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Exodus 20:5-6 (NIV84)

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for 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, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Good morning Zebras,

Today’s verse from the Ten Commandments has always bothered me.  It just never made any sense.  I don’t know anyone who has a perfect family tree. So shouldn’t that mean we are all going to be punished for the sins of our parents? Yet according to Deuteronomy 24:16 God does not punish children for the sins of their fathers. And we know through Christ all sins are forgiven.  So what does it all mean?

Our first inclination may be to dismiss the whole thing because it’s from the Old Testament, but the Bible says ALL scripture is God-breathed and useful for training…not just the “new” parts so I think we need to try and understand what God was saying.

Here is one possible explanation from the New American Commentary:

God has determined to punish successive generations for committing the same sins they learned from their parents.  In other words, God will not say “I won’t punish this generation for what they are doing to break my covenant because after all they learned it from their parents who did it too.”  Instead God will indeed punish generation after generation if they keep doing the same sort of sins that prior generations did.

Now that makes sense. God will not forgive us our sins simply because we learned them from our parents.  Bad teaching does not excuse bad behavior and it does not prevent us from reaping the consequences of our actions.

But it is also very disturbing because now the responsibility lies with us.

Of course all sin is forgiven only through our faith in Christ, and God reveals truth to those who desire it, but think of all the things we have learned from our parents and our culture that we have not checked against Scripture to see if they are true.  And if we’re “accidently” doing things that are displeasing to God, we may be teaching others to do the same.

Five hundred years ago people may’ve had an excuse. Only the priest and teachers of the law had copies of God’s Word.  But that isn’t true anymore, at least not in the United States.  Bibles are easily accessible and the average American home owns four.  But do we study them?  Because having an unopened Bible is no different than having no Bible at all.

Love,

Jill