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.

Treasures and Trash

When Daniel was a little boy, he’d follow the garbage truck through the neighborhood as it stopped at each home on Tuesday morning. The garbage man would jump off the truck, hoist the 50-gallon can of weekly trash onto his shoulder, dump it into the back of the truck, then Daniel would follow to the next house and repeat the process. Many times Daniel would come home with the things others had thrown away; a pocketknife, a chipped coffee cup, or a rusty lock. Trash to others was treasure to Daniel.

Despite being very well paid, there must be a degree of humility in picking up other people’s trash. The garbage man is at work before dawn picking up the rubbish others toss, then drives around all day in unbearable stench. He removes a week’s worth of garbage at a time from each and every house.

In a sense, each week we choose to set ourselves free of burdens in the can we leave at the curb. If only we had a garbage man to come along and pick up our load of worries, unwanted messes, leftover emotional grime, and sin-riddled struggles. If only life’s guilt, regret, and ugly memories could be tossed in a giant plastic bin and left on the side of the street for someone else to remove. If only bitterness and fear were that easily disposed of.

The moment we trust in Jesus, the Father removes all the junk from our lives. All the trash associated with sin is dumped and is replaced with grace, mercy, love, and healing in Him.

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:4-5).

Our sin was set upon Jesus’ shoulders in one great sacrificial act; His blood cleansing us from all unrighteousness once and for all.