And ye say, Why doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? But the son hath done judgment and justice, hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them; he shall certainly live.
Israel was in exile, and a bitter question hung in the air. Were they being punished for their fathers' sins? Here the people push back, and God answers: the son who lives rightly will surely live.
The people's protest was not random grumbling. They had a text in mind, and they used it to explain away their own trouble.
But they raise the objection: "Why? Does not the son bear the iniquity of his father?" Many commentators say otherwise, but the second commandment of the law is clearly in question here. That is what gave a seeming excuse for the proverb itself. For God had declared that He was "a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, and showing mercy to thousands of those who love Me and keep My commandments." The resentful thought in the minds of those caught in the nation's present disasters seems clear. They felt the third and fourth generations were suffering for faults that were in no way their own. They admit the wickedness of earlier generations — which is not so hard to confess as one's own. Their fathers ate the sour grapes, they say, but not themselves. But the commandment says the very opposite. Those who love God and keep His commandments are given in it a definite promise of mercy. So they could not come under a contradictory law of inheriting their fathers' sins.
God announces a shift in the way He deals with His people in their land.
Ezekiel 18 contains an important principle of God's dealings, unfolded at that period. God would judge the individual according to his own conduct... But now, in His land of Israel, God set aside the principle of government laid down in Exodus 34:7. Souls belonged to Jehovah one by one, and each would bear the judgment of his own sins. God would pardon the repenting sinner. For He has no pleasure in the sinner's death.
The practical shape of that shift is simple. Each generation stands or falls on its own account.
The wicked father must perish; the son who takes warning from it shall live. That leaves the way clear for the rule — "the soul that sins, it shall die." The son does not suffer for his father's wrong, nor the father for his son's. Each reaps what he has sown.
The chapter speaks of living and dying. Many have read that as teaching about the soul's eternal destiny. Commentators here warn against that reading.
This chapter replaces the Jewish principle of government, that the "children should die for their fathers' sins," with the declaration that "each should die for his own." We may know, and do know, from other teaching of the Holy Scriptures, the terrible effect of a man's dying in his sins. But that is not directly the subject here. If it were, a son's soul would have been lost, by the law, for his father's sins, which is monstrous. It is the government of Jehovah that is the subject of the chapter.
The argument runs both ways. A father's goodness cannot save his son either, and the exiles were leaning on just that.
This was an important question for the Jew, and above all for the Jew of the captivity. The nation was under God's dealings, cut off from their land and temple, and they leaned more and more on the merits of Abraham... The question turns back on them. Here was a father who had not eaten sour grapes. Did that stop his children's teeth being set on edge? God was dealing with them for their own sins. They forfeited every privilege they had through Abraham if in their own character they were not the true seed of Abraham.
Someone might still object: aren't we simply the product of what we inherit?
We certainly inherit both a sinful nature and its consequences. But the nature is not in question here. The popular proverb is speaking about the penalty. We all truly have a fallen nature. Still, man is not like a beast, to be bound by his nature or excused by it. Let a man argue as he will about what he has inherited from Adam. About every sin he has committed, he knows in his own soul that he is responsible, and why. He cannot put his sins to Adam's account. They are his own.
- Complaint — The exiles claimed they were paying for their fathers' sins. But the commandment they quoted promised mercy to those who obey.
- Change — God sets aside the older governing principle: each soul belongs to Him, and each bears the judgment of his own sins.
- Chapter's scope — The subject is God's government of Israel on earth, not the soul's eternal destiny.
- Cuts both ways — If a father's guilt cannot condemn the son, a good ancestor cannot shelter him. Descent from Abraham secured nothing.
- Conscience — A man may argue about what he inherited from Adam. He still knows his own sins are his own — and the son who lives rightly shall surely live.
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
Israel had a saying that blamed their suffering on their parents' sins, and God answers it with a rule: each person answers for his own sin. That raises three questions — what "soul" means here, what death is meant, and whether anyone can ever bear another's guilt.
The people complained that they were paying for their fathers' failures. One commentator shows how the complaint traps the one who makes it:
At the captivity God acts on the murmuring of His people. He ends any further dealings with them on the ground of Exodus 34:6-7. From now on He would take them on their own terms. They complained of the hardship of suffering for their fathers' wrongdoing, so He would now give them what they themselves deserved. It is clear that a sinner must suffer for sin. If he challenges the justice of paying the penalty for a parent's evil, he cannot deny that he ought to be punished for his own. All were God's, the souls of fathers and of sons alike; and the sinner must die. There was no relief or escape on any such excuse.
The chapter has set a wicked father beside his son. The verse gives the outcome for each:
The wicked father must perish. The son warned by his father's example shall live. The way is now clear for the rule — "The soul who sins shall die." The son does not suffer for his father's wrong, nor the father for his son's. Each reaps as he has sown.
God had said He visits the sins of fathers on their children. One writer points to the words God attached to that warning, and to the oath He swears here:
He has assured us Himself that He is "visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation." But then He adds words that guard against a wrong reading: "of those who hate Me." And elsewhere the Lord strongly condemns the proverb Israel had taken up from just such a wrong reading: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." He not only says it, He swears it. They shall have no reason to use such a proverb. The son shall not bear the father's guilt, nor the father the son's. The righteousness of the righteous shall be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked on him. And the repentance of anyone shall turn his doom aside.
Readers often take "soul" here as the part of a person that lives on apart from the body. One writer argues that it means the person:
Turn to the passage in Ezekiel where this expression comes from. You will see that it has nothing to do with the death of the soul apart from the body. It speaks of a man's death while he lives in this world. Such a use of "soul" for "person" is common now. I say, It is a town of fifteen thousand souls. Who misunderstands me?
One writer sets a limit on what this verse can be used to prove:
God would deal with each person according to his own conduct. It was not a question of what their fathers had been. Their own sins demanded and would bring down God's judgment... Each one was guilty, and God would judge each one. Yet where He saw repentance, He would pardon, for He had no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Keep in mind that this passage speaks of judgment in this life — physical death now, because of sin. It gives us no teaching about the eternal judgment of sin, which is taught elsewhere.
This rule seems to shut the door on anyone dying for anyone else. One writer shows why one Person could:
The law of holiness and truth is that the soul that sins, it shall die. Death, then, is God's just appointment for man, because he is a sinner. Man dies only because of sin... The only just way of putting sin away was by death. Clearly no sinful man could die for another's sin, because he must die for himself. The Son of God, on whom death had no claim (because He knew no sin), was able to die for others.
- Own conduct — each person answers to God for what he himself does, not for what his parents did.
- Own death — the death threatened here is physical judgment now, not teaching about eternity.
- Own excuse — the complaint backfires. If it is unjust to pay for a parent's evil, a man still owes payment for his own.
- Own repentance — God swears that each dies for his own sin. He also promises that repentance turns the sentence aside, for He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
- Not His own — no sinner can die for another, because he already owes his own death. Only the Son of God, who had no death to owe, could die for others.