We understand from Ezekiel here how God deals with Israel under the law. A dispensation apart from any other. Like the dispensation Jesus spoke of when He told the disciples how much things would change when they would be led by the Spirit. Instead of by the law that had been leading them while they were under it.
As God dealt with the Israelite nation set apart from the rest of the world we see that in this there are no similarities between how men perceived God’s dealings with them. And the truth about how God actually dealt with them.
Because the first thing we read here is that Israel has misunderstood what God has done with them in the past. So that they think God’s punishments for violating the covenant was not only for those who committed the crime. But, passed also to the children for what their parents have done.
It’s easy to see how they might have mistaken God’s dealings with them during their time of slavery in Egypt. Thinking that it was because of what their parents did that the children were also punished. But, that was a denial of what really happened.
Because when reading about their time in Egypt we find that there was plenty of idolatry throughout the generations there. And was not only something the parents were guilty of.
But, God had a plan to intervene at just the right time. At a time when their hearts would once again turn more fully toward Him. As they cried out for His deliverance.
This is why in Ez.18 we find that each man punished by God under the law was always the result of their own idolatries. And not someone else’s. Just as it had been with their parents. This is why God rebukes them here for saying, “the fathers eat sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge”.
God begins by showing them how He has always dealt with them justly. And that it was always with each individually for their own idolatries. And that no one was ever punished for someone else’s sins.
In vs.3 God corrects them saying, “3 As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel.
4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Showing them clearly that His execution of the law deals solely with the law breaker. And does not spill over to anyone else.
Continuing in Ezekiel 18 we see a list of things God says the just man does and in vs.9 finishes saying, that the man who, “9 hath kept my judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God.”
And still after such a clear explanation because they are dull of hearing we see them questioning God in vs.19 and following saying, “19 Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father?” To which God answers, “When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live.” 20 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.”
So we see that even under the law the sins of the father, and their punishments for those sins, did not pass to the children. And in Rom.5:13 Paul explains why it was this way for them when he wrote, “For until the law sin was in the world. But sin is not imputed when there is no law.”
The main thing for us to see who have been bombarded in every church with the doctrine of original sin and sin nature is that this shows that this is heretical to the scriptures. Being read into the scriptures through the lens of the Gnosticism of Augustine and others. And forced upon many for centuries by the power of the Vatican sword.
Because it is her with her antichrist gnostic teachings of original sin and sin nature that have caused people to believe that the fathers eat grapes and the children’s teeth are indeed set on edge. That God has indeed punished all men because of their father Adam’s sin.
But, what about those who were not, nor ever have been, under the law? This includes everyone who was not part of Israel before and during Moses’ time, and after Jesus. What about them? Was it always this way? Did God always have to punish sin as it is defined by the law? Paul gives us some great insight into this question in a single verse in Acts17.
Here Paul is dealing with people at Athens who are in obvious idolatry. We pick up the story in vs.16, “Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.” Here we see that these people at Athens were doing the same thing Israel under the law was punished by God for doing. Idolatry.
And as we read further we see that Paul had something to say to them about this. In vs.17 it says, “Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.”
And as a result “18 Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? Other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.
19 And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?
20 For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.
21 (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)”
So it was that these people, even in the midst of their many superstitions, had not yet heard the truth of the gospel of grace and of its God. So, “22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.” Which is just another way of saying it’s apparent that you like to speculate about things of which you know nothing. Continuing Paul says,
23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.
33 So Paul departed from among them.”
A key portion here is where Paul says “in the times of this ignorance God winked at”. What ignorance? What times? Here we are talking about dispensations again. Isn’t that a curious thing? So many want to argue about dispensationalism. And yet here it is clearly being taught throughout the scriptures.
So the ignorance spoken of here that some men without covenant with God were in was their ignorance of who God is. But, realizing there must be a god they make idols as these in Athens did out of stone, metals, and wood. Even one that was to observe a god they have no knowledge about.
But, the main thing Paul wants these people to know, as well as anyone living during the current dispensation, is that “now(God) commandeth all men every where to repent”. Why now? What has changed that makes this the new normal at this time? Paul answers saying it is “31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
So just as Paul says in Rom.2:12 God will judge those who were under the law, that was Israel from Moses to Jesus, by the law. And those without the law, that is everyone else, He will judge apart from the law. This is just because their judgment is according to the dispensation they were in. According to the light they were given by God within their particular dispensation.
But, the important thing both Ezekiel and Paul want us to know is that it has never been true that “the father’s eat grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” It has never been true that God has punished anyone for someone else’s sin. But, only for those sins we commit in the light of what God has shown us in whatever dispensation we are part of.
And for us who live from Jesus till now the only sin that God judges us for that concerns our going to heaven or not is whether or not we have believed in Jesus for eternal life. This is what Jesus said in John16:9. And what John says in 1John3:6-9.
So the question is, will you trust in Jesus for eternal life?
Will you know the fact that Jesus joined with you in mortality was so that you can join with Him in immortality? Because the only thing that stands between men and heaven is mortality. It is their being natural and not spiritual just as Adam was when he was made.
The spirituality we need to go to heaven, and the immortality we need, comes from only one source. And that is the great God and savior Jesus Christ. Because He alone has conquered death. And He alone is the Spirit that gives life.
Being assured of this then, Paul says in Rom.10:9,10 that if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. And believe in your heart that He has raised from the dead. You will be saved. You will have eternal life now by the spirit God creates in you to make you His child and therefore heir to His kingdom. And immortality at the resurrection.
Do this and you will live eternally in God’s heaven. Do this and after this life there will be no more tears and no more pain. Do this and the wonders of heaven will be yours eternally. Do this and you will be set free from the strong delusion of the antichrist Gnosticism of original sin and sin nature. Do this… and I will see you there or in the air!
