Sin is not inherited, but through Adam. By that I mean that we all sin, and we all need to return and repent. But we do not carry the sins of our fathers and forefathers. For two reasons: to insist, as some do, that this generation pay for the evil of the previous, is unjust and wrong.
The second is that own actions damn us unless we repent. We need to add some form of familial karma to the burden.
In the time of the prophet, many thought that if you were punished or sinned it was because you were bearing the sins of your father. Ezekiel schooled them. It is for our sins, and our sins alone, that we are judged.
But unless we repent, we will be found wanting.
“Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
“But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done he shall live. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? But when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice and does the same abominations that the wicked person does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, for them he shall die.
“Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it; for the injustice that he has done he shall die. Again, when a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions that he had committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die. Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?
“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.”
What we had in Israel was a form of collectivism. People were blamed for their clan: we have a parallel issue today, when races, groups, people are told that their forefathers sinned and they must pay. That they will be discriminated. Examples include the Chinese in parts of Asia, the Whites in the USA, and the Afrikaners in the former Dominion of South Africa.
For this is the blackest of heresies: to damn someone for what they cannot control, and to then call God unjust for he forgives the penitent. To pray that a person rots in hell, and take joy in their destruction, because they are not of the group you account as oppressed. Because you ascribe to them privilege that must he checked.
For our LORD and Master does not want anyone to perish. We may be called to defend the truth in our nation. We may have to defend home and hearth. But we never should forget that the enemy are people. And God wants none of them to perish. He wants us all to repent.
To call the mercy of God, and his universal call to all nations racist or heteronormative or Islamophobic is to deny, to shut away, not merely yourself from salvation (for it is the heresy of the SJW) but to say that entire groups and classes penitent cannot be, and salvation do not deserve.
As if any of us deserve to be saved. God wants none to perish. To deny that is unjust, and the blackest of heresies.
