The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

-Exodus 34:6-7, ESV

Last time, we discussed the nature of responsibility, seeing that shared responsibility cannot absolve anyone of individual responsibility.  Shared responsibility is not shared guilt, so it is immoral to punish people for what they are not individually responsible for.  But why then do we see so many times in the Bible where people appear to be punished for the sins of others?  Recently, we saw that the covenants of Scripture are corporate in nature, involving not only all of God’s people at that time but all of their descendants as well.  Those future generations were bound to the covenant, requiring them to abide by its terms or face it curses.  And since those curses were often generational as well, we frequently see the judgment for one generation’s sin falling on a later generation.  How is this not the same immoral and detestable misunderstanding of shared responsibility that the Left commits with Critical Theory?  To answer this, we need to look at some of the more notable examples of this generational judgment in Scripture.

Generational Judgment

Throughout the Old Testament, we see generational judgment in the destruction of households and deferred judgment.  In the first case, one person sins but the entire family is killed because of it. In Korah’s rebellion, his co-conspirators Dathan and Abiram were killed along with their entire families when the ground opened up and consumed them (Numbers 16).  Later, Achan and his entire family were stoned to death for taking plunder from Jericho (Joshua 7). The second case is where later generations are punished for the sins of earlier generations.  Solomon’s idolatry caused the nation to split during his son Rehoboam’s reign (1 Kings 11-12).  Jeroboam’s idolatry set the standard for Israel’s kings, but it was ultimately his descendants who were judged, starting with the untimely death of his young son (1 Kings 14) and when his son Nadab was overthrown by Baasha (1 Kings 15).  Omri and his son Ahab were even worse, but their judgment did not come until Jehu wiped out Ahab’s family during the reign of Ahab’s son Ahaziah (2 Kings 9-10).  The chaos continued until Israel was wiped out by Assyria (2 Kings 17).  In Judah, Manasseh was the worst of the Davidic kings in both idolatry and bloodshed, but full judgment didn’t come until generations later with the exile to Babylon (2 Kings 21). 

Sin and Patience

What are we to make of this?   The Jews certainly grappled with this issue during the exile: “Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities” (Lamentations 5:7).  Was God punishing them for the sins of others?  If so, it would mean that He was violating His own Law: “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin” (Deuteronomy 24:16).  Scripture is clear that all have sinned (e.g. Romans 3:23), and so even if the judgment proclaimed for the sins of the fathers is ultimately doled out on the children, the children still died in their own sins.  In the cases of Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and Achan, it is quite possible that at least some members of the family joined or tolerated their sin.  And the Jewish exiles understood that the sins of their ancestors that ultimately brought about their suffering did not absolve that generation of their sin: “The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!” (Lamentations 5:16).  In truth, this judgment was a long time in coming—nearly a millennium.  If you read Judges to 2 Kings then read Deuteronomy 28, you will see eerie similarities.  The laundry list of specific and often graphic covenant curses (Deuteronomy 28:15-68) were fulfilled throughout Israel’s history.  One of the Old Testament themes that is prevalent throughout Israel’s history is the persistent sin throughout many generations.  Except for a few bright spots when people obeyed God, the biblical history of Israel is full of sin and idolatry, so it is no exaggeration to say that essentially all generations of Israelites deserved judgment for their sins.  Throughout the exodus, essentially the entire nation of Israel constantly grumbled and rebelled against God, so they all deserved to have the earth open up and swallow them.  Jeroboam may have started the Northern Kingdom’s idolatry, but every subsequent king followed him in that idolatry.  Many of Judah’s kings were similarly evil.  The fact that God put up with them for a thousand years before destroying them as a nation points to the incredible patience and kindness of God.  God deferred Solomon’s judgment to Rehoboam for the sake of David (1 Kings 11:12-13) and caused Jeroboam’s young son to die peacefully “because in him there is found something pleasing to the LORD, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam” (1 Kings 14:13b).  Thus God displays His extraordinary attributes in judgment.  Look at the way He gloriously describes Himself to Moses:

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

-Exodus 34:6-9, ESV

God said this just after the golden calf incident, where He would have been perfectly justified to wipe out the entire nation except for Moses: “And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you”” (Exodus 32:9-10).  Instead, Moses pleaded with God on Israel’s behalf and only three thousand Israelites perished.  It was with this backdrop that God declared His mercy to withhold wrath, grace to continue blessing them, patience to endure their grumbling, and steadfast love and faithfulness to their ancestors.  The death of a few therefore served as a sign of God’s forgiveness and justice.  So the question is not why the earth swallowed up the entire families of Dothan and Abiram but why it didn’t swallow up the entire nation.  The question is not why Achan and his family were stoned and burned with fire but why the rest of Israel wasn’t.  The question is not why certain kings faced God’s judgment but why the rest did not.  The answer can be seen in this passage: God’s nature of grace, mercy, and patience.

But what of “visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children”?  This cannot mean that children should be punished for their parents’ sins.  We have already discussed how God outlawed that.  When the Jews accused Him of doing just that, He responded by promising that each person would be judged only for his or her own sin (Jeremiah 31:29-30, Ezekiel 18:1-4).  Therefore, He commanded His people to do the same, which was contrary to many of the surrounding cultures.  We see this when Daniel’s enemies and their families were cast into the lion’s den (Daniel 6:24).  The only time such a thing was recorded in Israel was when two of Saul’s sons and five of his grandsons were killed by the Gibeonites for a crime Saul had committed.  The Gibeonites were foreigners who lived amidst Israel because they had tricked Joshua into agreeing to a treaty with them not to wipe them out.  This was a foolish treaty, since Israel “did not ask counsel from the LORD” (Joshua 9:14).  Nevertheless, God takes covenants—even foolish ones—very seriously, so hundreds of years later God held Israel to their word.  He caused a famine during David’s reign because Saul had tried to wipe out the Gibeonites.  When they demanded the lives of seven of Saul’s descendants to avenge this, David chose to appease them.  After the Gibeonites had killed them and they were buried, God ended the famine (2 Samuel 21:1-14).  This is an example of the Bible’s historical narratives being descriptive rather than prescriptive, as it does not tell us if David was right.  What is undeniable is that David was in a very difficult situation.  Since the Gibeonites would not be appeased in any other way, David granted their demand in order to end the famine, but he also ensured the bodies of the men were buried with dignity according to the Law.  It was only then that God removed the famine, so God was pleased with David’s attempt to right a past wrong, but nothing in the text indicates God’s pleasure at the deaths of these seven men.  As for why God put David into this situation in the first place, only He knows.  This is the end of Saul’s line apart from Mephibosheth, so this can be considered the final act of God establishing David’s kingdom.  Regardless, none of this suggests that God punishes children for the sins of their parents.

God visits the iniquities of parents on children in that sin is often multi-generational.  The pattern of Scripture is that children often sin in the same ways as their parents or that the failure of the parents to properly discipline their children enables other sins.  For the former, Solomon followed David in the sin of “giving his strength to women” (Proverbs 31:3).  We see the latter when Eli’s neglectful parenting facilitated his sons’ corruption (1 Samuel 2:12-36).  Scripture is clear that both the parents’ own sin and failure to discipline lead their children into sin, which parents must solemnly remember.  Additionally, we have previously seen how God both builds His Kingdom through families and deals with families regarding the covenant.  God holds fathers as heads of their households responsible for their families, so seeing entire families perish for the sin of fathers would have been a vivid warning to every parent.  The death of Achan’s family certainly had that effect, being brought to remembrance when some of Israel appeared to be rebelling against God at the end of the Canaanite conquest (Joshua 22:20).  We must also remember that these were temporal judgments warning us of eternal judgment but do not necessarily correlate with it.  Dathan, Abiram, and their families “went down alive into Sheol” (Numbers 16:33), the generic place of the dead and not necessarily the place of torment.  Only God knows the state of their souls and will judge all people with perfect justice.  It is likely that they were no worse than anyone else in Israel, as Jesus pointed out is often the case (Luke 13:1-5).  At death, each person still faces God’s judgment for his or her own sins and no one else’s.  But the earthly consequences of sin are still widespread, so we should not be surprised to see its poison spreading far and wide across generations.

Representation

Perhaps the main reason we see generational judgment in the Old Testament is the theme of representation.  After the Fall, the first sin mentioned is Cain killing Abel.  While Cain was clearly responsible for murdering his brother, his parents were the ones who brought sin into the world.  Similarly, just after the Noahic covenant we see Noah cursing Ham’s son Canaan rather than Ham himself (Genesis 9:25-27).  In the Abrahamic covenant, we see representation in circumcision: all of Abraham’s household—both male and female—entered into the covenant, so in receiving the sign of the covenant the males represented the females (Genesis 17:9-14).  In the same way, the Mosaic Law required all males to gather before God for three feasts per year: the feasts of Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and Booths (Deuteronomy 16:16), thus representing their families.  Representation is seen in other ways throughout the Law as well: men often represented their wives and daughters in matters of restitution and vows, in levirate marriage a man represented his brother to the widow, the Levites represented the nation in service to God, and the priests—especially the high priest—represented the people before God.  Some of these representative relationships even use the language of bearing someone else’s iniquity (Numbers 18, 30:15).  But the most important manner of representation was animal sacrifice.  From the first time an animal was killed—by God to clothe Adam and Eve after the Fall—mankind has understood the need for a representative life to be slaughtered to atone for sin.  The regular slaughter of sacrificial animals under the Mosaic covenant was a constant reminder of this reality and of the limitations of all earthly representatives. And while we have talked about representation in judgment, there was representation in blessing as well. I previously alluded to Mephibosheth being spared by David, which was because David had sought him out to bless him on account of his father. Jonathan had earned David’s favor, so Mephibosheth represented Jonathan in receiving blessings.

All of these point to the ultimate representative: Jesus Christ.  As the only person ever lacking a sin nature, He symbolically entered into the covenant people of God through circumcision to represent sinful people as the perfect Second Adam and was then cut off from the Father so He could draw us near.  As the Great High Priest, He bore our iniquity before the Father.  As the true sacrifice, He was the only one able to actually remove sin.  As the Bridegroom, He removes our cursed identity of sin and shame, replacing it with His perfect righteousness. 

With Christ fulfilling the representative shadows of the Old Testament, the nature of representation has changed.  Baptism—replacing circumcision as the new sign of the covenant—is applied to all of God’s people, male and female.  Instead of only males gathering to participate in certain feasts, the Lord’s Table is now open to all of God’s people too: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:27-29).  And since Christ opened the way to the true Holy of Holies, He is our only representative High Priest, so we must approach Him directly.  Yet the new covenant did not do away with all representation.  Men are still the heads of their households and therefore represent their families (1 Corinthians 11, Ephesians 5).  Pastors (as well as other elders and deacons) represent their congregations before God (1 Peter 5:1-4), and other leaders also represent their people in various ways (Romans 13:1-7, Ephesians 6:9).  This representation implies responsibility, which is inseparably linked with authority.  To put it all together, we must recognize the authority that God has given to the leaders He has placed in the church, home, workplace, and government since He has given them that authority for the purpose of obeying Him in representing us.  All authority in heaven and on earth was given to Christ because He took responsibility for us and our salvation.  He represented us in life, represented us on the cross, and represents us before the Father.  That is what it means to be in Christ.  Because of representation, not only does God visit the iniquity of Adam on all of his descendants, but more importantly He visits our iniquity on the Son.  So without representation in the imputation of sin across generations, there would be no possibility of the imputation of our sin to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to us.  In other words, apart from representation, there could be no salvation!  Therefore, rather than accusing God of being unjust to when we see representation throughout Scripture, let us marvel at the crucial role of representation in our salvation. 

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned….Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

-Romans 5:12,14-17, ESV