The Sins of Your Ancestors

We blame the gun after I pulled the trigger, the cigarette company because I smoked, or the prostitute because I get a disease. Fans blame the coach for losing the match.

Mormons have a great plan for your dead ancestors. You get baptized in their place, their sins are forgiven, and they enter the kingdom of God.

Others have another take on the sins of your ancestors. You’re guilty of their sins 300 years ago and must pay the price through social justice. It’s Mormonism without the water!

Should you be held responsible for the sins of your ancestors? How would you know those sins? How many generations back will you go?

No one today, nor of the past, has clean hands. No tongue, tribe, nation, skin color, or individual – past or present – is innocent of horrible things.

Africans enslaved Africans over thousands of years. In the 1400s, the Inca in South America murdered their neighbors in violent religious rituals. Pacific islanders stole from one another and then ate each other. Five hundred years ago, Roman Catholics killed Protestants and Lutherans killed Anabaptists. My great-grandfather defrauded his neighbors with rotten potatoes. The whole world is a guilty mess!

What do you mean when you use this proverb concerning the land of Israel: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?”

“As I live,” says the Lord God, “you shall no longer use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; the soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:2-4).

In the days of the Jewish prophet Ezekiel, people blamed each other for the sins of their ancestors, even creating a proverb about it. God told Israel to stop repeating the proverb because it wasn’t true. God holds each sinner personally responsible for his own sins and not the sins of others.

When Adam sinned, he blamed God and Eve. Eve blamed the serpent. The serpent was the only one in the Garden who didn’t pass the buck (Genesis 3:8-13). Blaming someone else (or their ancestors) is always easier than looking in the mirror to see where I miss the mark.

God saves and forgives individuals one-by-one by grace through faith in Christ. God’s Saviour meets the sinner where he is, not where his great-great-great-grandmother was.

The Lure

But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death (James 1:14-15).

There are plenty of lakes, streams, and rivers in northwest Oregon so that one needs only travel 15 minutes in any direction to find water. I learned early in life to find a calm spot in the river or lake that was also shaded from the summer sun. Fish, like you and me, don’t like to be too hot. Then I’d impale a worm onto my hook and drop it gently into the shaded water.

The fish, wanting to remain cool and at rest, would see that worm bobbing in front of his face. The lure of the worm drew upon the natural desire of the fish to eat. Like us, it desired the nearest free food and would leave the safety of it’s hiding place to become prey. Just like that! the fish would bite on the worm and get himself caught on my sharp hook.

Now it’s interesting that James, the half-brother of Jesus, used the image of a fishing or hunting lure with regard to temptation and sin. But notice where James lays the blame. It’s not on God or Satan or your neighbor. The lure of sin comes from within your own heart.

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, they attempted to hide from God by covering their wickedness with fig leaves and trees. But God knew where they were and what they’d done. God asked Adam what he’d done, and instead of telling the truth, he compounded his sin with blaming others. Blaming others for our failures is part of the original sin of humanity!

Adam blamed God. The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate (Genesis 3:12). Adam’s sin wasn’t learned from his parents, the bad influence of his friends, or what he’d seen on television. It came from within his own heart and he attempted to blame God for gifting to him a wife!

Your sin is never anyone’s fault but your own. And when you accept the lure of temptation from within your own heart, temptation bears a child named sin, and sin brings forth its own child called death.