’d probably do something on Wednesday night about it.
I’m reading a heavy bio of Martin Luther and it is interesting in parts. The Oxford scholar author mentions that he may not have nailed his theses on the Wittenburg door. That he authored the document is unquestioned but the nail them to the door history has less support. She says, for example, that he may have glued them to the door. Somehow a monk with a bucket of horse slime slopping a measure on a door and affixing some papers doesn’t have the drama of raising a hammer and with a mighty blow launching the Protestant Reformation.
No pictures please
“Are You Celebrating the Reformation?” No, neither celebrating personally nor in church. I recognize contributions made by some of the Reformers, may even quote or refer to something they said sometimes — more likely in writing that speaking — but I see no cause for any type of celebration.
“symposiums (symposia?)” According to Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, and Collins, both symposiums and symposia are correct as plural for symposium.
I noticed that grammarly did not identify either as a misspelling.
Microsoft Word even seems to recognize “symposia”. I was shocked! (Not at symposia, but at Microsoft Word.)
Robert, I agree.
Just as I oppose celebratory Americanism in worship service – I oppose celebratory reformationism in worship services.
We should be about worshipping Jesus in our Christian worship services and part of doing so is obviously resisting the lure of idolatry.
Tarheel, //We should be about worshipping Jesus in our Christian worship services and part of doing so is obviously resisting the lure of idolatry.//
FYI our Oct. 29 reformation service will in fact be “worshiping Jesus” and there will be no idolatry. Again, FYI.
🙂
Presby’s……
I plan to celebrate Hallo…er…Fall Festival with my grandkids.
We are doing the Five Sola’s this October but will do it next year. We are covering on Sunday night several of the different reformers because I believe we need to know our Church History. The average person in my congregation has heard of MArtin Luther and then there church history skips in 1980. When we discuss the Reformers we remember the good and the bad but are thankful there were men who were brave enought to stand up to the false teaching of there day even if they did not make it as far theologically as we would like.
We don’t have anything planned. From time to time we discuss the Reformation.
As a Baptist I do feel a little awkward praising Luther and Calvin, knowing that if we lived back then they would have gladly banished, persecuted, or burned us.
But, I acknowledge they did some good things.
On Baptist history.
I don’t argue for a straight-line succession of Baptists for 2,000 years. But I do believe there have been Baptist like and separatist believers (usually persecuted), here and there through those years. Those believers have been persistent wherever people got a Bible and took it seriously.
Thank God for Baptists and Anabaptists championing Religious Liberty.
David R. Brumbelow
David, I appreciate almost all of your comments. 🙂
But you did say, “Those believers have been persistent wherever people got a Bible and took it seriously.” For the record, we who don’t agree with all the theology of our Baptist brothers actually do also take the Bible seriously.
Blessings.
Les,
I agree many who practice infant baptism take the Bible seriously. They are just seriously wrong on this issue.
It should also be remembered many Anabaptists took Scripture about Believer’s Baptism by Immersion so seriously, they paid with their lives.
But while we may disagree here, you and I will still agree on gun rights. 🙂
David R. Brumbelow
David B.
“I agree many who practice infant baptism take the Bible seriously. They are just seriously wrong on this issue. “
🙂
On dying for an ecclesiastical practice like baptism, I would never do so. I like to think I’d rather die than recant my faith in Jesus. But die over the mode and recipients of an ordinance? Nope. No way. I know way too many godly churchmen on both sides of that issue to lose my life over it.
I wonder if the Anabaptists were persecuted so fiercely because infant baptism was a *much* more emotional issue back then: infant mortality was sky-high even in peacetime, let alone during the wars of the Reformation. So by rejecting infant baptism, they were telling a whole lot of folks that they wouldn’t see their children again in heaven.
Is this at all accurate? Did anti-Anabaptist polemics focus on that? Or did they mostly just portray the Anabaptists as a bunch of secretive and probably licentious heretics whose errors — which were surely inspired by Satan — made them a danger to civil society? (Obviously this is not my opinion of Anabaptists! I’m just guessing what would have been the most likely lines of attack against them.)
Our pastor is leading our church through the 5 Solas this month. I have enjoyed reflecting on these fundamentals of our faith. Having said that, I completely agree with the notion that we should be careful with how we honor/remember the Reformers. Their position on infant baptism and the lengths they went to eliminate those who practiced believer’s baptism should not be forgotten or overlooked in the midst of all the celebration this month.
In light of all of the talk about Luther’s 95 Theses this month, I have been hoping someone would do a blog post suggesting a new set of theses for the church today. In thesis #33 Luther wrote, “Men must especially be on guard against those who say that the pope’s pardons are that inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to him.” I am curious about what things others think need to be reformed in the church today. Like indulgences in Luther’s day, what should we be on guard against today?
As I said, 5 Solas Series are abounding.
I’ll celebrate the Reformation by letting some aficionado have, cheaply, my 1840 leather bound copy of Luther’s Commentary on Galatians, with short bio, and some sermons. Email me at sbcplodder at gmail
If I were to protest the Protestants, should I take a knee or not…and when?
I’m taking four Sundays in October to feature a prominent reformation leader. To bring balance, I’m featuring Menno Simmons in the mix with Calvin, Luther and Zwingli. Each week I provide a biographical sketch as a bulletin insert and I deal with passages of Scripture that had particular meaning for the reformer I’m dealing with on that Sunday. For example, last week I dealt with Calvin and used his two favorite images of man lost in a labyrinth and Scripture as spectacles for the bleary-eyed. This week it’s the story of Zacchaeus which Menno favored because of the emphasis on a faith that expresses itself in the ethics of Jesus.
We have a sermon series on the 5 solas through the month of October. That’s our celebration.
What’s interesting is that the reformers’ biggest error wasn’t so much theological as it was sinful. Their persecution of the Anabaptists was a result of their duplication of the sacralism of the RCC. Oddly, we Baptists seem to have that same impulse when it comes to our engagement with Washington DC and the local governments. It’s debatable as to whether we have been as successful as the reformers. Many believe we have been and similarly accuse us of some measure of historic persecution. On some level, they may be right.
Baptists persecuting? Please cite examples.
I didn’t say Baptists were persecuting.
This is not a lighthearted discussion. Our God is still in control not some who make light of serious biblical differences.
If a little levity offends you, Bee, you may not want to read Voices.
We take the word of God very seriously, but we also love to engage in a little humor in our interactions.
God created us with the capacity for humor and is not offended by it.
As existing sprinkling-babies-against-their-wills-and-pretending-it-to-be-baptism denominations have split or multiplied, some of these have, of course, retained the error of paedo-baptism due to inertia, but I’m encouraged to know that subsequent to the courageous stands of the sixteenth-century Anabaptists, every de novo group of Christians who, unrestrained by loyalty to tradition, have looked to the New Testament for a baptismal practice have settled upon the immersion of believers. It’s not just Anabaptists and Baptists; it’s Pentecostals, non-Denominationals, and even the marginal sects. Even people who can’t get the Trinity right can see that baptism = the immersion of believers.
Yep, Bart.
Bart, Whew! I’m happy that we in the PCA have not retained “paedo-baptism due to inertia” or been restrained “by loyalty to tradition.” 🙂
You left out “the error of” from Bart’s quote.
Dean, I have no idea how that happened. 🙂
Tell us how you REALLY feel, Bart.
Infant baptism is a baffling thing – not for those who reject the word for their traditions, but for those who claim to honor the word and yet hold on to something that is absolutely not in it.
Dave, covenant baptism was baffling to me too. But then everything changed when they brought in R C Sproul to a meeting of us Baptists and he used a neuralizer sort of device to zap covenant baptism into our brains. 🙂
Whatever it was, it wasn’t the Bible.
Take a man on an island that has never heard of Christianity or Baptism.
Let him read the Bible for himself.
Unless he is taught otherwise, he will come out believing in Believers Baptism by Immersion every time.
You just don’t find infant baptism in the Bible; you find it in tradition and convenience.
David R. Brumbelow
I personally believe infant baptism is in full force in today’s Baptist Church. Little children are being baptized that know nothing about the Gospel of Christ. They know nothing of sin and no nothing of what is right or wrong without the parents guiding them. Friends, to me this is infant baptism pure and simple. I believe the age of accountability is around 12 years old and doesn’t happen for some until they reach the age of 14. Yes, the Baptist Church engages in infant baptism.
For the very reason I mentioned above is why so many teens can’t wait until they are 18 to get out on their own and sow wild oats. This is the very reason many teens keep their sins hidden and yet occupy a pew in the church. This is also the very reason many in the congregation doesn’t have the Holy Spirit to guide them through life. This is also the very reason many preachers doesn’t have the Holy Spirit to guide them and are lost as many teens in the church.
It seems to me that all we want is numbers and confessions, not for anyone to get truly get saved. Today, we as Baptists don’t have the right to talk down on those who baptize babies. We are doing the same thing except just a little older. That’s like the pot calling the kettle black.
When Jesus said allow the little children to come to me. We leave out the rest of the verse where Jesus said the Kingdom belongs to them. Friends, by Grace the Kingdom already belongs to little children. There are so many injustices in the world and now there are terrible injustices in the church.
Have you carried on a conversation with with 4 and 5 year old’s and even 6 or 7 year old’s? I rest my case! What we need to understand about children is that they want parents to be proud of them and they want to do what parents want them to do. I worked in the Juvenile Justice system for many years. A lot of the children said their parents were religious but they wasn’t even though they were members of a church.
Yes, I believe there are great injustices in the Baptist Church. At some point we preachers will have to stop trying to please the parents and do what is right.
Jess,
“I personally believe infant baptism is in full force in today’s Baptist Church. Little children are being baptized that know nothing about the Gospel of Christ. They know nothing of sin and no nothing of what is right or wrong without the parents guiding them.”
I know a lot of Baptists and Baptist pastors. I read fairly widely. I seriously doubt what you are saying is true. Maybe in some small % of instances. But not in full force.
Les,
It’s true and in my experience it happens on a large scale. Charles Stanley’s grandchildren were Baptized at 5 and 6 years old. Pastors post photos on FB, Families post photo’s on FB of their little 5 year old’s Baptism. I don’t care how many pastors disagree the truth is the truth. Les, it’s bad and worse than you might think. I’ve been to revivals where mothers would push their little child out in the isle to go up during the invitation. I don”t care, I’ll spill the beans. It happens all over this nation in Baptist churches.
Jess,
Your “hermeneutic” of Jesus and the children is quite lacking. Also, I’ve had quite a few conversations with children in my life through my work in children’s ministry and children that age certainly can come under conviction of sin. One of the most Godly, Spirit filled pastors I know was saved at age 6 and he can testify that he knew he was lost and exactly what that meant. I even had a Christian professor who noted he was saved at age 3 and was fully cognizant of what he was doing. In fact I remember myself being under conviction as a child though I wasn’t saved until my teen years. Please don’t doubt people’s salvation for them. God never appointed us the arbiters of who is saved and who is not based on age.
Scott, I appreciate what you are saying. When I was a Baptist pastor for several years and in my years as a pastor in the PCA, I have seen many professions of faith by 5 and 6 year olds and a very solid understanding by them of their sin and need for Jesus. In the PCA church where I have been an elder for a number of years, I have seen a fair number of 5 and 6 year old children make their profession of faith. Again with very solid understandings of the gospel.
Scott H,
I respectfully and firmly disagree with you. I think if anyone is lacking here it would be you. Children just cannot understand the concept of sin at such a young age. I’ve spoken with Psychologist’s that will strongly disagree with you. Not that I care much for what a Psychologist says, but they are right as rain on many things. I spoke with a little girl in a restaurant the other day. I told the little angel that I bet I know how old she was. I told her she was six, and she held up five little fingers and said I’m this many.
I’m firm on what I’ve said and gave examples of my experiences. I’ve told the truth of what goes on in the churches. No child can be saved because they are already saved. There is even an angel assigned to a child. If I remember correctly a Jewish child was considered an infant until 12 years old. In my opinion you guys can debate all you want. I’m done with this thread.
Scott H,
If one does not make a move there is no conviction. Conviction always will lead to conversion. We may feel bad for not making a move but that is not conviction that’s just feeling bad. Sir, unless God draws someone they simply cannot be saved. The choice is not ours to make the choice belongs to God, and when he moves we will move.
I know Jess that we regard psychologists as the holders of all truth and wisdom.
However, I was saved at age 6. All my siblings we saved by 7 at the latest. 50+ years later we all serve the Lord. ( though you have told me dozens of times that I am not really saved.)
Children cannot understand all the concepts but they can have the faith of children that Jesus required.
Again, knowing you don’t regard me as a genuine believer may negate my argument, but it is true nonetheless.
I too have been concerned with children 5 or 6 who make professions of faith. Something I started doing when I talk to such a child–and I do not recall who suggested it to me, but I know I was not original to me–is to change the subject to the child’s favorite cartoon. If that child cannot discern the difference between reality and a cartoon character, I tell the parent they are not mature enough to know that Jesus is real and not a cartoon character. Maybe there are exceptions, but I have had young children who understood the difference, and I baptized them with no problem.
Dave,
It takes genuine repentance of sin in order to be saved. Only God through his conviction can show us that sin. We cannot make a choice to come to Christ. It’s God’s choice for us. God will draw us with such conviction that we simply cannot refuse his calling. Faith is a gift from God it’s not anything that we come up with, it’s all God. Again, its nothing we decide on our own. Dave, no one can be saved at six years old. You may have gotten saved later down the line, but not at six.
No little child is capable of making life and death decisions and certainly not spiritual decisions. A child already belongs to the Lord. In my opinion and how I understand the scriptures, what many preachers are doing is bypassing the sin problem not only that bypassing repentance. If there is no conviction there is no sin guilt, if no sin guilt how can one repent. Dave, this is what the bible teaches me, I know it teaches you something else. Just look at the state of our churches and that will prove everything I’m telling you. We have youth pastors who get involved with girls under his care. We have pastors who commit adultery, we have pill poppers and pot smokers in our churches and we have treasurers who take off with our money. I’m just going to speak plain here, if it’s not politics governing the church it’s something else. It seems everything governs the church but Christ. Shucks, we don’t even need Christ anymore we have committees to do everything. This is what I think, and I will die on it.
Dave, it’s nearly impossible to hear a spiritual preacher today. We have seminaried the spirit right out of them. Did you see that? I invented a new word. Many folks are actually leaving the Baptist church never to return. Some are uniting with other denominations We even have secretaries who fudge on how many joined the church that year. I learned that one church put down 10 were saved that year when there was none. So my friend, no one can tell me anything about a baptist church. I’ll be the first to admit there are a few good ones out there who are really trying to serve Christ, but most are not. This is why our baptisms are dropping, we are running out of little children. These are just my thoughts, do with them what you will. I do know if we preachers don’t start standing for the truth there will not be a church, only just a group of people meeting together. (Social Club).
Jess, there are 44,000 SBC churches. If you visit 7 churches a week it would take you 120 years to visit them all. You know nothing about “most” SBC churches and how they are trying to serve Jesus.
Dean Stewart,
Sir, the only thing different from one SBC church and another are faces. You are playing a game here you know nothing about. I got out and visited the people and I know what goes on. I already said there are some good churches, but even the good churches have their problems. Have you not read about the 7 churches of Asia Minor in Revelation. So sir I do know what I’m talking about. Every pastor will always defend their church not knowing what really knowing what goes on.
Here is the thing Jess, the One who dictated the letters to the churches in Asia Minor is the Omniscient One who walks among the candlesticks and holds the seven stars in His hand.
You however are none of these things. I will give both Jesus’ words and your words about the churches the respect they are due.
Jess,
A couple of things:
1) My post didn’t touch the subject of election or free will. You argued a point that wasn’t brought up one way or the other.
2) It is also unfair in debate to close off discussion just because someone disagrees with you once.
3) Telling a child they are too young to get saved is forbidding them from coming to Jesus.
Scott H.
Since you put it that way I will respond to the three things you listed.
1. My intent wasn’t to touch on free will nor election. I just simply mentioned what was needed to be saved. Sir, you interpreted what I said as if I was making an argument about free will or election. I only mentioned what the bible says about getting saved.
2. I didn’t stop just because someone disagrees with me. I stopped because it’s just flat out wrong to say a child who knows no sin should repent of their sins.
3. Yes I tell little children they are too young to be saved because children already belong to the Lord. I tell them there will come a time they will not be able to resist the calling power of the Lord.
I can’t find anywhere in the NT that children should be saved.
That is horrible false doctrine, Jess. Nearing heresy.
You should repent, read the Bible, and teach truth.
“Yes I tell little children they are too young to be saved because children already belong to the Lord. I tell them there will come a time they will not be able to resist the calling power of the Lord”
It’s statements like this that make me more inclined to use the term “Semi Pelagian”.
Jess: Children are not always children. Jesus said in the Bible to let the children come to him and for us to have faith like a child. It says to train up a child in the way he/she should go and when they are old they will not depart from it.
I do believe if a infant or small child dies they are with Christ, but that does not mean they are not sinners or in need of salvation.
That should read or not in need of salvation. They know and are capable of making spiritual decisions at a young age. The Holy Spirit is able to impart understanding, even to children. Probably more with children. They know how to love fully.
Jess,
If you believe children aren’t sinners , I would invite you to teach the 2 year old Sunday School class at someone else’s church.
🙂
Guys, I recently took Jess off moderation, and I am somewhat regretting it.
He is trolling here – saying wild and ridiculous things that have no biblical or logical support – just to get a reaction.
It’s best if we don’t take his bait and respond to the outlandish things he says. Just ignore him. He does not listen to anything anyone else says. He believes he is right about everything and won’t listen to anyone else.
It does no good to argue with him.
Jess, if you keep it up, trolling conversations and taking them off in wild rabbit trails, you will go back on moderation.
Jess: These are souls we are talking about. Lives. You cannot Biblically tell a child they have no need of salvation. That is simply false. Then to proclaim it as true is ludicrous. What you have said is a lie.
Jess, I have a responsibility to keep people from causing disruptions here.
I tried to show you grace, but when I give you freedom here, you abuse it with trolling. I’ve tried harder with you than just about anyone else to bend over backwards.
But you abuse your privileges.
The problem is not your opinions – though they are often weird, false, and slightly bizarre.
The problem is that you declare yourself to be absolutely right and will not listen to anyone else. You refuse to learn or to accept that anyone else might have something to say that you can learn from.
You may be the the most arrogant man I’ve ever known. I suspect that masks serious insecurities, but I’m not a psychologist. But here, we TALK and we share opinions. If someone comes on the board and rails against everyone and demands that his opinions be heard as the absolute truth without disputation, it is simply not helpful.
I am putting you back on moderation for the time being. If you want to comment, I will have to approve it.
Your comments must add to the general conversation – make a positive contribution.
Jess: If you are reading this, my 3 year old grand daughter will do something wrong and as I am teaching her why it is wrong she says “I’m sorry” and puts her head on my shoulder. Of course I forgive her. That is a perfect teaching vehicle that I use to show and teach her what Christ has done for her and forgiveness of sin/wrong doing.
“Every day is Spurgeon Adulation Day. That’s SAD.”
—Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Tonight we watched part 1 of the biography “Luther” that came out recently; next week we’ll watch part 2, and then call it good. 🙂
Jess takes it way too far.
But I disagree with the most prominent understanding that we are born sinners.
Some one said, teach a class of 2 year olds and see…
And there lies part of the problem. No sane person denies that 2 year olds act up and are selfish and disobedient and so forth. But here is a Scripture to consider from Romans 3:
Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.
No sane person thinks that a conscience is fully developed in a 2 year old. Or that a 2 year old understands what right means, or what wrong means, and by that I mean they don’t understand based on their own formed thought processes. They are born with a fallen nature, but they do not always act with great awareness of right and wrong, because their conscience understanding of the concept involved is not yet fully formed.
We as a country understand this, for we have different punishments for children then adults though the crime be the same. And when, as the child gets older, and the crime or infraction is worse, we hold court hearings to decide if the child should be punished as an adult.
Likewise, which of you parents punish a 2 year old and a 10 year old in the same way for the same infraction or disobedience? Do you not expect more from the 10 year old? Does not your discipline reflect this?
Now if you as good and loving parents understand this difference do we not think that our Creator and Lord is not also at least lust as just?
If these things are true, and I think that are, the idea that little children are condemned by God for being born is untrue. Neither are babies so condemned. Neither are the children in the womb. We are told that the wages of sin is death. But this is speaking of spiritual death, not physical death. For Jesus has paid the whole punishment of our sins and yet we die physically. Thus physical death is not punishment for sin but the consequence of being born mortal. Animals die, do they sin? Plants die, do they sin?
And what are wages? They are something you earn by your deeds. An inheritance is not wages. Wages are something you earn. Spiritual death is earned by disobedience. And unless one is under the law, the punishment of the law is not for them.
Romans 7 tells us:
What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
The theme in my reply is that the conscience has to mature in order to grasp the truth of the Law, and whenever it does, the person becomes accountable for their sin. Until then they are not accountable under the Law, that is they are not condemned by God.
Of course this idea stands against the prevalent teaching usually called Federal Headship. That teaching says that all are born condemned because God imputes the sin of Adam to all his posterity. That teaching is inferred or interpreted but not actually taught in the Scriptures. Rather we are told quite plainly just the opposite, as the these passages from Ezekiel 18 proclaim:
Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “What do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying,
‘The fathers eat the sour grapes,
But the children’s teeth are set on edge’?
As I live,” declares the Lord God, “you are surely not going to use this proverb in Israel anymore. Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine. The soul who sins will die.
[and]
“Yet you say, ‘Why should the son not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity?’ When the son has practiced justice and righteousness and has observed all My statutes and done them, he shall surely live. The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.
[and]
“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, each according to his conduct,” declares the Lord God. “Repent and turn away from all your transgressions, so that iniquity may not become a stumbling block to you. Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,” declares the Lord God. “Therefore, repent and live.”
The idea that each one will be judged according to their own conduct is echoed in the New Testament.
Romans 2
But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each person according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.
Matthew 25
Mat.16:27 “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS.
Rev. 22.12 “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.
and also…
Proverbs 24.12
Lam 3.64
2 Cor 5.10
Hos 2.12
1 Pet 4.17
Rev. 20.12-13
It is the basis of the need for the Gospel: That people have sinned and earned eternal condemnation and can only find everlasting life in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Finally, is there a certain age?
Does every child mature at the same rate? Can the influence of parents and teachers and hearing the Word have bearing?
Rather each child is different. One can be saved at 6 and another can not. One can be condemned at 5 while another not until 9. God knows and He does the condemning, not man.
So preach the Gospel to the children. Disciple those that confess the faith.
One can make a false profession at 24 or 40 as well as at 10.
And if the Lord is leading them, a child who gets saved at 6, may not come to grips with God until 16. Or a 24 year old not until he is 40. Salvation is all of the Lord!
“Parents and teachers should be very cautious, and yet zealous, in dealing with children. They can discourage them for life or they can over persuade them and get them into the church unsaved, without an understanding of the way of life. Teach them; make the way plain; pray for them; give them favorable opportunity to find Christ. Do not over persuade, but at the same time give them every opportunity to respond to the pleadings of the Saviour.”
-L. R. Scarborough, “With Christ After the Lost,” Broadman Press; 1952. Scarborough was the first evangelism professor at, and second president of, SWBTS.
David R. Brumbelow