Crusader War College

Link: http://www.biblestudytools.com/OnlineStudyBible/bible.cgi?word=Exodus+20%3A4-6&section=0&version=kjv

A lot of people cling to the belief that God is inherently unfair and not good given the following threat from Exodus 20:

4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

It is, of course, ignored that the punishment of the fathers falls on the children to the third and fourth generation, while mercy is shown to thousands of generations that love him.

This threat is repeated in Exodus 34:7, with some clarification that is often ignored deliberately:

5 And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. (Ex. 34:5-7)

What is the purpose of these threats? The first thing to recognize is that these indeed are threats, but they are plainly directed to the descendants of the guilty. Secondly, it should be recognized that, in those days, it was customary for marriages to be very early and with the goal of having children as soon as possible. Thus, it was very much possible for the guilty one who worshipped idols to see their great grand children (the fourth generation).

I believe the way to look at these verses is to realize that when religious men and women knowingly commit evil, they will justify the sin or the attempt to manage the consequences of their sin by a seeming "selfless" appeal. "It's for the children!" is the cry being given today for government mandated health care, one world government, pacifism, abortion, environmentalism, the war on terrorism, and destruction of the economy in the name of controlling "man originated global warming". "Certainly what we are doing is not good right now," they say, "but it is okay because I am not doing it for myself, but for those who will come after me." It is said that the wealthy tend to look 100 years down the line while the poor don't look past the next paycheck. Thus, this threat is directed to those who claim to have a "long term vision" that mandates their "evil" actions today in the name of averting some future threat or gaining some future benefit.

Whether this is what they honestly believe or is merely a pretext is irrelevant: the intent is to disarm opponents that would keep them from performing those actions or who would punish them as part of a process to derail what they set into motion. In a sense, these people are employing virtual human shields. Like cowardly terrorists who flee to civilian areas knowing that Western forces will not chase them down if there is a good chance of civilian casualties resulting from it, these appeal to the threat to current children or children not yet born that would result from executing justice on them and undoing their acts.

What must be kept in mind when dealing with such people is that such behavior is calculated. That is, they have not only meticulously planned out what they were going to do, but engaged in a cost/benefit calculation that was used to come up with contingency plans to mitigate the costs: "IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN" is the implementation of a contingency plan born of a mitigation strategy. The argument against government intrusion into economic affairs is based on the fact that government aid and restrictions affect the cost/benefit analysis, and thus affects the actions of those making those calculations.

What is God doing in these passages? He is acting to counter-mitigate this argument! "If you truly CARED for future generations, know that what I am requiring will truly benefit thousands of future generations if you obey my commandments today. Thus, because those future generations are what you purport to value, I will not only threaten them for what you do, but I will make sure that that punishment falls on the generations that you do see."

That God takes into account the perverse calculations of the human heart is seen when this commandment is seemingly reversed in Ezekiel 18. In that chapter, the parents believe that these verses imply that the children totally bear the parents sins, while beliving that they are suffering the consequences of the sins of their parents. Rather than repent and count on the Lord's word that he would have mercy on thousands of generations that love and obey him, they decide that the best way to mitigate the pain they are suffering is to indulge the sins of pleasure, reasoning that the pain from THOSE sins will be shifted off of them to their children. It is even more perverse behavior if their fathers were righteous so the suffering they are enduring is due to the natural consequences of the sins of their neighbors splashing over onto them because they didn't want to "rock the boat" or "cause trouble" by holding their sinning neighbors to account: Rather than execute true justice on the ones causing corporate suffering, they start this inter-generational pissing contest by their sins. God "messes" things up by negating the inter-generational threat and declares he would judge people by what they do, rather than what their fathers did.

Those who complain about God's justice should note Ezekiel 18:25-29:

25 Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal? 26 When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die. 27 Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. 28 Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. 29 Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?

We may laugh today at what we see as the obvious perversity of that generation who complained of God's ways "not being equal" when it was obvious that "their ways were unequal"! In the same way, future generations will look back at the fools of our day and laugh at them for their belief that God would be blamed for their use of human shields! Men's moralities may not change as often as the spring clothing styles, but change they do. God's morality never changes and is always beneficial, regardless of the time or the foolish beliefs of men.