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Theology
Age of Accountability
What is “Age of Accountability”
This concept holds that infants, rather young children, and the mentally handicap are under grace and will inherit eternal life if they were to die. (The age and mental capabilities determining this point are thus subjective and indeterminable–although some will supply an objective age).
False or Inadequate Explanations
These false views are not really involved in the purpose of this article, thus, I am not going to much time on their claims nor why they are incorrect views. I am simply going to list these alternative ideas so to give a better understanding of the true view as by comparison with these false views.
A rather popular idea among sacramentalists is that original sin is wiped away by the sacrament of baptism. Thus if a baby dies before being baptized the child will go to hell, but if baptized before death he, the child will go to heaven as a result of baptism. This is a false, man-made tradition that is nowhere taught in the Bible. Baptism is that which believers do in obedience to God’s commandment. It is done after salvation and is a symbol of our baptism in death and resurrection with Christ (Romans 6:4).
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God and Hell
Hell for many is an uncomfortable topic. We typically focus on attributes of God such as His love and mercy, but less and less on His holiness, justice, and yes, I’ll say it, wrath. The issue I would like to discuss here is God’s relationship to hell.
I often feel that contemporary Christianity has a distorted view on hell in relation to God. Allow me to lay out some basic truths regarding God’s relation to hell and the damned.
First off, God does not delight in the damnation of souls. He does not enjoy condemning individuals to hell. This is one truth that most do accept and hardly any misunderstand.
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Believers as the Temple of God
In verses 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:19, and 2 Corinthians 6:16 Paul uses the Old Testament temple as a metaphor for believers. What this metaphor conveys is the comparison of our New Testament worship to that of the Old Testament. The Levitical law required sacrifices. However, now our worship demands a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1), a sacrifice of our lives. The Old Testament worship was centered on locality and the temple building. However, now worship is in spirit and in truth and no longer based on such externals such as location and buildings (John 4:20-24). And finally, just as the Shekinah glory dwelt within the temple, now the same presence of God, the Holy Spirit, dwells within us (1 Corinthians 6:19). And just as the Shekinah glory was the visible presence of God at the temple or tabernacle, so the presence of God should be visible in our lives (i.e., “the fruit of the Spirit,” Gal 5:22-23).
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Theology v. Unity: Some Thoughts on Unity
Some recent events in the “world of Christianity” have provoked some thoughts in my mind. I will get to those thoughts in a moment, but first allow me to give some background.
Growing up I always felt that there was way too much division in the church. Now by “division” I mean both in local churches and the universal Church. I grew up with a very interesting “religious” background. Growing up I was shifted through vatrious denominations as I had parents who were really trying to figure things out for themselves. Experiencing so many “flavors” of Christianity (besides making me very discerning) made me very anti-denominationalistic. Further, my senior year of high school the church I was attended, a church my family was heavily involved in, had a split, a breakup, or whatever else you’d like to call it. This was a devastating time for me but also a time that God used for extreme spiritual growth in my life. I was very upset at the adults of that church for acting so unbiblical and immature (especially since the split wasn’t even over some doctrinal issue). But this frustration sparked in me a desire to search the scriptures to discover for myself what the church was really all about and what the church should look like biblically. I’ll stop there, because this is not intended to be a biography in anyway; but those two factors, my encounters with various denominations and beliefs growing up as well as the church split, had an extreme effect on my view of unity.
Kirk E. Miller 