The Age of Accountability: Conditional Immortality: Old Testament Thoughts; Degrees of Punishment

Immortality

Immortality is not an inherent element of human life. Rather, immortality is something God gives to those who are faithful –

(1 Tim 6:15-16) which God will bring about in his own time — God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

And Paul certainly says that only God is immortal. The Greek word is athanasia, meaning deathless.

(Rom 2:7) To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.

“Immortality” translates aphtharsia, meaning incorruptibility. It’s the same word translated “imperishable” in 1 Cor 15 –

(1 Cor 15:42-44) So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

(1 Cor 15:53-54) For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

Eternal life is a gift that not all receive. We aren’t born immortal. We are born perishable and mortal. But some are given immortality and imperishability. The rest die — twice.

Mortal

When we look at the verses dealing with mortality, we see the same lesson — immortality is gift given to some but not all.

(Rom 8:11) And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

(2 Cor 5:4) For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

Both passages say much the same thing. We are by nature mortal, but God will give his children immortality.

The later Christians who argued for everlasting torment did so based on the theory that humans are, by nature, immortal. But these verses plainly teach that we are mortal by nature, but have eternal life as a gift.

The Old Testament

Therefore, we see that the Old Testament and New Testament teach the same doctrine. Both teach that God will purge the world of his enemies by fire. And both teach that God’s people will live with God forever in a new heavens and new earth. It all fits. It’s all consistent. And it’s all utterly contrary to the Greek thought of the day.

People are made of flesh and blood, and God gives some immortality. Those without immortality die twice — once in this life and again as a consequence of God’s wrath, and the second death will involve pain proportional to the sinfulness of those who die.

Degrees of punishment

(Luk 12:47-48 NIV) 47 “That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows.  48 But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

Jesus plainly teaches degrees of punishment. The measure of punishment depends on one’s opportunities (“who has been given much”) and degrees of knowledge (“who does not know”). Therefore, Hitler will suffer much, much more than a 12-year old girl who dies one day after her “age of accountability.”

So what is the fate of those who died before the crucifixion? At Mars Hill, Paul said,

(Act 17:29-30 NIV)  29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone–an image made by man’s design and skill.  30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.”

Did God save those who worshiped idols — or just refuse to punish them because of their ignorance? Did Antiochus Ephiphanes, who burned pork on the altar of the temple and place prostitutes in the temple courts, go to heaven? Or did God simply let his death be death — so that he suffered no painful destruction? To “overlook such ignorance” means that God didn’t punish their sins, but will he resurrect them to live in the new heavens and new earth with Jesus forever?

(Rom 3:25b ESV) 25 This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

This seems to be much the same thought. But to pass over these sins is not the same as rewarding the wicked men of old with immortality. You see, to the Greek thinker, immortality is a necessary part of being human. Therefore, the wicked man will live forever. The only question is whether he’ll live a blessed or cursed existence. But when we understand that immortality is conditional, we realize that there are two other possibilities: death without resurrection and death with resurrection but with a painless or less painful destruction.

I mean, God will resurrect the damned to face their accuser and suffer their fate, but for those whose sins God overlooks, there’s the possibility that they die, receive no immortality, receive no resurrection, and suffer no judgment. In fact, that seems a much more likely fate for those who died before the crucifixion than eternity with God. So far as I can tell, the new heavens and new earth is promised only to the saved — not to those who are spared punishment solely out of ignorance.

You see, it’s our inclusion into Christ that brings us into the presence of God. The ancient wicked may not be damned, but they won’t be with Jesus either. They are just dead.

(Rom 6:5 ESV) 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

A preliminary thought

Now, I admit I’m moving into very unfamiliar territory, and so what I suggest is a bit speculative, but it fits — it makes better sense than any alternative I’ve heard.

So let’s consider the case of a child who dies before the age of accountability. There are these possibilies —

1. The child could be treated a Christian. He could be considered to be in Christ and to be resurrected like Christ. Upon attaining the age of accountability, the child would be treated as having effectively fallen away when he commits his first sin. When he is later saved, he is restored. This is another way of describing the traditional view. Sinlessness is assumed to be sufficient to save.

2. The child could be treated as damned. There are those who, because of original sin, who do consider the child damned until he is baptized — even if faith only comes later. But the default position for this school of thought, with roots in Augustine, is damnation because the child doesn’t have the grace necessary for salvation.

3. The child could be treated as neither saved nor damned, like I believe was true of the Gentiles before Jesus, whose sins were overlooked because of ignorance. And if such a child were to die, he would not be resurrected. He’d just die one death. Or perhaps he’d be resurrected with the rest and die a painless second death, having no sins to be punished for.

4. For a child growing up in a Christian home, the child could be considered saved until the child is both old enough to be accountable. He would only fall away the way any Christian falls away: out of rebellion or abandonment of the faith.

Those are all the possibilities I can imagine, and you can see, most take us well outside the usual age-of-accountability Arminian/Orthodox/post-2007 Catholic orthodoxy. It’s not that the new possibilities have to be true. It’s just that they have to be considered.

You see, when we assume with Plato that we all have immortal souls that even God himself cannot destroy, we greatly limit the salvation possibilities to consider. But when we discover that the soul to a Jew is simply the self and that immortality is a gift of God (Each bullet is the group who receives immortality according to the passages quoted above that describe God’s gift of immortality) —

* to those who persist in doing good (Rom 2:7)

* to those who are in Christ (1 Cor 15:22)

* to those who have the Spirit (Rom 8:11)

* to those who are being transformed into the image of the Lord from one degree of glory to another by the Spirit (2Co 3:18)

— then we have to consider other possibilities. And so I think the whole age of accountability question is a little more complicated that we often make out. We aren’t forced by the necessary immortality of the soul to imagine that infants are either burning in hell or else living with Jesus forever in heaven.

That’s doesn’t mean those possibilities are wrong. But it does mean that we can’t just assume. Rather, we need to keep on digging into the scriptures.