Whose Fault Is It?

Ezekiel 18:1-4

The word of the LORD came to me: “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’? “As surely as I live, declares the Lord YAHWEH, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. 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.

At the time this chapter was written Ezekiel was living under the Babylonian Captivity around 590 B.C. He had been taken captive along with King Jehoiachin and the other rulers of Israel. It was still prior to the destruction of Jerusalem’s temple; but that was not far away. Ezekiel came to tell any that were hoping for a resurgence of Jerusalem and the temple, “don’t even think about it.” It naturally made them ask the question, “Why?” Ezekiel said, “It’s your own fault.” The Israelites said, “It’s our fathers’ fault.”

I. The concept of suffering: joint or individual

In catechism we learned the Ten Commandments. In the conclusion we learned how God said to the Israelites, “I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” Here God’s Word clearly says that God punishes the children for the sin of the fathers. Yet this can be explained by looking at the nature of that sin. What is that sin? Hating God. If daddy tells his children that church is a pain and God is a hatemonger, sons and daughters will usually believe it. So the son is punished as a result of the sin of the father in the way he raises his son to hate God. The nature of his upbringing trains him to be an enemy of God.

We might instead go back to the Fall. The very nature of the Fall teaches us that we suffer because of a fall into sin that happened thousands of years ago. Paul writes that “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin.” (Ro 5:12) He continues to say that “many died by the trespass of the one man.” Thousands of people died before God even gave the written law. Because of Adam’s sin we are all born in sin by no choice of our own. It was Adam’s choice, and we are punished as a result of that choice. Yet then again we give God plenty of reasons to punish us after the Fall, as we choose to do plenty of things under the influence of our sinful nature. Paul also writes, “death came to all men, because all sinned.” Here we see both sides of the story. We die because we are sin and because we commit sin. Why are we sin? Why do we sin? We sin because we are born in Adam’s sin.

So perhaps the Israelites are right. God does punish people because of others sins. Consider the story of Achan. In Joshua chapter 7 God had commanded the Israelites not to take any of the plunder from the enemy. Yet Achan found a really nice robe, so he decided to bury it under his tent. As a result of his specific sin which no other family knew about, God had the Israelites get thrashed in a battle of Ai so that thirty six of them died. None of the men who died in that battle had anything to do with what Achan did, but they still died in battle as a result of Achan’s sin. When Joshua prayed to God about this matter God said, “Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions.” (vs. 11) I find it interesting that God held the whole community responsible for one man’s sin. Here we see that punishment can come on other people as a result of another person’s sin.

Do you remember when this question came to Jesus? The disciples saw a man on the side of the road who was born blind. They asked Jesus, “who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. It was a popular thought in Jesus’ day that people were born with natural diseases and sicknesses because of an earlier sin. Jesus didn’t attribute this man’s suffering to any sin whatsoever, but to a higher purpose that God had in his life – for God to show His glory through him. In addressing this specific man Jesus said that it wasn’t due to a specific sin of his parents or himself.