Does a father's sin carry over to his children?

[michelle]

From what I understand from the Gospels, Jews believed that the sins of parents could be carried over into their children, right? "And his disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'" John 9:2 (ESV)

I came across a couple of verses that I feel are a little confusing because I think one verse says one thing about this and the other says something different. I understand that God is talking about 2 different situations, which might explain some of it, but I can't wrap my head around the discrepancy.

1) Deut 24:16 "Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin." (ESV)

2) Deut 23:2-3 "No one born of a forbidden union may enter the assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD. No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the LORD forever,because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you."

I guess it seems a little odd to me that in scenario 1, each person is accountable for his/her own actions. However, in scenario 2, a son/daughter may be held accountable for their parents' actions. Perhaps that is because the 2nd scenario has to do with impurities in the bloodline or something, I'm not sure. Anybody have any input?

[Josh]

Good conundrum. Let's complicate the matter further before we look for some possible resolution.

Joshua 7:24-26

24 Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold wedge, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had, to the Valley of Achor. 25 Joshua said, "Why have you brought this trouble on us? The LORD will bring trouble on you today."
Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them. 26 Over Achan they heaped up a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. Then the LORD turned from his fierce anger. Therefore that place has been called the Valley of Achor ever since.

Here's an instance that seems in flat contradiction to your first Deuteronomy verse. Achan's family are killed for his own personal sin (at least as far as we know). How does that square with the principle that children should not be killed for their fathers sin?

[Josh]

Part of the answer (I think) is found in a very important passage of Scripture related to this topic. It's qutie long, but I think it's good to post it here rather than just reference it:

Ezekiel 18

Ezekiel 18
The Soul Who Sins Will Die
1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 "What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel:
" 'The fathers eat sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge'?
3 "As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. 4 For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son—both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die.

5 "Suppose there is a righteous man
who does what is just and right.

6 He does not eat at the mountain shrines
or look to the idols of the house of Israel.
He does not defile his neighbor's wife
or lie with a woman during her period.

7 He does not oppress anyone,
but returns what he took in pledge for a loan.
He does not commit robbery
but gives his food to the hungry
and provides clothing for the naked.

8 He does not lend at usury
or take excessive interest.
He withholds his hand from doing wrong
and judges fairly between man and man.

9 He follows my decrees
and faithfully keeps my laws.
That man is righteous;
he will surely live,
declares the Sovereign LORD.

10 "Suppose he has a violent son, who sheds blood or does any of these other things 11 (though the father has done none of them):
"He eats at the mountain shrines.
He defiles his neighbor's wife.

12 He oppresses the poor and needy.
He commits robbery.
He does not return what he took in pledge.
He looks to the idols.
He does detestable things.

13 He lends at usury and takes excessive interest.
Will such a man live? He will not! Because he has done all these detestable things, he will surely be put to death and his blood will be on his own head.

14 "But suppose this son has a son who sees all the sins his father commits, and though he sees them, he does not do such things:

15 "He does not eat at the mountain shrines
or look to the idols of the house of Israel.
He does not defile his neighbor's wife.

16 He does not oppress anyone
or require a pledge for a loan.
He does not commit robbery
but gives his food to the hungry
and provides clothing for the naked.

17 He withholds his hand from sin [c]
and takes no usury or excessive interest.
He keeps my laws and follows my decrees.
He will not die for his father's sin; he will surely live. 18 But his father will die for his own sin, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother and did what was wrong among his people.

19 "Yet you ask, 'Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?' Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. 20 The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.

21 "But if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die. 22 None of the offenses he has committed will be remembered against him. Because of the righteous things he has done, he will live. 23 Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?

24 "But if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked man does, will he live? None of the righteous things he has done will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness he is guilty of and because of the sins he has committed, he will die.

25 "Yet you say, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' Hear, O house of Israel: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust? 26 If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin, he will die for it; because of the sin he has committed he will die. 27 But if a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life. 28 Because he considers all the offenses he has committed and turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die. 29 Yet the house of Israel says, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' Are my ways unjust, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust?

30 "Therefore, O house of Israel, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. 31 Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!

That's all for now... I'll post some more later, but it would be awesome to get some input from others now that we've got the relevant passages on the table (there are probably others as well).

[Josh]

So, let's try to piece some of this together.

On further reflection on the Joshua passage, I think it makes the most sense that Achan's family were accomplices to his crime.

There are a couple other cases I'm aware of in the OT like this that might appear to contradict the principle of Deuteronomy 14:16, but in each of those cases there are extenuating circumstances that help explain the apparent exception.

As an important side note, the passage about "punishing the children for the sins of the fathers" (Exodus 20:5) is best seen in light of these other verses such as Deut. 14:16 as meaning that children are likely to repeat the sins of their fathers and incur the punishment for those sins.

If all this seems confusing, we shouldn't be too surpised because there's a paradox between corporate responsibility and individual responsibility that rings very true in real human experience. The Pentateuch seems to be trying to hold on to both sides of the paradox.

Apparently, the Israelites got a bit confused by all this too, because it was necessary in Ezekiel's day to clarify the issue pretty thoroughly. And, Jesus himself, continued to clarify this paradox.

Lastly, the verse you cited about "exclusion from the assembly of the Lord" (Deut. 23:2-3) is interesting because Ruth was a notable exception to this rule (being a Moabitess) and Ruth was a descendent of David and Christ!

Why was Ruth an exception? Now, that's a good question.

One website had this to say:

"The law prohibited the marriage to a Moabite. The law shut Ruth out but grace took her in."

The author thinks Ruth is a type of the Church, saved by grace and not through the law.

Still, that doesn't explain why the exception was made.

I'm curious if it was possible to disavow your ancestry in the process of converting to Judaism. But I don't have time to research that just now.

[marcus]

Wow, Josh. The simpler answer may have been, "No, and when in doubt, look for theological clarification in the New Testament, which is where our modern understanding of God resides, and utilize the Old Testament as a history of God's relationship with humanity before fulfilling his providence through Christ." But I'm kind of lazy, so your answer is better.

[Alex]

marcus said:

Wow, Josh. The simpler answer may have been, "No, and when in doubt, look for theological clarification in the New Testament, which is where our modern understanding of God resides, and utilize the Old Testament as a history of God's relationship with humanity before fulfilling his providence through Christ." But I'm kind of lazy, so your answer is better.

On a tangent, while I agree the new testament is great for clarifying our understanding of God, I'm not sold on relegating the Old Testament to merely a historical reference. It's the same God before and after the birth of Christ, although our relationship may change - and the OT shows facets of God that are just as real to understanding His nature. How can we read Psalms and Ruth and Lamentations and not draw from it something about who is this God?

Granted some of the OT is more focused on history, but arguably so is Acts but the nature of God is still present within those books.

My € 0.015

[marcus]

I think I need to clarify my statement, which was a little vague (which is why Josh is better at this than I am). I said the NT provides us with our modern understanding of God, not the modern God. He's the same that He's always been, but our understanding of Him has been fully developed through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ that appears in the NT. We understand God much better than the Hebrews (or later the Israelites) did. We have more info.

I would never write off the entire OT as just history. My point is that, when seeking theological clarification on a difficult matter, look to the NT.

When I'm presented with a difficult math problem, I revisit my calculus, algebra, and geometry formulas and principles, not gradeschool arithmetic. What I was taught in fifth grade was true, but it wasn't the entire picture...it excluded concepts that were too advanced for my mind at the time. That doesn't make it irrelevant, it makes it foundational.

But still, when I want answers to difficult math questions, I'm turning to what I learned in high school and college. The NT represents the leave-home-and-head-to-college phase in Israel's development. Some of the depictions of God in the OT are not an accurate reflections of his nature; they are there so we can trace how our understanding of Him (and His revelation to us) unfolded, from a child-like perspective (Israel is forbidden by God from playing with the naughty kids across the street, for instance) to a mature perspective (Christians are called by God to love and serve the naughty kids across the street because they're mature enough to not become naughty themselves).

The classic example is that God allowed Israel to think that the world He created was all about them, and everyone else was secondary. They were the chosen people, the descendants of Adam, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they were His children. Other peoples and countries weren't (or so they thought), a bias that is clear in much of the OT. Then, through the prophets and into the NT, they began to learn that God actually loves everyone, we're all His children, and that He probably would have told Israel that long before if they had been mature enough to handle it. But they weren't ready for that concept, nor were they ready to understand the fullness of forgiveness, grace, love, or sin.

Much of Deuteronomy reflects the true nature of God; some of it, however, reflects the Hebrews' early understanding of God, which isn't the same thing. That's why we have use a NT lens to view OT concepts. If we do, we can see that God doesn't hold the sins of a father against the children. It just isn't who He is...despite the fact that the Hebrews once believed He did.

[Josh]

Thanks for your clarification Marcion, umm, {cough cough}, I mean, Marcus.

I think I' d generally agree with your above statement, with the exception of the last two sentences. I think the Old Testament does teach the enduring truth (and paradox) that God in one sense holds individuals responsible for their own sins (ontologically) and in another sense (consequentially) does hold groups responsible for the sins of the few, or a few responsibile for the sins of the group.

[michelle]

So it sounds like there's no clear answer about what the Israelites believed at the time. Or rather, it depends on the situation. I've never been partial that answer.

[Josh]

Let's try another angle:

I think that there's a clear emphasis that Israelite children aren't to be punished by the civil authorities for their parent's sin.

God himself, however, is often said to punish the sins of the few (or many) in a people group by bringing a disaster to the entire community. This is because of the view that sin does not just affect the individual committing it, but the entire community-- even composed of individuals who are 'innocent'. This is the case countless times in the OT-- from the plagues of Egypt to famines in Israel, to the death of soldiers at the battle of Ai because of Achan's sin, to the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians, to the destruction of whole people groups*. Whether we're comfortable with this, or not, it is not hard to miss in the OT. And Jesus echoes this perspective in several passages as well, all the while also stressing the counterpoint that ultimately, we are all individually responsible to God.

God just didn't want the Israelites to make these kind of judgment calls in their civil authority, because only He truly knows the hearts of all men, thus, verses like Deut. 24:16.

* this last case, that of the destruction of whole enemy people groups, is the only case I can think of 'off hand' where God clearly directed the Israelites to be his agent in punishing a group for the sins of the few- in all the other cases God used natural or miraculous disasters or foreign enemies.

I realize that there is a range of interpretation on tricky passages/concepts such as this among Christians, largely related to one's understand of Scriptural inspiration and God's unfolding revelation.

Ultimately, I think Marcus points to the one thing that at the end of the day brings the divergent perspectives on these issues in Christendom together-- the words of Christ and the principles that He founded His kingdom (the new covenant) upon. And as Alex stresses, we seek continuity, though not statis, between the Old and New Testaments/ Covenants.

How were the Israelites supposed to live all this out on a day-to-day basis? How are we to think about these issues?

On this topic, hindsight (what they were to do) is much weaker than the light Jesus has shown us going forward (how we are to see it).

[michelle]

Thanks, yes, that is a better angle for me to understand.

[sarah]

This is a slightly different angle with the same topic. I got curious so I looked up all the verses I could find regarding to sin and fathers. I found over twenty of them. In reading through them I noticed two things.

1) it was often cited in a prayer of repentance to the Lord. "Forgive us Lord for our sins and the sins of our fathers" This leads me to believe that we have a choice to repent for the sins in our families and that of our nation.

2) The Lord often uses it in combination with talk of blessing the fathers and their generations.

A thought with all of this is that our sin affects our family line. If I choose to remain in sin, that sin affects my children and their children. Look at King David's life. His sin with Bathsheba affected his children and their children afterwords. David was forgiven, but the baby born to his infidelity dies. (Also the rebellion with Absolom would not have occurred if he had handled Tamar's rape differently.) David's grandson lost the united kingdom of Israel pretty much immediately and did not serve the Lord. In his fifth year as king, he lost the treasures of the temple that Solomon had built and David had planned.
If you look at your own family histories you can probably see connections and lines of similarities in both struggles and strengths. If you are raised by parents who believe that "insert any random sin here" is OK and even good, you are very likely to believe it is OK as well, until you are presented with different information that overrules your previous education.
The good news is that if I choose to follow God earnestly, that decision changes the life that my children and grandchildren experience as well. Look at Timothy in the New Testament as an example. I know that I am eager to live a life of earnest faith before my children so that they can experience the blessings of a personal faith as well.

just some thoughts......

[marcus]

Hmm, Josh. I don't think that consequences of sin (which, as you say, clearly affect generations) can be placed on God's shoulders. If I sin, I can immediately and sincerely ask for forgiveness, and God will forgive me. That doesn't mean I'm free from consequences on earth. If I get angry and kick my dog, and then seek forgiveness, I still have to earn my dog's trust back and live with the memory of my ungracious act. But I don't think that God is causing those consequences--those are all my own doing.

If a father sins, and God forgives him, his family will still suffer. That's just the way of the world, not God's fault. I imagine that it would have been embarassing and shameful to be King David's family after the Bathsheba fiasco, but I don't think that their shame was from God.

Can you see my Armenian leanings playing out here? (!)

[Josh]

Good words Sarah.

Marcus, a huge part of all of this does have to do with your perspective on free will/ determinism. This is also the case for Michelle's other post (Harsh Words) on the Deuteronomy sub-forum.

Since I accept both true free will and God's ultimate sovereignty over everything (which is a paradox), I would say that God set things up so that there would be natural consequences to sin that would affect others. So, yes, God cannot be said to be the author of such evils- except in the sense that He set the universe up in the first place to behave this way, and therefore is ultimately responsible-- just not directly.

It's the same with evil. God is not the author or creator of it, but he is responsible for it existing.

[Josh]

So, all of these comments have inspired me to speak about this at the park today- kind of more the slant that Sarah took, but nonetheless on this topc which is surprisingly relevent in our culture I think.

I'll be singing a song (which is much better sung than read) by Larry Norman on this topic. Here are the lyrics:



The Weight of the World by Larry Norman

Maybe your father couldn’t love you like he should
Maybe your mother- she just tried the best she could
Everyone has a secret
You can give it away or keep it
But you should try to let it go

Don’t carry the weight, the weight of the world
It’s breaking you down On your back like a boulder
Before it’s too late Get rid of it now
Get it off of your shoulder

You’ve been abused, but you can lose
The weight of the world
The weight of the world

It all comes down to who you crucify
You either kiss the future or the past good-bye
But God can help you fly if you’ll only try

Don’t carry the weight, the weight of the world
It’s breaking you down On your back like a boulder
Before it’s too late Get rid of it now
Get it off of your shoulder

We’ve all been used but we can lose the weight of the world

The weight of the world…

Hope to see some of you today!