The "age of accountability" and the "rapture" hypothetical

[3 Resurrections]

That is the crux of the issue because the "right" thing is for God to mete out the just recompense for sin, understanding condemnation is predicated on a lack, a lack of belief in Jesus. Perhaps what you mean or desire is for God to do the gracious thing. Grace is not right. Grace is extra-right .

And we know that God delights in mercy, so I rest in that as a consolation that He is and has been extremely long-suffering to fallen humanity over the course of history. A God that would command us "to do justice and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God" is the One who has demonstrated the supreme example of both justice and mercy to usward. I am trusting that all my grandchildren, both living and dead, were and are His to use in whatever way brings Him the most glory.

 

[makesends]

John 3:18. Since no one is born believing in the name of Jesus, that's a potential problem for the age-of-accountability position. However, if your son's four-year-old believes in Jesus enough to have someone check on his home after any rapture then I submit he has more faith than many much older Christians and, since he's four, it's possibly not his little flesh that is driving that inquiry. It could be a fleshly fear of abandonment or a spiritual longing for his heavenly Father (or something else).

The honest, forthcoming answer is no one knows. what happens to the fetus, the newborn, the cognitively impaired, or the very young. Maybe, just maybe, God has seen fit, by grace, to make some unstated accommodation for those not sufficiently cognizant of the meanings of words (although I am not sure why that would hinder the almighty Holy Spirit of God) and simply not included it in His revelation but maybe not. The fact is the Bible is predominantly concerned with the faculties of adults. It is, therefore a bit of a red herring to even ask about young children.

You have a point about the question being a red herring, but I prefer to think of it as a mistaken question. Not that I know anything about it either, but there is a lot we claim the Bible doesn't say, that I bet you it does say and to which we are blind.

But Romans 1 says that they KNEW God. I'm wondering if a child at birth is aware of things they later are not. My son once told me when he could barely talk, matter-of-factly that he saw Jesus. I asked him what Jesus was like, and he said something like, "bright" or "shiny". I don't think he was old enough to get that off a picture, or had even been exposed to such pictures. He might even have said something about talking to Jesus--I don't remember.

There's a lot going on we don't know.

This hypothetic is a greater problem for synergism because monergism does not require intellectual assent prior to regeneration. It teaches regeneration precedes faith (and any profession thereof). The saved were selected by God from the pool of universal sinners before any of them were born so many a four-year-old could be saved unawares to themselves or their parents. God has mercy on whom He has mercy and that does not depend on the willing or the running of the one who is shown mercy.

Amen that!

Someone should correct the four-year-old's eschatology, though, because a separated rapture is not a thing. Life has enough challenges for a four-year-old without the fear mongered by rapturism.

Just saying.

Yep. Haunted me until I came upon monergism. But even when I did come upon monergism, the fear being dissuaded was not because I no longer thought Jesus' return was not immanent, but because I realized my spiritual condition at that point --my eternal destiny-- no longer depended on me.

Btw, my son professed Christ at age 6 and appears to still be held fast at age 27.
.

Mine is 41, I think. He has gone liberal, and is mad at God for all the pain and suffering in this world. He claims to believe in some kind of philosophy where, as I understand it, God is not relevant to anything practical. He had professed Christ very young, but I'm guessing it was just ignorant words to comply with evangelical correctness.

 

[fastfredy0]

Btw, my son professed Christ at age 6 and appears to still be held fast at age 27.

Excellent ... and a source of comfort for you. My 2 sons "appear" to be among the elect also ... and I "appear" to be among the elect.
I like you choice of the word "appear".

 

[EarlyActs]

How so?

1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 ESV
For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. [16] For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. [17] Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

The ones here are meeting the ones already there. Mt 27 tells us how they got there already.

The parts of the letter on this were to answer how this could be: how do people alive now join the ones already there and the ones who die between now and then?

 

[Josheb]

Excellent ... and a source of comfort for you. My 2 sons "appear" to be among the elect also ... and I "appear" to be among the elect.
I like you choice of the word "appear".

I am not the judge or anyone's eternal disposition. I worded the matter as "still held fast," and not "still holding fast," because ti is not up to him (or me). If almighty God has laid hold of a man then nothing can wrest him from that grip.

 

[Josheb]

There's a lot going on we don't know.

Certainly, but we form sound thought, doctrine or practice based on the known, what has been made known, not the unknown.

...............I realized my spiritual condition at that point --my eternal destiny-- no longer depended on me.

Exactly.

That is why I consider any viewpoint couched in the fetal/newborn/child's knowledge or lack thereof a red herring. What a person (young or old) knows, wills, and does is irrelevant unto after God has regenerated the individual, brought them from death to life (dead in sin to alive in Christ). When Jesus says God can make descendants of Abraham out of rocks I suspect he meant God can make sons of promise or sons of perdition. It's not up to the rock.

Mine is 41, I think. He has gone liberal..

I sympathize. I've got one still professing Christianity but also raging against the patriarchy .

Trusting God because it's not up to me .

 

[prism]

The parts of the letter on this were to answer how this could be: how do people alive now join the ones already there and the ones who die between now and then?

I would take it rather to stir them up to readiness...
1 Thessalonians 5:6-8 KJV
Therefore, let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. [7] For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. [8] But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

The ones here are meeting the ones already there. Mt 27 tells us how they got there already.

Which of the 66 verses?
If you mean the death of Christ, I have an aversion to allegorizing, especially concerning prophecy. Perhaps it would be more believable if you were inferring Christ's resurrection.

 

[EarlyActs]

I would take it rather to stir them up to readiness...
1 Thessalonians 5:6-8 KJV
Therefore, let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. [7] For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. [8] But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

Which of the 66 verses?
If you mean the death of Christ, I have an aversion to allegorizing, especially concerning prophecy. Perhaps it would be more believable if you were inferring Christ's resurrection.

There was an earthquake at the moment of the death of Christ and many ancient saints were raised from death and were seen in the city.

 

[prism]

There was an earthquake at the moment of the death of Christ and many ancient saints were raised from death and were seen in the city.

Actually, it was after His resurrection not after His death...

Matthew 27:53 KJV
And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

I can't explain that one, can you?

 

[3 Resurrections]

Matthew 27:53 KJV
And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

I can't explain that one, can you?

That was "the first resurrection", as found in Rev. 20:5 - the "remnant of the dead" which "lived again" when the millennium was finished.
They were also the 144,000 First-fruits of Rev. 14, standing with the Lamb on Mount Zion, the temple in Jerusalem, that day in AD 33.

 

[EarlyActs]

Actually, it was after His resurrection not after His death...

Matthew 27:53 KJV
And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

I can't explain that one, can you?

The natural grammar sense of v52 is that they came out at his death because of the earthquake. But the difficult connection is why mention coming out again at his resurrection. Maybe they didn't go into the city until after the resurrection; I have not check the grammatical attachment of that.

There are many passages about things that took place in the 3 days, under the earth, preaching to those who died in the cataclysm, those in captivity. For ex., I Peter 3, Eph 4, a psalm about the cities under the earth. Rom 10 speaks of descending below everything, like Phil 2, and then being raised above everything. It sounds there like an unbelievable thing, but the person of faith realizes it is what Christ would have done.