When Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but that instead a riot was starting, he took some water, washed his hands before the crowd[1] and said, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. You take care of it yourselves! You take him and crucify him! Certainly I find no reason for an accusation against him!”
The Jewish leaders and all the people replied, “We have a law, and according to our law he ought to die, because he claimed to be the Son of God! Let his blood be on us and on our children!” [2]
This was not a new phrase to the Jewish people. Let’s go back to the book of Joshua. After Rahab helped the spies at Jericho, the spies promised she and her family would be spared the coming destruction if she brought them into her house. But…
“If any of them go outside your house into the street, their blood will be on their own heads; we will not be responsible. As for those who are in the house with you, their blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on them.” (Joshua 2:19)
In other words, the consequences of their choices are on them. I think this is what the crowd is saying in today’s passage: “We accept the consequences for us – and not just us, but our kids also.” Sadly, that will happen within 40 years. Choosing the way of Barabbas will indeed rain blood on their heads when the Zealots poked the Roman bear one too many times, and Rome destroyed the temple and killed a million Jewish people. Josephus recorded:
Thousands died by famine; thousands by disease; thousands by the sword; and their blood ran down the streets like water, so that, Josephus says, it extinguished things that were burning in the city. Thousands were crucified suffering the same punishment that they had inflicted on the Messiah. So great was the number of those who were crucified, that, Josephus says, they were obliged to cease from it, "room being wanted for the crosses, and crosses for the men." (Barnes Notes On The Bible)
So, there was a very practical consequence of that choice against Jesus and for Barabbas that had real-world consequences for those alive at that time. The children of those in the crowd clearly had to suffer for what their parents chose.
But in a broader sense, does God condemn children for something parents did? Hmmm… Let’s start in the Old Testament. First, the Law:
“Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin.” Deuteronomy 24:16
Next, the Prophets.
The word of the Lord came to me: “What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: “‘The parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel….
“Yet you ask, ‘Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?’ Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. The one who sins is the one who will die.
The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.” (Ezekiel 18)
Alright, so in terms of who pays the consequences for sin, it’s a one and done. We are only responsible for what we do. So what do we do with passages like this?
“You shall not bow down to them or worship [idols]; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands of generations, to those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:5-6)
“[God] keeps lovingkindness for thousands of generations, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” (Exodus 34:7)
How to resolve this?
This requires linguistic context. The phrase “the third and the fourth” is a Hebrew idiom for “however many” or “whatever number it takes.” The legacy of the sins of the parents will go on until the children reverse course. Notice how Jeremiah works the idea of generational guilt in with individual responsibility in the same paragraph.
You show steadfast love to thousands [of generations], but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them, O great and mighty God… whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man, rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.” (Jeremiah 32:16-19)
Jeremiah isn’t going to contradict himself in the same paragraph. He’s referencing the principle of legacies as found in Deuteronomy while insisting individuals will get the fruit of their own deeds.
One thing is clear: The power of legacies is really strong. Israel broke their covenant so many times. The parents started a legacy, and the children carried it on. Think of the family dynamics in the Old Testament, such as sibling rivalry, favoritism, and deceit in the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants, or how King David’s lust for women and power showed up again in his children and grandchildren. The Bible does not shy away from showing us the ripple effect of choices, particularly bad or sinful choices.
Here’s a practical and relatively minor example. I help out at the YMCA with little kids’ basketball league. A couple weeks ago I had to intervene with one of the coaches. He was getting really upset with the referee. He was tense, critical, and very vocal about it. Guess what started to happen to the players (they were 2nd and 3rd graders) who were just having fun playing basketball? They got tense, critical and vocal about it. So I pulled the coach aside and said, “Coach, when you are tense and angry, your players get tense and angry. When you are calm, they are calm.” He calmed down, and guess what? So did the kids.
The ‘blood’ of his anger was on him and his players.
Let’s try an example that might step on our toes if we have kids. Let’s say I get up tired and cranky back when my kids were younger. Rather than pray, take a deep breath, and remind myself of how Jesus has called me to be present in the world, I just run with it.
· My kids are way too slow getting ready for school, and I shame them into hurrying up. (“You are so slow! What is your problem?”)
· Sheila’s alarm didn’t go off so she is later getting ready than usual, and I snap at her for being in the bathroom when I needed to be in the bathroom (“If you would just set your alarm right this wouldn’t be a problem!” And she’s like, “I am going to be late if I don’t do this now.” And I’m like, “That’s on you. Maybe tonight you’ll set your alarm properly.”).
· As I drive through the roundabout on the way to school, someone fails to yield. I yell and lay on the horn and have a lot to say about stupid drivers. Because we are late, I tailgate people on the way to school, as if that will help.
What will Sheila’s day look like now? Well, I’ve started her day by insulting her over a simple mistake and expressing zero empathy. Different personalities will respond different ways, but there’s no way she goes to work unaffected by me.
What will my boys be like at school? Well, that lovely start to that day will impact them. I was a teacher long enough to know the ride to school matters in how kids show up. At some point in the year, I’m going to get a call. (“Your boys keep saying, “What is your problem? Are you stupid? When people bump into them in the hallway. Also, they really beat themselves up any time it takes them longer than others to finish an assignment. They keep saying, ‘I am so slow.’”)
How might that other driver’s day have been impacted? Well, I know how I feel when I make a driving mistake and get yelled out. I feel so stupid. I beat myself up. I show up differently in my next meeting or two because I feel like such an embarrassing failure. Depending on the other driver’s personality in my story, I don’t know what kind of response that would trigger. Anger? Shame? How will that impact the next thing they do?
The ’blood’ of my anger was not just on me, it was on my wife, my children, and a random driver.
God has baked the principle of cause and effect into his universe: the Bible calls it harvesting what we planted. Jesus had just warned his disciples that if they lived by the sword they would die by the sword. The crowd chose the sword of the Zealots; it was revisited on them and their children. Actions have consequences.
I’m thinking now of how many times in the course of history there have violent feuds between nations, families or individuals in which violence begat violence. The end is often known – think “established” - from the beginning. [3] The conclusion can be known by studying the start (and the middle, of course).[4] Think of how a small seed grows into a huge tree. That was always going to be the case, because the seed had a telos – a goal, an end goal, a completion – baked into it from the very beginning.
We are going to get to the good news of how Jesus provides salvation such that history is not destiny.First, let’s look at the serious implications of this idea.
The physical impact of intergenerational sin/trauma
There is increasingly good reason to believe that what we do and what is done to us leaves a genetic footprint that we pass on to our kids.[5] In some sense, the body keeps score not only of our own experiences but of the experiences of our lineage. Our biology reveals not only our history, but our family and community history in some sense. Look up “epigenetic trauma” for more info. This isn’t my main point today.
The spiritual/emotional impact of intergenerational sin/trauma
There is another sense in which our community of origin (family, church, school, etc.) forms us - for good or bad - in ways that linger. Since today’s passage focuses on the fallout from sinful or negative choices, that’s where we will focus. I am painting with a really large brush here, so please give me some grace if you think I’m not nuanced enough. This is like a proverb: it’s generally true.
I’ve been on a personal journey in this area for the past 2 years. I have been coming to grips with how the legacy given to me – the sins of the generation older than me, and the sins of my peers when I was a child – left a profound impact on me. It turns out that one is not bullied and molested without the body, soul and spirit keeping score. I say this only to note that while I will paint with a broad brush, I speak from first-hand experience that has been addressed by my faith and some good counselors. There were people who consciously or unconsciously said, “Let the blood of consequences be on us and on our children for what I am about to do,” and I was the child.
· If you were raised with constant criticism, with a sense of never being good enough, that leaves a mark. There will likely be a tendency to keep seeing yourself that way, and either finding that you believe it’s true and beat yourself up all the time, or finding that you are overly determined to prove them wrong, and become relentlessly focused on being perfect. If you have children, maybe they hear you beat yourself up all the time, or you pass on the criticism you received to them, or they see that you demand perfection of yourself, and you treat them the same way. There is a variety of ways in which broken legacies can be passed on.
· If you were raised around explosive and unsafe arguers, conflict will likely bring out fight or flight in you: engage 100% and win, or do anything to avoid it. It’s likely one of those responses will be passed on to your kids.
· If you were raised in a materialist family that prioritized money and things, that’s likely going to stick. That’s going to feel like a marker for success, maybe even of worth. It can become a way to judge the worth of others.
· If you were raised in a bitter, envious family where nobody else deserved what they had and your family was always the victim of others, that gets ingrained. Life never seems fair; anything that goes wrong for you is not your fault.
· If you grew up in a moral ecosystem that devalues and insults the “other” – any group of people they really look down on - that’s going to impact how you think about and act toward that group of people.
Unless there is intervention, sin and brokenness get passed on. They leave a mark. It might be replicating those sins (“Hurt people hurt people.”); it might be overreacting and doing the extreme opposite (a boy abused by a male might become hyper masculine to combat how he was treated.) Sin and its traumatic legacy tends to get passed on.
As one hurt by the deeply traumatic sinfulness of others, I have found for myself that for many years, even when I said “I’m fine!” what I often meant was, “I am functioning in a way that feels normal to me,” and that is…not necessarily the same as being healthy and whole. And when that’s the case, there is always the danger that broken people will break people, even without knowing it’s happening.
Here’s the good news. Here’s the gospel. “His blood be on us and on our children” might just be the most wonderfully ironic proclamation of hope in the Bible.
Thank God that the blood of Jesus will be on those who killed Jesus, and on their children.
“What was seen by many as a curse is in fact a blessing invoked unwittingly, for the Lord's blood is the source of their redemption…St. John Chrysostom teaches that even though these Jews “acted with such madness, so far from confirming a sentence on them or their children, Christ instead received those who repented and counted them worthy of good things beyond number.” (Orthodox Study Bible)[6]
Unchecked, unaddressed, the consequences of our sin may affect future generations, but God offers refuge and redemption to each generation to each person. His mercies are new every morning. God himself refuses to make us bear the guilt of the sins of those who have gone before us, and God himself refuses to make those who come after us bear the guilt of our sin. God relentlessly offers forgiveness, healing and restoration. He has shown himself to be really good at bringing about good from even the worst circumstances.[7]
Look at the math from the verses from Deuteronomy just to get an idea: it was loving kindness to thousands of generations, compared to four generations reaping the punishment or consequences from bad decisions.
Even if we were to read that strictly literally (which I don’t think we should), the point would be the contrast: 1,000 to 4, love and restoration over judgment and punishment. God loves to multiply the ripple effect of that which is done righteously and minimize the ripple effect of that which is done sinfully. Let’s read further in Ezekiel 18:
“But if a lawless person turns away from all the lawless deeds they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does righteous justice and loves mercy, that person will surely live; they will not die.
None of the offenses they have committed will be remembered against them. In the righteousness they have done, they will live. Do I ever will or take pleasure in the death of the lawless?” says the Sovereign Lord, “since my will is for him to turn from his evil way and live…?”
“Therefore, house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent! Turn away from all your ungodliness; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the ungodliness you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit.
Why should you die, people of Israel? For I do not will and take no pleasure in the death of the one who dies,” declares the Sovereign Lord. “Repent and live!” (Ezekiel 18)
Why should you die? Repent and live. Get a new heart and a new spirit! And how do we do that? Well, it will be a gift from God. Ezekiel again.
And I will give you ia new heart, and ia new spirit I will put within you.iAnd I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.( Ezekiel 36:26)
God promises to make broken things whole, even dead things come to life. With Jesus, our history is not our destiny. Neither that which we have done or that which has been done to us is stronger than the redemptive power of Jesus.
· If you were raised with constant criticism, Jesus can show you how God thinks of you: a beloved child He is pleased to call his own; not ashamed of you; not requiring perfection; simply calling you to love God and love others from the foundation of God’s view of you, which is love.
· If you were raised around explosive and unsafe arguers, Jesus offers a new heart and attitude unchained to that legacy as you learn how to disagree with truth and grace.
· If you were raised in a materialist family that prioritized money and things and maybe learned to judge your value and the value of others based on their wealth, Jesus will teach you generosity and faith in God’s provision, as well as how to value people with the heart of Jesus.
· If you were raised in a bitter, envious family where nobody else deserved what they had and your family was always the victim of others, Jesus will show you how to celebrate blessing and abundance wherever you see it.
· If you were raised in moral ecosystem that devalues and insults the “other,” Jesus begins a good work in you that he will continue, teaching you how to bear the burdens of others, how to empathize, how to care, how to love.
When we get to the end of Ezekiel, we find out the end game. Though this is directed toward the nation of Israel, I remain convinced that the physical realities of the Old Covenant are meant to help us understand the spiritual realities of the New Covenant. .
24 “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 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 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.29 I will save you from all your uncleanness… I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field, so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine….
33 “‘On the day I cleanse you from all your sins, I will resettle your towns, and the ruins will be rebuilt… all who pass through it… will say, “This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited.”
36 Then the nations around you that remain will know that I the Lord have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate. I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it.’ (Ezekiel 36)
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[1] “It was a custom among the Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins, to wash the hands in token of innocence, and to show that they were pure from any imputed guilt. In case of an undiscovered murder, the elders of that city which was nearest to the place where the dead body was found, were required by the law, Deuteronomy 21:1-10, to wash their hands over the victim which was offered to expiate the crime, and thus make protestation of their own innocence.” (Adam Clarke)
[2] “His blood be on us was a common phrase accepting responsibility for someone’s death.” (ESV Study Bible)
[3] Isaiah 46:10
[4] Theologians explain that God knows what the telos - the end or end goal - of the universe is because he started it, like the seed determines the tree.
[5] See more on this idea at “Intergenerational transmission of trauma effects: putative role of epigenetic mechanisms.”https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6127768/
[6] Think of the thousands converted in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:41).
[7] https://bibleproject.com/podcast/does-god-curse-generations/