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.

Punishing the Child for the Sins of a Parent

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

Should you be punished for the sins of a neighbor, a cousin, or another person with your eye, hair, or skin color? How about being responsible for the sins of an entire city or a nation a thousand years ago?

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 were blaming one another for the sins of their ancestors. They even had a common proverb about it. God told Israel to stop repeating the proverb because it wasn’t true. God holds each sinner responsible for his own sins and not the sins of others.

Large African tribes throughout western Africa raided smaller and weaker tribes two hundred years ago, enslaved their African neighbors, and then sold them as slaves to Europeans. Should modern Africans be punished for the sins of their ancestors?

Should the Japanese of today be responsible for their ancestors who killed Chinese men and kept their wives as “comfort women” (sex slaves)? Or the Chinese tribes which enslaved each other four thousand years ago?

On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth murdered US President Abraham Lincoln. Should Booth’s descendant pays a price today for their ancestor’s deed? Does God blame Booth’s descendants for his actions?

We are each individually responsible to God for our own sins.

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 much 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.