Is there a moment when humans become morally accountable before God for their individual and personal willful rebellion?
In what way does God hold all accountable for Adam's sin or does he?
Is there a God established age when humans become accountable? The short paragraph below this player attempts to succinctly describe Berean's pastors stand on this issue. In this audio recording Pastor Bill Sturm (http://billthereasoner.blogspot.com/) and I discuss these questions and many more.
Age of Accountability:
We deny that the Bible explicitly teaches a specific age of accountability for all. We do believe that Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden (Gen 2-3); that he was spiritually separated from God and experienced "death" in this regard (Gen 2:17); that the record of human history is that “in Adam all die” (Gen 5; 1 Cor 15:22); and that all men sinned in Adam (Rom 5:12-13).
Scripture shows Adam, the natural head of all sinful human beings, as the picture of Christ Who is the head of all who have believed on Christ for salvation (Rom 5:1; Rom 5:14-19). Consequently, just as those who wish to have Christ’s life must choose to “repent and believe the Gospel” (Mark 1:15), so also those who are doomed to Adam’s spiritual death (Gen 2:17) must first choose to disobey and thus become "morally accountable" (Deut 1:39; Isa 7:15-16; Jonah 4:11; Rom 2:15-16; Eph 2:1-3).
Moreover, when a person of any age becomes able to discern good from evil and subsequently rebels against God (as all in Adam do; Rom 5:12), they are, at that moment, morally accountable (Rom 6:23), spiritually dead (Gen 2:17; Rom 7:9; James 1:14-15), and "without excuse" (Rom 1:18-20). It is at this time that they become truly in need of faith in a Savior (1 Tim 4:10; Titus 2:11).
Both the sentence of Adam's sin and the righteousness of Christ's obedience are imputed (applied to the account of) to the morally accountable agents at the points of their initial "discernment of good and evil" and belief in Christ's redemptive work (the Gospel) respectively (John 3:18, 36).
