Is An "Age of Accountability" Found In The Bible?

I was having a conversation with someone (O.k., it was my father-in-law) and he suggested that babies who die are saved because they have not yet reached the age of accountability. He was unable to define what that age was and he seemed really flummoxed by my next question which was, "Are you suggesting that there is more than one way to be saved?"

My reason in asking that question is that I believe there is but one way, and one way only, to be saved, and that is to be born again. Paul describes it like this in Ephesians 2:8-9

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.

In other words, God gives the gift of faith. That faith enables us to believe. We don't work up faith, it is given to the elect.  In fact, it is given at a time when we are

dead in trespasses and sins

Ephesians 2:1

Dead people don't believe anything. They have to be made alive first. And it can happen to babies. Even babies in the womb.  If it can't happen to babies in the womb, then how can they be saved?  If babies can't be born again, and the Bible doesn't describe any other way of being saved, then babies can't be saved and they go to hell if they die. 

This is Mark Dewey's explanation of the subject.

The Law And The New Covenant

As it says at the top of my blog, I'm a theonomist. A practical definition of theonomy, which I will borrow from R.C. Sproul, Jr. is "the conviction that the civil law God gave to Israel in the Old Testament ought to be the law of the land in all nations everywhere." Either we have man's law, which is autonomy from God, or God's Law, which is theonomy. But the question always arises when one first hears of theonomy, "What? Are you saying we should be offering sacrifices and observing the feasts? Are you saying that we are obligated to keep the law of Moses in order to be saved?" No. I am saying, with David, that I love God's law and the answers to how we are to love God and love our neighbor are found within the Law. We ought to love God's law and obey His commands. Christ said the same thing in Matthew 5, blessed are those who do and teach them, for they shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.

I'm not going to give a treatise on theonomy here, that is already spelled out elsewhere in thousands of pages. I recommend Rushdoony to any that wish to get a grasp on the subject. What I am doing here is trying to figure out or understand the contrast between the relationship of God's people and the Law under the Old Covenant and the relationship of God's people and the Law in the New Covenant, and in particular, the point being made in the Letter to the Hebrews. Under both Covenants, the Law of God is the Law of God. It is one and the same Law. But there is this mystical transference of the Law from tables of stone to residence in our hearts. What does this mean to the Christian? How is this manifested in her life?

My thoughts on this matter were provoked by an article from Every Thought Captive which was posted on facebook this week. The article was written in 2007, but the content is of the type that never becomes dated.The author, Mark Dewey, points out that great thinkers like Jonathan Edwards and John Calvin struggled with Hebrews 8: 6-13, so we shouldn't be surprised if the whole meaning isn't obvious to us. Dewey is attempting to explain the relationship between the Old Covenant and the New. But what really stood out to me in this passage, and throughout the entire context of chapters 8, 9 and 10, was how the Law was stored, so to speak, under the Old Covenant vs. the New Covenant.

In verse 8 we are reminded of the prophecy of the coming New Covenant:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah

In the next verse we are told why God will make a new covenant, because of what happened with the old one:

... because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

As part of the old covenant, God had given them His Law, written on tablets of stone. But His plan for the new covenant is different, He isn't going to put the Law on tablets of stone:

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people

It is just as Jesus said, He didn't come to abolish the Law or the prophets. Not only is God not going to abolish the Law within the New Covenant, He plans to establish it by writing it on our hearts! Should the Law have less relevance to us than it did to Moses, or more?  In verse 11 of Hebrews chapter 8 we are told that God writing His Law on our hearts and into our minds will result in all of his people knowing Him.

And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

What a great and loving God! He wants us to know Him, so He facilitates that by writing His Law on our hearts and mind. Knowing God's Law is essential to knowing HIM. And if it wasn't clear enough already, by chapter 10 we are told that this new covenant that is to come is, in fact, HERE. That is, it was established with Jesus' sacrifice of himself on the cross and witnessed to by the Holy Ghost. (Hebrews 10:10-17)

The Cult of Statism

One of things that bothers me most about so many, many believers, at least in America, is the extent to which they worship the state without realizing they are doing it. Also, when I attempt to point out their idolatry, it is denied.

Rather than trying to explain what statism is, I'm just going to link to this video and ask you to watch it. Questions?  Let's talk about it.

Tolkien Instructs His Son on Women

I just love this bit of Tolkien posted over at Vox Day's Alpha Game Blog today. It makes me cringe to see otherwise godly young Christian men pursuing a route of chivalry in an attempt to attract a wife when the very roots of chivalry are based on ungodly courtship, promiscuity and adultery. For example, this blog. Instead of supplicating to women, I would see young men assuming that they will be leading, teaching and guiding a wife, rather than bowing down to her superior spirituality and ability to mulit-task. Hold yourself out, men, as one who will be needing a helpmeet, not one who will exalt his bride and put her on a pedestal.  Not attractive. Regardless of whether the mothers of the young women you know think you are fabulous and wish you were their son.

You can read all of Tolkien's letter to his son, Michael, over here. It is letter #43.