Bible: To what extent does ignorance equate to innocence?

[Dave...]

" for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; "( Romans 3:23 ). <------That includes infants.

All have sinned and fallen short of God's righteous standards. Yes.

" For [there is] not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not." ( Ecclesiastes 7:20 ).

" Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?
2 Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." ( Psalms 58:1-3 ). <--- Here the Lord gives us a glimpse of what mankind is really like, in our hearts and immediately following our birth.

Seem harsh?
Remember Dave, this is God speaking, not men.

The natural path of our sinful nature. Obviously, a point is being made here. Babies don't speak coming straight out of the womb. That would be funny though: "Dang, what the..." "It's cold out here!" "It's the doctors fault" <---- The lies.

If you hold to reading these passages literally without regard for the context or the point being made, then you must also conclude that Ecclesiastes 7:20 above only applies to men, not to women, children, or infants.

 

[Dave...]

No, my friend, we should not take just the last half of the passage at what appears to be face value, because the Lord has much more to tell us about our supposed innocence than just what appears to be in the above.

Also, are you aware of why I bolded in red what I did?
Because I see the Lord telling us why He came, and He does so in a not-so-straightforward manner...
To me, He means that His reason for coming to Israel was for judgement;
So that those who do not "see" Him may indeed "see" Him ( His elect, both Jew and Gentile ), and that those who claim to see Him ( those of national Israel, not elect but still responsible ), may be made blind.

It's a pronouncement of judgement upon disobedient Israel, and how their religious leaders all claimed to see and know God...
But in reality were blinded to their own ignorance of Him.
They thought they were God's people by reason of their physical lineage from Abraham and their supposed obedience to the Law of Moses...
Instead of being God's spiritual children by His own choice and His granting them repentance and the new birth ( Psalm 65:4 ).

In the end, Israel as a nation is responsible for all of their disobedient history towards God,
Even though few of them, a remnant, would be saved by God.
Why?
Because they still promised God that they would follow the precepts of the Law at Mount Sinai, and they then proceeded to willfully disobey all of it in the centuries to come.


Thus, even though He makes both vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy, loves Jacob and hates Esau, God holds the nation responsible...
and He does so knowing their hearts and minds.

I think of it as willful blindness confirmed. Kind of like hypocritical judgment. We admit that we know better by judging others and can no longer claim ignorance.