Coming Full Circle

Coming Full Circle - This Week’s Feature Article by Jack
Kelley- www.gracethrufaith.com

After answering recent questions on the Age of
Accountability, I concluded that the Q & A format doesn’t
lend itself to providing a comprehensive answer. Here’s the
rest of the story.

Becoming An Adult

In the Jewish culture, becoming an adult is one of the
watershed events in a person’s life. At age 12 for girls
and 13 for boys Jewish children reach the age of
accountability. It’s a point in their life that has both
spiritual and physical significance, because they’re
approaching puberty at the same time. So as they make the
transition from child to adult they also become responsible
for their own sins.

They acknowledge their accountability in a ceremony called
bat mitzvah for girls and bar mitzvah for boys. Now it’s
not that children don’t sin before puberty, it’s that
they’re not held accountable for their sins. Judaism
teaches that fathers are responsible for the sins of their
children until they come of age. That’s why in the bar
mitzvah ceremony, the father will often pray in effect,
“Lord thank you for giving me this son, and thank you for
relieving me of any further responsibility for him.”

We see hints of this transition, and its consequences, in
Romans 7:9. Being a Jew who was obviously still alive at
the time, Paul wrote, “For I was alive without the law
once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I
died”. (The word for without also means “apart from”.)
Since he was physically alive he had to have been referring
to the spiritual, or eternal life for which he had been
qualified before coming of age.

The phrase “The commandment came, sin revived, and I died”
means that as soon as Paul became old enough to be
accountable for his sins he was scheduled for death, it
being the wages of sin (Romans 6:23). The Greek word for
revived indicates Paul’s sin nature had always been there,
but for accountability purposes it’s like it was dormant
while he was a child. As soon as he came of age, it woke up
again, immediately disqualifying him from eternal life.

No official written references to the method for conducting
bar or bat mitzvah ceremonies existed during Paul’s time.
But the practice was obviously well known enough that Paul
could expect his Gentile readers to understand what he was
talking about. Since Paul was adamantly opposed to
following tradition for its own sake, he must have known
that belief in an age of accountability was legitimate from
God’s perspective.

Reaching the age of accountability transformed children
into adults but also robbed them of eternal life. Since
there was no longer someone else upon whom to place the
burden for their sins, they became responsible themselves
and an execution order was immediately entered against them
from Heaven. It took their obedience to the Law and their
annual participation in the ceremonies of Yom Kippur to
delay this execution, and then only if these were
accompanied by the belief that God would send the promised
Messiah to redeem them for good.

Becoming A Child

We get the rest of the story from the New Testament. For
Christians the watershed event is likened to becoming a
child. Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and
become like little children, you will never enter the
kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 18:3) What He meant was unless
adults can somehow unburden themselves of the
responsibility for their sins, there’s no way for them to
enter God’s Kingdom. Since children are not held
accountable for their sins, adults have to become like
children.

In the very beginning of his gospel account John explained
how we do that. Yet to all who did receive him, to those
who believed in his name, he gave the right to become
children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor
of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
(John 1:12-13)

Believing that the Lord’s death paid the full penalty due
us for our sins gives us the authority to become God’s
children, and in that way we unburden ourselves of the
responsibility for our sins. This is what it means to be
born again.

Adoption

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son,
born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under
the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because
you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our
hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you
are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are
his child, God has made you also an heir. (Galatians 4:4-7)

Both this passage and Romans 8:15-17 convey the idea that
adoption into the family of God is truly the most important
event of our lives. God sent His son to die for our sins so
we could receive the right of adoption. According to John
1:12-13 belief in Jesus gives us the authority to claim
this right and when we do God adopts us as His children and
we become heirs to his estate. When this happens the
execution order is canceled (Colossians 2:13-14). The
responsibility for our sins is transferred to Jesus (Isaiah
53:5) and once again we’re not responsible. At that point
we’re born again as a child of God and have eternal life.
According to 2 Cor. 5:17 we actually become a new creation.
The old has gone and the new has come. This is what
happened to Paul, and has happened to every other born
again believer as well.

This is not a new idea and was first acted out in the
garden. Adam and Eve were created with eternal life. God
told them if they disobeyed (sinned) they would die. But
they disobeyed and were scheduled for death. God promised a
redeemer to save them, and by believing God they were born
again and restored to eternal life.

The Law is the story of death, because it wasn’t given to
save anyone, but so that in trying to obey it man could see
his need for a Savior (Romans 3:20). Being perfect it
actually served to condemn imperfect man to death (Romans
7:10-13).

Grace is the story of life because by faith in the Redeemer
man can be born again into eternal life, even though he
doesn’t deserve it (Ephesians 2:8-9). By the power of the
Holy Spirit, David understood this 1,000 years ahead of
time when he wrote,

Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven. Blessed is
the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him, and
in whose spirit is no deceit (Psalm 32:1-2). Only by God’s
Grace can we qualify for eternal life again after losing it
when we reached the age of accountability.

No place in either the Old or New Testaments is the exact
age of accountability specified. The ages of 12 and 13 I
mentioned above come from Jewish culture and were chosen
for reasons that have more to do with tradition than the
Bible. But from both these sources it’s clear that we’re
all born as children of God, not responsible for our sins,
and having eternal life. When we’re intellectually mature
enough to understand the sin/salvation issue we become
accountable for our sins and are subject to spiritual
death. When we accept the Lord’s death as payment in full
for all our sins, we are born again and go back to being
children of God, no longer responsible for our sins, and
are restored to eternal life. We’ve come full circle.