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Since it is Sunday, I decided to devote my study today and my post to a question that many have debated for centuries. "Do sons bear the sins of their fathers?"
The answer is Yes and No. If you wonder how that can be, entirely different rules apply in spiritual or moral matters and legal matters or laws of the land..Â
The Bible addresses both the correlation of father to son in keeping God's laws and in keeping the laws of the land. The two are entirely different
We find the following passages in Exodus, Deuteronomy, and I Corinthians stating that God does indeed pass the moral sins of the father to the sons. ..Â
- (Exodus 20:5) - "You shall not worship them or serve them; (false idols, which can be anything from a golden calf to worldly possessions, one's job or anything or anyone who becomes more important to man than God)for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me," (Those who hate the Lord are those who put anything or anyone before God and do not follow his spiritual laws)
God repeats this message several times so that there can be no doubt that those who do not keep God's laws shall have their sons suffer for their father's sins.- (Deuteronomy 5:9) - "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,"
- (Exodus 34:6-7) - "Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and truth; 7who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations."
- (1 Cor. 15:22) - "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive."
There is a logical reason for this. God entered into a covenant(a promise or agreement) with Abraham that Abraham would become the father of a great nation. God in turn promised to bless this nation, stating that the descendants of Abraham would be His children and that He would be their God. Since God is a righteous God, the same yesterday, today, tomorrow and for all time, we, as descendants of Abraham are all part of that covenant.
However, God set up a set of laws that the children of Abraham must live by in order to remain a part of the blessed nation of God.
He gave these laws to Moses in the form of the ten commandments.
He also gave to Moses the laws of the land. Moses had these twelve tribes that numbered into the thousands that he had led out of Egypt, so it was necessary to set up laws to settle disputes, to deal with thieves, rapists, and murderers. Now, the next set of laws which follow the ones above address the punishment for these laws. In the instance of the laws of the land, the son is not held liable if his father violates a statute. Again, Moses repeats it several times, so that there can be no question. >
- (Deuteronomy 24:16) - "Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin."
- (Ezekiel 18:20) - "The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself."It would seem that these statements directly contradict one another. However, if one reads the passages that precede the two, he discovers that the first group of statements pertain to man keeping God's commandments regarding his spiritual life; the second set of statements are preceded by the explanation that they pertain to man being punished by the laws of the land for breaking those laws. Each man is separately responsible to the tribunals on earth for his breaking the laws of man; however,man's descendants can and will be punished if man remains unrepentant for his sins of morality because the son is under the same covenant as the father.
. There is no contradiction.
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