[12/03/19]
Before I leave the immediate topic of the nature of sin, there remains the matter of inheritance, or what may be spoken of as generational sin. This is the idea that the sins of the father pass to the son, or more generically, the sins of the parents pass to the children. This is a subject which I must admit I am inclined to dismiss out of hand, but that would be inappropriate. What is needed is care. There is sufficient cause in Scripture to support the idea that parental practice has a marked influence on the child.
Indeed, it’s not merely parental practice. We could count spousal practice as well. This morning’s Table Talk brought up the example of Solomon, who married some ridiculous number of women and kept even more on the side, and many of these were women of pagan origin and pagan practice. It was not, as the article took pains to note, a matter of inter-racial marriage being forbidden. It was not simply that these women were not Jewish. It was that their practice, their active practice, in regard to religion continued to be that of their forebears. I suppose we could argue that they indeed inherited the sins of their sires, but it could as easily be said they were products of their societies. This really isn’t the point. The point is their impact on Solomon, the one of whom God caused it to be observed that never was there one before or after him who surpassed him in wisdom – Christ obviously excluded.
So, what happened to this man of great wisdom? We could start by asking what he was doing with so many wives, but that seems to have been more common than one might expect at the time. The numbers may be larger than normal, even for royalty of that time and region, and the choice of foreign, pagan women may have been particularly egregious, but it’s neither the number nor the origins that cause issue. It’s the idolatry. Once again, sexual enticement and idolatry are found working together, and the power of that combined temptation led Solomon – Solomon! - to start erecting idols along with those wives of his, and it wasn’t just the Asherah poles. Solomon the wise caused an idol to be built for Moloch. The very idea of Moloch, with the demand of child sacrifice, your own child burnt alive on the rim of his altar, is so abhorrent we struggle to accept that such a thing could ever have been done, even as we watch it play out again in the abortion clinics that pollute the land. But, that this wise, God-gifted leader of God’s people should himself have helped to establish the practice? It goes beyond the unthinkable. It wanders into the realm of impossibility. How can this be? How is it even possible, that this man, whose wisdom was so profound, who had been raised by David, the man after God’s own heart, could sink so low as to even consider doing this, let alone go through with it?
I see no choice but to conclude that the sins of the spouse passed to the husband. This is not so unimaginable, is it? How much would we willingly forgive or overlook in our spouse? How many a wife has been left to pursue her preferences in all manner of things, even in matters of faith, with little to no instruction or aid from her husband? How many husbands and wives pursue their separate courses in faith, all the while insisting that they share faith in common? Yet, the outsider, looking at their constituent beliefs, would wonder how they could suppose they pursue the same God. Worse still, what husband, what wife, will long withstand the tolerated error of their partner without in some way absorbing that error?
The great danger of world views is that they so saturate and infiltrate our awareness as to be all but unavoidable in their influence. We can be very much aware of the falsehood and yet absorb it. We can think we are battling the error with great diligence only to discover, much to our surprise, that the very error we have been battling has in fact been shaping our own views. It takes utmost diligence, and beyond that, the intervening power of God Most High to protect us from falling headlong into the most egregious of sins. We are never so far from joining Solomon and his wives in vilest idolatry as we would like to suppose.
[12/04/19]
What of the influence of parents on their children? Here there is cause both for hope and for trepidation, for parents do indeed influence their children greatly, but to often, that influence is a matter not of the intentional efforts to inform and instruct, but rather the accidental effect of example alone. We know too well how much we can see our own parents in ourselves. It’s not just the physical appearances that mark us out as their progeny, but also the habits, the quirks of behavior, as well as the customs. As concerns sin and righteousness, these are both, at least in part, influenced by our parental inheritance. We might even say they are our parental inheritance.
We have already seen this in part in that the sin of Adam passes to all. There it was a matter of Adam’s federal headship, but it is not solely the sin of Adam that marks us out as sinners. We have our own sins to account for. We cannot claim that Adam misrepresented us. No, in his unwillingness to obey, he represents us all to well. Is this, then, generational sin? Not as that term tends to be meant, no. It is not that we inherited this sin from our forebears and are all but helpless before it. Our sins are our own sins, and we have no avenue by which to offload our guilt onto those who came before. That, I observe, is symptomatic of today’s society, and I think we must put it down to those who teach the children being so keen to push their own guilt off on another. Thus, they teach their charges to do the same. It’s never my fault. The fault is ever outside of me. See, I would have been innocent were it not for these outside forces conniving against me. And so, the sinner sounds the same in his guilt as any criminal imprisoned for his crimes. It wasn’t me, judge. Okay, it was me, but it wasn’t my idea. They made me do it. Any parent has heard this at some point. Why did you do this, little one? So and so made me do it.
Generational sin as propounded is just another attempt to deflect personal responsibility onto another. Of course I practice this sin. How could I not? My father was like this, and therefore I am like this, and there’s really nothing I can do about it. Well, here is a partial truth at best. Yes, it may well be that your father was like this. It may even be that his father before him was like this. That doesn’t, however, render the situation inevitable. It very likely renders it more probable, but grandfather, father, and son are alike responsible for their own choices. Grandfather, father, and son alike could have chosen, and if alive still can choose, another course.
We have to balance the idea, to keep it in line with Scripture’s message. As we follow the generations Moses shows us, we do see something of a generational slide. Cain leads to Lamech. Cain slew his brother in a fit of jealous anger, anger against God, really, but Abel was the means of Cain’s rebellion. Oh, you like his sacrifice better? Well, let’s sacrifice him then. No, it is not described in these terms, but you can sense the thinking. At any rate, Lamech took that sense of vengefulness from his forebear. Hear his proud boast. “I have killed a man for wounding me. I have killed a boy for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold” (Ge 4:23-24). This fifth generation son was determined to demonstrate that he had surpassed his forebear, and he sought it in the way that had impressed itself upon him by that forebear’s example. Clearly, vengeance was important to Cain, and it seems that sense of avenging every least slight passed through the generations to arrive at Lamech. We don’t know that it necessarily infected every generation along the way, but neither was it defeated by righteous example along the way.
Enoch, son of Cain (not the one who was no more), built a city which he named for himself. Apparently, his name was rather important to him. But, Lamech boasts of his vengeance against those who could not really harm him. He killed the one who wounded him. That one had already proven insufficient to truly harm him, but Lamech would not suffer the slight. A boy, one clearly and obviously of inferior development and ability, landed a punch apparently, the reasons behind it aren’t considered, only the effect, and what was Lamech’s response? Vengeance! Kill the lad. That’ll teach him. And now, it seems from the setting, news of this vengefulness that defines him is boldly proclaimed to his wives, and why? We are not told, but the sense of it would seem to be to cow them into submission, to ensure they thought twice about two-timing him, though by the very nature of his having two wives, he was clearly two-timing them both, and quite possibly contemplating other relationships he could pursue. But, let them watch out, lest they ire this vengeful husband of theirs.
By the same token, we see the line of Seth leading us eventually to Noah. A different set of lesson were learned, a different set of behaviors and beliefs instilled. These were not the line of perfect men, no, but they were the line of generations who recognized the Lord and sought in their imperfections to obey Him as best they could, at least for the most part.
By the time of the exile, we see that Israel had fully absorbed this idea of inevitability, and even began to see injustice in the results. Here were a people pretty fully fallen into sin and sin’s consequences. They had hungered for a king like those of the surrounding nations, and had become all but indistinguishable from those surrounding nations. They who had known God as their king, had taken to pursuing the gods of their neighbors. In all honesty, so far as we can discern, that never stopped. They had their household idols when they were but few, and they had their habits learned from Egypt. As they drew near to the Promised Land, rather than celebrate the victory of God, they took up with the local temple prostitutes, and began, even before they made it across the Jordan, to play the harlot with these foreign gods. It just never stopped. It still hasn’t. And we are no better.
Is it generational sin? Are we trapped in an inheritance we can’t disown? No. We may very well suffer the disadvantage of poor parenting, and poor example, but I think we can safely say that even had we had better parents, and better training, yet we would be sinners, and we would be sinners with our own sins to account for. Our sins might have been different, but they would be no less sinful for all that.
Consider this message that both Jeremiah, leading up to the exile, and Ezekiel, seeking to keep valid hope alive amongst the exiles, deliver. “In those days they will not say again, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’” (Jer 31:29). You see the deflection. It’s my father’s fault. I’m suffering for his sins. It’s all just so unfair. Indeed, if this is how God treats His own, why should I be bothered to follow Him? I can tell you that when churches fall out, or parents find it needful to depart one congregation for another, not due to relocation, but due to disagreement, this is largely what the children of those parents conclude. If this is how God’s people treat each other, I want nothing to do with God. But God and God’s people are in fact two very different things. The action of the people has become an excuse. It is not the cause of that child’s sin, no. The child is cause enough for his own sin. But it sure makes a convenient excuse. It’s not so different from Cain and Abel. Cain would have found cause to rebel. If it had not been the acceptance of Abel’s sacrifice, it would have been something else.
So, Jeremiah continues. “But everyone will die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge” (Jer 31:30). You see what has transpired. The people have developed this comfortable myth to assuage their clear sense of guilt. It’s not my fault. It’s these parents you gave me. It’s this God you keep telling me about. He did it. He’s guilty. No, child. God is guilty of nothing. Your punishment comes for your own crimes. There may be ever so much history of guilt in the family tree, but none of that required that you follow in their footsteps.
Consider even Abraham. As we are told his origin story, it’s not one of righteousness. He’s an idolater, and a son of idolaters. He may even have been amongst the priesthood of this idolatrous people, although that, I think, is unclear. But God called him to come away, apart from this pagan family and its influences and follow Him alone. It has to be said that Abraham’s obedience to this was partial, but yet it was obedience. Nor was it an easy course God set for him. He would be tested, and that both repeatedly and severely. But God was with him. Abraham believed, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham broke free of the familial inheritance to begin a new family. He did not do this in his own power, but neither did he do it apart from his own will and effort. He did change the family course, and we might say he shook off the family curse. But that would require that we accept that there was a family curse to shake off. There is one curse that matters, and that is the covenantal curse of God.
What we see in Jeremiah is that what was coming upon the people of Judah was coming upon them for their own sins. They had knowingly done that which must bring down the covenantal curse of God, and God being righteous and true, could really do no other than to visit that curse upon these miscreants. They could not rightly suggest that the punishment was unjust, that what was happening to this generation was fallout from what prior generations had done. Oh, no. “Everyone will die for his own iniquity.” Come back to that message of the ubiquitous spread of sin in mankind, “For all have sinned,” and things are bleak indeed. Everyone will die, and every one of them for his own iniquity.
[12/05/19]
Ezekiel develops the theme more fully. More properly, God develops that theme through Ezekiel. We are alerted to this by the introduction. “Then the word of the LORD came to me” (Eze 18:1). And what did the LORD wish to say to His people “What do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, ‘The fathers eat sour grapes, but the children’s teeth are set on edge’? As I live, you are surely not going to use this proverb in Israel anymore. Behold! All souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine. The soul who sins will die. But if a man is righteous and practices justice and righteousness, and does not eat at the mountain shrines or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, or defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman during her menstrual period – if a man does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, does not commit robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry and cover the naked with clothing, if he does not lend on interest or take increase, if he keeps his hand from iniquity and executes true justice between man and man, if he walks in My statutes and My ordinances so as to deal faithfully – he is righteous and will surely live” (Eze 18:2-9). God doesn’t stop there. He observes occasions where father and son differ in practice. Say this one who is declared righteous has a son who breaks every tenet of righteousness, will that one live? “He will not live! He has committed all these abominations, he will surely be put to death; his blood will be on his own head” (Eze 18:10-13). Now, He continues, suppose that one has a son who sees his father’s deeds for what they are, and commits himself do doing what is right. “He will not die for his father’s iniquity, he will surely live” (Eze 18:14-17). The sum of it is plain and simple. “The person who sins will die” (Eze 18:20a). He even reverses the ostensible inheritance to make this as clear as can be. The son will not die for the father’s sins. Neither will the father die for the son’s sins.
The message continues, but for our purposes, I think the point sufficiently made. Whatever it is that may be attributed to generational inheritance it is no excuse for the present generation, and it most assuredly is not an unavoidable outcome. This cuts both ways as concerns the generations. The child cannot point to his bad parents as excusing his own evil ways, even if they should be identical. Neither can the child lay claim to righteousness on the basis of his parentage. It is either his own righteousness or it does not apply.
Now, as a parent, I need to hear that reverse linkage broken. The child’s rejection of the way of righteousness is not a charge of sin against the parent. Now, if the parent has given no regard to righteousness himself, nor trained up that child as best he may in the fear and admonition of the Lord, then that is indeed a sin, and a failure to obey the counsel of the Lord. But if it is the case that the parents have done their best to raise the child right, and that child still persists in pursuing evil, hear what God has said in this message. It is not the parents’ sin that has caused this, and the outcome is no sin of the parents. They are not going to be accounted guilty by the Lord simply because their child went astray in spite their best efforts. In this I hear the answer to the often heard question, “Where did we go wrong?” We didn’t. That’s not to say we didn’t make mistakes. We’re parents and we’re sinful, fallen beings in spite of our redemption. We made plentiful mistakes. But those mistakes don’t automatically count as cause for the child-borne effect. Environment has its part, but it’s not the whole of the outcome. That child chose his own course, and will bear his own sins.
This, then, is where I find myself coming down on the subject of generational sin. Parent of course have an impact on the development of their children, although I would suggest that the larger impact is had by the unintended example than by the intentional effort of instruction. That may be because we have largely offloaded the intentional effort to others, which borders on being criminal given the present state of affairs in education. But that’s a separate subject. I will simply say this. How we can hand off our children to the instruction of ungodly sinners and expect it to result in godly children is a mystery to me. If our goal is to train up our children to hold a worldview like our own, it is a goal both of instruction and indoctrination. That is our goal. It is also the goal of the educational system, and as things stand they have far more time and energy to give to the task than do the parents. They have the children in their charge, freed of parental involvement for the best part of the day, and assign work to take home, thereby occupying a larger portion of the child’s time, and thereby preventing to some degree parental involvement in the shaping of that child, except it be to shape that child to the school’s preferred worldview. The seriousness of this cannot be overstressed. Fear not the idea of indoctrination, for one way or the other that child will be indoctrinated into some way of perceiving the world around him and his place in it. Rather, recognize the reality and choose to indoctrinate with a real view of the world, and equip that child with the tools to think, to learn, and to recognize the false worldviews on offer, that he may stand fast in the evil day.
That is, after all, the inheritance we must surely wish for our children, that they may be found standing righteous before the Lord in the last day, even as we have sure hope for ourselves. We cannot guarantee it, nor need we feel guilt for their choices if our efforts fail them. There is comfort in knowing that our children, like ourselves, are in God’s hands. If it is His desire that they be saved, then there is no doubt but that they shall be saved. However much we may have fallen short in our efforts to raise them right, they shall be saved. If, on the other hand, it is not His desire that they be saved, then no amount of effort on our part is going to change that. Neither is the outcome a thing we can rightly mourn, for if this is God’s purpose, it is good, whatever we may think of it personally. It is good and He is being glorified by it, and that can never be cause for mourning amongst those who worship God.
We must understand this. “Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked, rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?” (Eze 18:23). The clear answer to that is no. “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Hear now! Is My way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right?” (Eze 18:25). “Therefore I will judge you, each according to his conduct. Repent and turn away from all your transgressions, so that iniquity may not become a stumbling block to you. Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die? I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies. Therefore, repent and live” (Eze 18:29-32). Stop making excuse and repent. Stop looking to shift the blame. Stop thinking somebody else’s deeds explain your own. Own your sin and repent of it. No excuses, no deflections, no weasel words.
I observe as a final point here that God is not to be charged with any wrongdoing here. He did not force the sinner to choose to sin. Notice how this developed. It wasn’t enough to blame the parent for one’s own sins. It went farther. God must be to blame. His way is not right. What He is doing to us in this exile is unjust. Oh dear, now you’ve stepped in it. God is Justice. To think you can accuse Him of injustice is already injustice. To lay the blame for your choice to sin upon Him, or to pretend that you have no sin and the punishment you suffer is for somebody else’s misdeeds is already injustice. Adam tried it. “It’s this woman YOU gave me.” See God? It’s your fault, not mine. Eve tried it. “It’s this serpent YOU created.” It’s your fault, not mine. But observe the just justice of God: Each participant in that crime was punished for his or her own sins. Adam, Eve, and serpent alike sinned. Adam, Eve, and serpent alike bore the punishment of sin. Now, here’s a stunner: Adam, Even, and serpent alike could yet repent and turn away from all their transgressions and live. I would suggest to you that two out of three did. I would insist that if indeed they did so, they live, even though their bodies are millennia in the grave, and in fact by now fully returned to dust.
How then ought we to live? We ought to live intentionally. We ought to live a life of repentance, for we know too well that we yet live a life of sin. We ought to live a life that trends toward holiness, not fooling ourselves into supposing we have arrived at that goal, but neither sliding into laxness in the battle against sin. We ought to recognize that we are in fact in a battle against spiritual forces of darkness, and that we serve the Lord of Light. We ought to take our parental roles, whether literal or figurative, as serious matters to be pursued with utmost intentionality. That means we avail ourselves of every opportunity to instruct, to exhort, to admonish, to comfort. That also means we seek to live in such a way that our example matches our exhortation. We strive to live according to the ideal which is the Law of God. We fail, but we strive. We confess our failures, but we don’t give up. We are pressed down, but not crushed, and we demonstrate in all we do, success and failure alike, that any good in us is due solely and exclusively to the goodness of God Who abides in us. In Him we live, and move, and have our being (Ac 17:28). That being the case, the fruit of His abiding presence must grow, and the weeds of sin must wither. We fall down, but we get up again, to borrow from the song of a few years back. We get up again, and by the grace of God, we stand. We have naught to boast of but Christ. We have naught to teach of but Christ, and Him crucified.
