May 2, Ezekiel 18
"The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." - Ezekiel 18:20
We humans have had lots of practice. Maybe that's why we're so good at it. I'm talking about our tendency to blame someone else for what we do wrong. It started back in the Garden of Eden when Adam told the Lord, "The woman whom you gave me to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate." Mother Eve said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." The finger pointing and denial has gone on ever since.
Ezekiel 18 is about individual responsibility for our sins. The Lord first denied the popular proverb that the suffering Israelites used to explain their misery. He also answered a slanderous accusation against himself. And along the way, God repeated descriptions of a godly and ungodly person to show the kind of life that pleased him and its opposite which disregarded his law.
Ezekiel's generation blamed their fathers for their suffering. They used the proverb, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." The people failed to acknowledge that their own sinfulness was even greater than their fathers’ sins. The parable may have been popular, but it was false. Ezekiel taught the people about personal responsibility in three or four other places in this book. Jeremiah had also stressed it, when he wrote, "In those days, they shall not longer say: The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. But everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge." But the people excused themselves, dismissed their own guilt and accused God of being unjust.
The counsel of God is the same across both Old and New Testaments: "the wages of sin is death." God gave examples of alternating generations of righteousness and unrighteousness to illustrate his point. If a righteous father had an unrighteousness son who in turn had a righteous son, each generation would bear responsibility for his own sin, not the sins of the one who came before him or after him. If you think that's a far-fetched example, consider that Judah had a trio of kings who fit that description perfectly--Hezekiah, his son Manasseh and then Manasseh's son Josiah. The parable wasn't true. No doubt a father is accountable for his influence on his children. But the children grow to maturity and answer to God for their own choices and behavior.
This chapter shows that repentance and forgiveness are possible. When we are overwhelmed with guilt and shame about our sin, we should not lose hope. God wants sinners to repent. He welcomes those who do turn back to him. But each individual bears personal responsibility and guilt for the wrong he or she does, and must be willing to change.
God promised that judgment was coming for every individual, everyone according to his own ways. He admonished them to repent and turn from all their transgressions, to cast away the transgressions, and to make themselves a new heart and a new spirit. Those are things that only God can do, but he is willing to do it for those who are willing to turn and acknowledge their sins. He wants to do this very thing, because he does not want to kill or destroy anyone. So he pleaded with them to turn and live instead of die.
We're all creatures of influence. We have all been influenced, and we also influence others. Parental influence is especially strong, but each of us will account to God for what we have done in our own lives. He knows us perfectly and his judgment will be just. At that accounting, there will be no way to shift the blame to others who caused us to do what we did. It makes no sense to cling to sin and blame others for it now, because it will not work then.
Let's not doubt or slander God. He loves us and gave his Son for our sins. He is not willing that anyone should perish, but wants us all to come to repentance. But that requires accepting personal responsibility for what we have done, and yielding to his power to change us. Let's remember and behave accordingly. This is the way to live, and not die.
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—May 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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