What is the ageing account?

Answer 1

The "age of accountability" is the age at which a person really understands right from wrong, good and evil, sin and so on, and know that they are personally accountable to God for what they do and think. Because the age of thirteen was traditionally when a Jewish boy assumed his full adult obligations upon the celebration of his Bar Mitzvah, some Christians believe that therefore by thirteen a child reaches the age of accountability. The Biblical verses often used to justify an "age of accountability" are :-

Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse.

Rom 2:17 Indeed you bear the name of a Jew, and rest on the law, andglory in God,

Rom 2:18 and know his will, andapprove the things that areexcellent, being instructed out of the law,

Rom 2:19 and are confident thatyou yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,

Rom 2:20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babies,having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth.

2Co 5:10 For we must all be revealed before thejudgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

However, that is a chronological age and not an emotional age: it takes no account of maturity. A one-size-fits-all age cannot be arbitrarily made to fit everyone regardless, because the age at which an individual person reaches maturity will differ from someone else. For example, girls usually mature at an earlier age than boys, some children are very mature at an early age, some children are immature longer than normal, and some immature children never grow up and, through no fault of their own, become immature adults, simpletons, and "intellectually-challenged."

Because of this variation between individuals, a particular chronological age cannot be rigidly set in concrete to apply to everyone regardless: the "age of accountability" is more accurately a "state of accountability". Unfortunately, in the real world, some people never reach this level of accountability and never will. Because they will always be childlike, God regards them as children and blesses them accordingly by giving them automatic entry to Heaven regardless of their actual chronological age.