Deuteronomy 1:39 “Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there; to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.”
We have seen thus far that all men are born under the law of their conscience, and that the moment they transgress that law they commit sin and thus incur the penalty of sin which is spiritual death. Obviously it is the first sin committed that brings about spiritual death, and all sins committed after that time are incidental to the changed nature of the individual that has now become spiritually dead. For example, Adam and Eve continued in sin after they were driven out of the Garden of Eden, but nevertheless it was their first transgression that they committed which resulted in the spiritual death they incurred. The question is then asked, if all men are born spiritually alive to God, when do they commit the first sin that causes their spirits to die? God answers that question for us in the above quoted passage of scripture, for in this passage God says that children have no knowledge of good and evil. So why is it that children have no knowledge of good and evil? The reason is because the eyes of their conscience have not yet been opened. And so because God deems children to have no knowledge of good and evil, He does not hold them accountable for the sins they commit, and thus their spirits remain alive to God throughout their childhood.
Luke 2:42-43 “And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. (43) When they had finished the days, as they returned, the Boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem. And Joseph and His mother did not know it.”
We have seen that even though children commit sin, God does not hold them accountable for their sin because He deems them to have no knowledge of good and evil. Obviously that changes at the end of their childhood. And so the next important question that is asked, is when do children come to the end of their childhood, for it is from that point that God holds them accountable for their sins for the first time. Again God answers that question for us, for we can see in the above quoted passage of scripture that God referred to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as a child when He was twelve years old. Obviously on our Lord’s thirteenth birthday that all changed, and God now viewed His Son as being a young man and no longer a child. Jesus was the perfect man, and so if God viewed His Son as being a child when He was twelve, God would not view anyone else younger than thirteen as being a young adult. And so because God is no respecter of persons, He views all children as being children until the age of thirteen and after that age He views them as young adults.
Michael E.B. Maher
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