Hi Homer,
Sorry about you getting cut off in the middle of our conversation yesterday on the air. Maybe we can finish the conversation today, if the equipment will cooperate (I think it is the lousy internet service here in Kona).
You wrote:
As I understand your personal testimony, you became a Christian in your youth, seemingly while having not yet reached the age of accountability. So how could you personally have ever been a "child of wrath"?
I think you and I both share a belief that we are not guilty of Adam's sin, nor any of our own until we reach an age of accountability. Rather than using you as an example, let me use my late sister. She was a good kid, and very much a follower of Christ - a good example of what it means to be a Christian. At the age of twelve, she was baptized into Christ, and was faithful unto death. I would certainly consider a twelve year old as having not reached the age of accountability. Could she have ever been "a child of wrath" or does the "age of accountabily" theory have holes in it?
I agree with you about this. I believe there is an age of accountability, and that before that age is reached, one is not under God's wrath. When Paul told the Ephesians that they (and he) had formerly been "children of wrath," he was obviously considering primarily adult converts, like himself and the heathen Ephesians.
When I say "we (even when I say "you and I") were children of wrath," I am speaking generically about Christians before conversion—without suggesting that all of us were actually recipients of wrath, since many have been Christians from a young age. Peter used "we" and "our past lifetime" this way with his readers, in speaking about formerly "doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in...abominable idolatries"(1 Peter 4:3). As a Jew, I am sure that he had never lived in the Gentile manner, and had never participated in idolatry, but most of his readers had, so he included himself editorially. I usually speak the same way.
In fact, I am not sure that my conversion in childhood was genuine. There were evidences of genuine spiritual concern thereafter, but I would still be willing to listen to an argument that I was not reborn until age 16, when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit. However, looking back, I truly did trust Christ prior to that—at least to the degree that He had been presented to me—so God only knows. I feel safe in speculating that I could have been less-than-saved in some of the adolescent years prior to age 16, but I cannot say. It just seems reasonable (and perhaps more modest) to include myself with others in statements about former pre-Christian conditions. I may not technically have been a "child of wrath," but I certainly had some motives, attitudes and behaviors that were displeasing to God, and not worthy of being called Christian.
