Is God Just?

The Way of Man & The Way of the LORD

9.27.26 [Ezekiel 18:1-4,25-32] River of Life (19th Sunday after Pentecost)

After his dad died, Marcus took his father’s cellphone. Having his father’s contacts made it easier to let everyone know about his passing. One evening, Marcus heard the phone buzz. He ran to pick it up. But it wasn’t a long-lost friend of his father’s. It was an agent from Discover. Marcus found out his father died with nearly $10k in credit card debt. The agent expressed her condolences, and then quickly pivoted. We’ll work with you, but you’ve got to start making some payments or we will have to send this to collections. And you don’t want that.  

Marcus was shocked. He knew dad was living hand to mouth at the end. He didn’t expect to inherit anything. Especially not his dad’s debt. Marcus figured the phone call was a horrible misunderstanding. But over the next months, he collection letters forwarded from his father’s old address stacked up. What was he going to do? Marcus started doing some digging and discovered that his dad lived in a state that did not have any filial responsibility laws. As a child, he had no obligation to personally repay his father’s debts. 

In most states, probate court settles outstanding debts. Creditors get their cut before heirs. That is just and fair. But when the estate is gone, the debt doesn’t get passed to the next generation. Children shouldn’t pay for the financial misdeeds of their parents. That wouldn’t be just. We get that. That helps us understand what’s going on in Ezekiel 18. 

Exiled Israel was living in a refugee camp in Babylon, and God told them to settle in the for the long haul. They would be there for 70 years.  And they had a snarky proverb that expressed their dissatisfaction. 

Ezek. 18:2 The parents eat sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge. It’s a strange proverb to people who don’t have vineyards, but what they were saying is: Our parents sinned and we’re suffering for it. They died and don’t have to reap what they’ve sown. That’s not just! 

You can understand their attitude. Their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had been warned by God where their wickedness would land them. The first word of warning about idolatry leading to exile was from Moses, before they even set foot into the Promised Land. But for the last 100 years, God had sent prophets like Isaiah, Micah, and Jeremiah to warn the people where sin was leading them. 

Now they were living with the aftermath. But life in exile had hardened them, instead of humbling them. They felt like, if they were going to bear the punishment of their ancestors, there was no point of trying to be righteous or faithful to God’s Law. They viewed God as a divine bill collector. If he couldn’t get their ancestors to pay for their own sins, he was going to let the next generations deal with their debt. To their way of thinking, God only cared about getting his pound of flesh. Not justice.

Today, some still think in terms of generational curses for a country. They look at the scars of slavery and point fingers and demand reparations. Young people today may blame previous generations for current societal ills and economic struggles. No generation starts fresh. 

Each generation inherits worldviews, behavioral patterns, & institutions from those who have gone before them. Some of it is good. Some of it was good, but no longer serves a purpose. And some worldviews, some patterns, some institutions are and were wrong and wicked. We don’t just inherit a sinful nature from our parents. Each generation hands the keys to a sinful world to the next and says Good luck trying to clean up this mess. 

Ezekiel’s contemporaries weren’t interested in that. They figured since they were being punished for their parents’ sins anyway, why stop? They had a fatalistic outlook on life. Spiritually speaking, they were throwing in the towel. They decided that what they did—or did not do—didn’t make any difference at all. Hopelessness gives birth to increasing selfishness & wickedness. Despair leads to depravity.

We can fall into that trap today, too. Sometimes, we try to pin the blame for our selfishness or our self-destructive behavior on our parents. That’s just how I was raised. Mom didn’t hug me enough. Dad had anger issues. What do you expect from me? I never stood a chance. It’s in my DNA. Apples don’t fall far from their trees. 

But just as often, we find other clever-sounding ways to deny accountability. That’s just the world we live in. We’re just doing the best we can with what we’ve got to deal with. We’re a product of our environment. Everyone else is living this way. We’re the good ones. 

We are quick to point out the stress we’re under. Quick to point out that we had good intentions. Quick to point out the good things we’ve done that we think aren’t getting enough attention. Quick to point out all the people—past & present—who are way worse. 

I can’t help myself. I already said ‘I’m sorry.’ What more do you want? They pushed me too far. I’m made this way. I had to live my truth. 

These tactics for blame-shifting are not new. They are as old as the Garden of Eden. The finger-pointing might not be as pinpoint as it was for Adam and Eve, but the lack of responsibility is from the same vein. Sinful people will not stop until they have someone or something to blame for their bad, wicked behavior. That’s what God exposes here. 

Ezek. 18:4 Everyone belongs to me. The sinner dies for his own sins. God even explains from history how this is true. Righteous people have wicked children. Wicked people have righteous children. Dt. 24:16 God doesn’t punish the children for their parents’ sins, nor parents for their children’s wickedness. God isn’t capricious or impulsive. God is just. Sinners are the fickle, foolish ones. We’re impulsive, temperamental, and, at times, unjust. We judge people because of their parents. 

God does not. Ezek. 18:30 The Sovereign Lord judges each person according to their own ways. Yet, God does not delight in punishing sinners. He wants all people to Ezek. 18:32 repent—to turn from their offenses—and live. Ezek. 18:31 To get a new heart and a new spirit.

That’s not an assignment that any of us can complete. We’re no more capable of getting a new heart than we are capable of doing open heart surgery on ourselves. So God did what we could not and would not do for ourselves. God sent his Son into this world of wickedness to lead sinners to turn from their offenses and find life in his name. 

Jesus was raised by sinful parents, yet he was without sin. Jesus was surrounded by selfish, sinful people, yet he did not give in to their ways.

Jesus demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that every person belongs to the Lord. He was concerned about the downfall of the proud and accomplished and those who were downtrodden and suffering. Jesus looked at a person and knew everything about them. He never used it to publicly shame them. He always called them to repentance. Pharisee or prostitute. Tax collector or teacher of the law. Fisherman or foreigner. Close friend or combative enemy. Those who would react well and those who curse his name and accuse him of blasphemy. Jesus was an equal-opportunity rebuker. He called everyone to turn and live. Jesus took no pleasure in the death of anyone, no matter how wickedly they had lived or how poorly they treated him.  

But it wasn’t just that Jesus was the perfect prophet. Jesus did the thing that seems very unjust to us. Sin could not just be written off by our holy God. So Jesus took on our sin debt. He made it his own. We sinned. We rebelled. We piled up the offenses. We deserved God’s righteous wrath. But Jesus stepped up and became sin for his parents and his siblings and the whole world. He accepted the blame & guilt for all our offenses. 

He died for us. Though he was without sin in thought, word, and deed, he became all our sin for all of us. The God who takes no pleasure in the death of even the most hardened sinners, chose instead to die for sinners. He was judged for our wicked ways. The only one who never sinned, died for all sins. He became culpable for the sins you are responsible for. God is just and the our justifier.

Jesus’ suffering & death is proof God is not soft on sin. God’s forgiveness is not him sweeping sin under the rug. Forgiveness is earned on the cross by Jesus Christ alone. We sinned & he suffered.  Is. 53:5 He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

And he gifted us his righteous record. The one who never sinned gave us the eternal life he earned. This is the way of the Lord. This is what God has been promising since the finger-pointing and blame shifting began. I am just, even when you are not. I am faithful, even when you are not. I am forgiving, even when you are fickle, frail, and foolish. 

As if that were not enough, God also gives us the new heart and new spirit we desperately needed. Jesus is the reason we live. Ezk. 36:25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities... 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28...you will be my people, and I will be your God. 29 I will save you. God has saved you through the perfect life, the innocent death, and the glorious resurrection of his own Son, Jesus. 

We need to hold onto that day by day. We live in a sinful world where we are impacted, shaped, and even scared by sin. The way of man is to point finger, pass the blame, and live without hope. The way of the Lord is different. He is just. But he is also patient and abounding in love. He calls sinners to turn and live. Turn from the damage and despair of sin. Turn to God and receive his gift—the full forgiveness of sins, a new heart, and his own Spirit. 

Maybe your parents really did do a number on you. Perhaps someone else really hurt you. You don’t have to pretend the sins of others have not left a mark on you. But look to the cross and you will see the marks your sins left on your Savior. He endured this because he loves you. It was his pleasure to take away your sins. Amen.