To be held accountable for sin, you must first be conscious of sin

To be held accountable for sin, you must first be conscious of sin

We have a number of explicit statements made by Jesus Christ Himself which provide us clear teaching concerning the issue of those who are accountable for sin. Note what He says and this has bearing in fact on the question of whether small children are sinless or not. It is quite important to read all of John 9 first to reach this text:

“Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” 40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.” (John 9:39-41 ESV)

Note what this text shows. It teaches that if a person did not have prior knowledge about spiritual matters, he or she would not be held accountable for the things that he or she had no knowledge of.

There is another text given by the Lord Jesus Christ, which we have to add to this one above which helps clarify our assertion here. It is also found in the Gospel of John. Note what Jesus says here once again about those people who would not be held accountable for things that they did not themselves know:

“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” (John 15:22 ESV)

These teachings are clear. Unless spiritual knowledge, wisdom and specific information about God’s will and plan, judgment, etc. are known to a person, God does not hold those people accountable for something that they don’t know. This is really obvious when a reasonable person carefully studies the Bible and thinks through how God, who is the exponent of love, really operates.

This matter definitely also applies to small children who have no knowledge of any of God's teachings (or in most cases of even of the most basic ideas of what being a grown human area all about) who pass away before their times.