Scripture Paradoxes:
THEIR TRUE EXPLANATION
by
Rev. Dr. Bayley
Minister of Argyle Square Church, King's Cross, London
1868
PARADOX V:
Iniquity Visited upon Children, but Punishment Only upon the Guilty
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. — Exodus 20:6.
COMPARED WITH
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. — Ezekiel 18:20
PERHAPS there are few more profitable, and to ingenuous
minds, few more interesting inquiries than those upon which we are at
present intent from Sunday evening to Sunday evening. There are few more
profitable, as I trust we have hitherto found. We shall, let us hope,
hereafter find that what has seemed to be difficult, and in some cases
apparently contradictory in the Divine Word, really consists only of
different sides of the same truth. It is with the Word as it is with the
world. It has many sides. Remember the celebrated ancient story of the
shield, which was gold at one side and silver at the other. Two travelers
coming up from different sides, one asserted the shield was gold, and the
other that it was silver. It is said they fought and wounded each other. But at length one happened to catch a glimpse of the other side; and then
they found that both had been right, and both had been wrong. It is
exactly so with the varied forms in which truth often presents itself to
the soul. If we would endeavor to see our neighbors side; if we would
endeavor not to forget what others see and try to help us to understand,
we should discover that truth has more sides than one, and that each one
is a supplement and a complement to the other. Probably many of the
religious differences of mankind would be found to resolve themselves into
the same thing. An error is often nothing but an exaggerated truth, a statement quite
right in itself, but which has probably been dwelt upon to the exclusion
of many other views equally true. Thus there has been formed a contorted
idea in the mind. Many things that are required in order that all may have
their just proportion are shut out, and a hindrance is thus formed in the
way of our advancement in truth and goodness. With this fact in view we
would ask you to consider the two sides of Divine Truth presented to us in
the differing declarations of the texts before us.
In the first declaration we are assured that the iniquity of the father is
visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation,—or, as it
might be better rendered, to thirds and fourths; for you will find that
the word generation is really not in the text, but is printed in italics. The Divine language continues, that mercy shall be visited on the
thousandths of them that love the Lord. It is clear from the most general
acceptance of the words how the Divine Benevolence is manifested. You see
how infinitely mercy and love abound over this visitation of iniquity. Let
us, however, attend to the language of the Divine Word more closely. In
pursuing our inquiries into heavenly wisdom it is important to notice
exactly what that wisdom teaches. This is illustrated is the case before
us in relation to the word iniquity. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children. By a very curious transformation of mind in relation to
this passage and some others, the word iniquity is read as if it were
punishment. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children is
understood to mean, by those who hear, and those who read very often,
(because the idea unhappily got into the theological creeds of past ages,)
that the Lord punishes children on account of what their fathers have
done.
But the passage does not say, Visiting the punishment but iniquity of the
fathers upon the children. Such is the Divine statement. The same thing is
attendant upon another famous declaration one that is very commonly used
in relation to another very solemn subject of theology, I mean that in
Isaiah 53:5, where it is said, The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity
of us all.
This also has been understood to mean, and by a large number of
individuals is still understood to mean, The Lord hath laid on him the
punishment of us all. Such a declaration, however, would be quite another
thing.
The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity, of us all. And in the passage
before us the iniquity of the fathers is visited upon the children. Nothing is said about punishment. Iniquity means depravity of nature. We
are born in iniquity. Iniquity is not-equity.
Thus by iniquity in the passage before us is meant depravity. The
depravity of our nature is transmitted hereditarily from parents to
children. Just as the nature of the parents is, just so it must
necessarily be with the children. The fruit cannot be different from the
tree, the effect cannot be otherwise than the result of the cause. And in
this case the result of that degradation of our nature which is caused by
evil must be exactly that which it is described to be in the Sacred
Volume. The pages of Revelation, and the teachings of experience agree in
this, like parents, like children.
We are told, with an extreme suggestiveness, in the earliest Divine
Records, that man was made in the image and likeness of God. But after the
fall of man, when the children of Adam are described, it is said that Seth
was made in the likeness of Adam. Adam had a son in his own
likeness, (Gen. 5:3,) and so it must necessarily be. Inasmuch as God creates
children through parents, how could it be otherwise than that they should
partake of the character of the would in which they are formed. This law
then, unfolded in the language of our text is that sublime law of
hereditary transmission—that law by which all the human race are
connected in one grand series of links from the beginning onwards, and
will ever form one grand network of immortal beings. Each new being is
formed by the Lord through the nature that has gone before; and, hence,
humanity is one grand chain of being. This law is one of the most weighty
character. A similar law exists in every department of creation. In the
case of every plant, of every tree, of every transmission of animals, just
what the seed is such will the results be. Cause and effect go through the
universe. There is a regular consecutive derivation of one generation of
beings from another; and so it is that the Divine creation goes on.
From the operation of this law in outward nature, we find the grandest
results possible.
Geology enables us to trace through immense periods of millions of years,
the progress of the earth. The Almighty created the worlds through the sun
as their parent; and since his grand influences were crystallized and
formed into worlds as the sun's children, as part of the vast family of
God, He still supports them as He created them, through the sustaining
sun. Each earth was a vast congeries of rocks bare and naked. But by rain,
and air, and time, these rocks were pulverized, or as the word in geology
is, disintegrated, and soil bare and thin was formed. In this soil the
Divine Wisdom deposited seeds, from these seeds grew plants. From the
decay of these plants a better soil was formed, and then more and more by
repeated decay, change, and progression through indefinite ages, each
stratum coming from that which was less perfect below, and becoming more
perfect by the action of life, at length this glorious world of ours, as
it is, was formed. Through this grand chain of existence, with the law of
successive development and progression, instead of rude bare rocks a world
is formed as we have it, so lovely, and so good, so capable of blessing
its inhabitants. The splendid marbles that acid magnificence to palaces,
and adorn our homes, are the result of shells deposited myriads of ages
ago. The rich harvests of today, all that is lovely in flower, and good in
fruit, and those grand old growths which form majestic forests, come from
deposits of ages long before. The materials of art, by means of which
forms of beauty are multiplied are entirely the result of the workings of
Providence, through ages astounding in their vast duration, but all
connected together.
There is beauty o'er all this delectable world,
Which wakes at the first golden touch of the light,
There is beauty when morn hath her banner unfurled,
Or stars twinkle out from the depths of the night.
Now, this chain through which creation has acted for an indefinite period
of time, producing so noble a result, from the hand of Divine Providence,
is precisely no image of what has taken place with the world of man. The
Lord made man at; first innocent, but ignorant; yet with this power of
progression in him. There was this capability of advancement from the
gentle but loving state in which he was when first produced. He was
tender and inexperienced, yet with all the germs of no angelic nature is
him. With this capability of progression, every quality, every excellence,
every attainment, made by any part of the human race would give the
proneness to the next succeeding child, to start from a higher plane than
that from which his parent started. This was the object of the grand law
before us—continual progression, continual elevation; what the parents
have won, to be continued and imparted to the children, with the tendency
to greater perfection in, and the greater elevation of, the whole race. If
man had not perverted this law by his disobedience and fall, the whole
race would have been a constantly increasing power of ever-perfecting
human love, with all its energies of happiness and perfection.
Even with our rebellion, and the tendency to wrong which has been
introduced into our being, this same grand law has yet been so developed,
that wonderful talents and powers, stores of knowledge, of philosophic
thought, stores of good in society, have still been realized through
infinite mercy. Every one may easily see the grandeur of this law as far
as the good side is concerned. How much better it is that the Divine Being
should have created us in accordance with this law of hereditary
transmission, rather than to have made us all like grains of sand, each
one independent of all the rest. If each child had been a severed
creation, standing by itself, with no father, no mother, no relatives,
none of those attachments which group us into families and nations, how
inconceivably weak would each have been. Each child would have been a new
production, with no relation to what had gone before, and no relation to
what was coming after. There would have been a sort of limitedness, a
monotony, a puny being wanting pith and power would have been presented,
very different from what is actually produced as a result of this Divine
law. It would have been just as if in external society, when a person
died, his house, his property, his estate, everything belonging to him,
had sunk into the earth and disappeared, instead of being carried on to
his children. There would have been no realized mental wealth carried on. But we know what a grand advantage wealth is. Take as an instance this
glorious land of ours. What a grand heritage it is! What a
mass of riches, fame, power, good of every kind now exists in this
country, which has been realizing for a thousand years, advancement of
every sort.
That is just the result of the law we are considering, the transmission
from generation to generation of everything that has been acquired by our
forefathers to their successors.
But evil, although it never creates anything, always perverts what God
gives. Hence, the very law of transmission which is so wonderfully
merciful and good in itself, becomes by transgression the law by which the
iniquity of the father is transmitted to the children. But, even then, it
passes on, not in the way of punishment, not in the way of actual sin
even, but in the way of impulse; in the way of transmission of nature, as
the power of temptation, that is all. Even the perversion of a grand law
to a mischievous end, is an act of mercy. The ship that has gone upon a
sunken rock, hidden before, and becomes itself a shipwreck, by remaining
there and pointing out the mischief, becomes a beacon of mercy to all
others. It is just so with the perversions which occur in our nature and
bring in evil and punishment. The very disposition which is transmitted
onward, tells the child of the mischief that comes from sin. Oh! how I
wish that I could stamp this truth upon every soul before me, and
especially upon all the young. There are a thousand reasons why we should
walk in the path of virtue, a thousand warnings why we should quit, why we
should avoid every touch of vice of every kind. But, to all other reasons,
to all other cautions and warnings, let me add this,—when you are about
to pass into the perversity of sin; when you are trembling and tottering,
as it were, upon the path that may lead you to engulf yourselves in wrong,
bear this in mind, it is not yourselves only but your children that will
suffer. The time will come when the corruption of nature that comes from
actual sin, (there is none from mere temptation,) will defile your
offspring. When evil has tainted heart and mind, and life, and becomes
actual sin, that is transmitted to our children. Until that point there is
nothing that goes on. There is nothing which entering into him
can defile
a man, the Lord Jesus said, but the things which come out. We may be
tempted, lured, our lusts excited to wrong of various kinds, but nothing
is corrupted until we do that which is sin in the sight of God; then the
iniquity is fixed in our nature and is visited on our children. Hence the
Apostle James says in these two striking verses, And lust when
it is conceived bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth
forth death.—James 1:14, 15. But, in the form of instigation only, of
proneness only, of temptation only, of which the Apostle speaks when he
says, A man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts, and
enticed; in that form, so long as we resist the temptation, it is really a
purifying influence, and calls out new virtues. It is just like the leaven
that is put among the flour, it helps to get rid of the impurity that is
stirred up by the fermentation. It is that which cometh out of the man
that defileth a man. For from within, out of the heart of man proceed evil
thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders.
Let us remember this great law, remember it to our eternal good; that the
iniquity which has been DONE, passes on to our children, the iniquity that
is thought of, but resisted, helps to purify ourselves. So surely as the
faces of children are like the faces of parents, so surely are tempers,
tendencies, impulses, dualities in parental minds all presented again with
some variations, but substantially the same, in the minds of children. Children are reflections of the characters of father and mother, and
various blendings of each. An old proverb speaks this truth gathered from
observation, He is just a chip of the old block. We shall take no harm
from receiving the instigations to do evil, but much good from bringing
all the good dispositions we receive from our parents, into play. Iniquity
exists in us just as it existed in the nature which our Lord took: from
Mary, for that is the signification of what is said by the Prophet, The
Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all;—not the punishment of us
all, not the guilt of us all, but the iniquity. He took into His human
nature all the impulses by means of which He could be tempted, but because
of His Divine virtue and inherent infinite goodness He always resisted
those impulses, and glorified, and perfected His nature until it was
Divinely good, even in body, as well as Divinely good in soul.
Allow me, next, to ask your attention to our second text, The son shall
not bear the iniquity of the father, which I trust we may now see is only
an illustration of all that we have been saying before. A son has in
his nature the faulty dispositions of his parents, but he is not to bear
them so long as they lie simply in the form of impulses, of proneness, of
instigations.
He has not to bear them when a, child. Every child has in him these
tendencies to evil, and every child, as far as his inner nature goes, is
provided from the Lord with germs of good. These are implanted as a center
in his little heart. In every child there is a little heaven. Our Lord
Jesus said, Of such is the kingdom of heaven. There is every impulse to
virtue there, every holy tendency, everything in germ, that if carried
out, will become a character virtuous, beautiful, and angelic.
In the middle ages, our ancestors got into some very sad notions about
children. They had a strange way of thinking about almost everything. They
speculated much on what they called God's justice, but which if used in
relation to anything else, would have been called the most monstrous
injustice that ever existed in the world. They said that God was so very
just, that on account of Adam and Eve sinning by taking a forbidden apple,
He determined to punish all their posterity then unborn, and many of whom
for thousands of years would not be born, by charging them with having
done this very thing that Adam and Eve had done. This was said to he the
result of God's justice. He was so very just, that little children were
all born under God's displeasure.
But the Scriptures do not represent little children under this ban of
infinite wrath, or as it is sometimes called, vindictive justice. On the
contrary, every child is represented in the Sacred Volume as being one of
that class of which our blessed Lord says, It is not the will of your
Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. In
the old councils indeed many strange judgments were arrived at. They
seemed to have an especial spite against little children; they hardly ever
met or separated without declaring that all little children were eternally
condemned from their birth. They declared that it was impossible for them
to go to heaven if they died, especially if they had not been baptized. For little children there was no hope, only by some of them getting faith,
and it was supposed that God would only give faith to a few. When He
gave faith to those few, Adam's sin was entirely removed, and for those few
there was hope on earth, and happiness in heaven.
Up to the seventeenth century these councils and synods hardly ever
separated without passing some resolutions embodying these astounding
sentiments respecting little children. How different is that language to
the language from our Divine Master. He taught that little children are
under the especial guardianship of our Heavenly Father. Their angels, He
says, do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven; take heed
that ye offend not one of these little ones; suffer little children to
come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. He
puts a little kingdom of God into every immortal soul, which we feel, and
call conscience. It is always to be found in the human breast. Its
presence is very troublesome to one who is becoming really wicked. When a
young man or a young maiden slips aside from the path of virtue, this
inner, better nature will speak. They will have to labor to stifle many a
heavenly sentiment, many a tender idea, many a call of mercy. It is indeed
a very troublesome thing for a person to make himself a fiend. Horrible
thought! And how much less trouble would he have if he would live a
simple, straightforward, virtuous life. What doth the Lord require of thee
but to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God? The
straight course is not a hard one. But when a man breaks the path of
right, one violation is not enough, he must go on from day to day, month
to month, year to year. Conscience will rise up and assert its
prerogative; the voice of truth will come again, and again, and again. The
call of heaven will whisper by night and by day, Return to thy fathers
house, and learn to be wise, and good, and happy. And as soon as ever the
soul in the midst of its sins will really say, I have sinned against
heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son, make
me as one of thy hired servants, for they have bread enough and to spare,
as soon as this state comes, our Heavenly Father sees it, even while yet
we are very far off, and runs and falls upon his neck and kisses the
returning penitent, and says, Bring hither the best robe, and put it on
him, and put a ring upon his hand, the golden token of that love between
the soul and its Savior which is the essence of eternal life. The
ring on his hand, and shoes of ready obedience upon his feet; such is the
welcome that Infinite Mercy gives and intends for every child of man.
Of such is the kingdom of heaven.
There is, then, a center of good implanted, as there is a center of evil
transmitted. There is the upper region where heaven reigns, a little
heaven; and there is the lower region where disorder reigns, a little
hell. Out of the heart are the issues of life and death. Out of the good
and heavenly part of the heart, provided by the Lord, are the issues of
life and heaven. Out of the mischievous part of the heart, derived from
our forefathers, are the lower passions and impulses, the issues of evil
and hell. There is a little heaven and a little hell in the same human
being.
In early life, the Lord holds this evil part of man in abeyance. It is
early seen. The iniquity is there, but the child does not bear it.
If children are perfectly well, they are good. When they complain, it is
because they suffer. When children are in good health, and see only good
examples, they are little forms of heaven. What softness, tenderness,
gentleness, love, appear in the thousand little ways of childhood! They
embody all the charms of endearment and loving-kindness. A little child
will pour out all its affections on those whom it knows it can trust and
love. It has in it the imperfections and degradations of our nature, but
it does not BEAR them. The Lord bears them. As age advances, times come
when temptations arise, yet even then the Lord holds our iniquities in
check, and we are not tempted more than we can bear. But our characters
must be formed. Heaven and hell both operate upon us; we stand between. Character is obtained by the resolution to act with the one or with the
other. We stand between; yet even then we do not
BEAR the iniquity until
our sin makes it our own. Hell presents its incitements, heaven presents
its hopes. The bliss, the peace, and the wisdom of angels, and of the Lord
Jesus, the God of angels, acting through them and by them, are on the one
side; demons are on the other, stirring up the souls passions, and
provoking to wrong. Heaven and hell are the two great forces. The human
soul is between them, and must say, Here I take my stand, I will be an
angel and not a fiend; of these two things I will choose the good.
Behold, I place before you, says the Lord, Life and death, blessing and
cursing, choose life that you may live. And every one who becomes an angel, every one that becomes really a man,
chooses life, perseveres in choosing life, and out of that life comes out
that which is in his character all which is beautiful, glorious, and
happy; a continually increasing heavenly state, and at last heaven itself. The soul has not borne the weight of his iniquity; the Lord has borne it
for him. Yet he must will that his evil be subdued; his little hell must
be checked, beaten down, trodden under foot, and covered up. It is a
wonderful conquest. Behold I give unto you power to tread on serpents and
scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, the Lord Jesus says, and
nothing shall by any means hurt you. In Psalm 91:13, how strikingly the
Divine Word speaks when it says, Then shalt tread upon the lion and adder,
the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Because he
hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him. The passions, the
hates, the animosities, the evil instigations of sins are the worst of all
lions, the worst of all dragons, the worst of all serpents. We are brought
into actual contact with these evils, but when we turn from them, the Lord
smites them down. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your
pence. How beautiful those words are to me, The son shall not bear the
iniquity of the father. The son shall not bear the sins of the father; the
Lord bears them; and when we resist and hate them, He entirely takes them
away.
In that beautiful allegory the Pilgrim's Progress, I dare say many of my
friends will remember that when Greatheart and others were going up to the
temple Beautiful, they were afraid because they saw the raging lions in
the way, but Greatheart pointed out that there was an invisible string
that held every lion fast, and he could not go beyond the permitted
bounds, so even women and children were able to pass in safety. This is
just the representation of what our evils and passions are, when they are
simply hereditary. Until we have chosen them and carried them out, and
thus made them our own, they are all secretly chained by Divine Mercy. They are all kept in abeyance by the Lord. He bears them and controls
them. When we are suffered to be tempted by them, He sustains us in the
temptation. And when we conquer, He bears them away altogether. When the Israelites came in sight of the Red Sea, and found their enemies
the Egyptians behind them, they were filled with alarm. They had arrived
at a spot where they were shut in between the Red Sea before, and the
Egyptians behind. They did not then know what they afterwards learned,
that every one of those enemies was under Divine control. To every human
foe, as to the raging sea, Divine Providence says, Thus far and no farther
shalt thou go. There are invisible cords, controlling them, in every
direction. The Lord said to Moses, Speak unto the children, of Israel,
that they go forward. The Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day ye shall see them again no more for ever. Exactly thus is it
when we are in the trials of spiritual life. Temptations and dangers are
always held back until we are strong enough to sustain them. The Lord has
borne our iniquity, He has been our shield, our help, and strength, so
that the greater part of our lives we did not know that we had these
iniquities within us. It is only now and then they come up, and we behold
their dark and dreadful nature. But, even then, if we stand firm, resting
upon the same God that Moses rested upon, looking up to the great Savior
for help, and never making our sin actual, then the Lord will say, The
enemies ye see today, ye shall see them no more far ever. Combat, fight
with patience against them. Conquer today, and tomorrow you shall have
peace, a never-ending peace. You have received the iniquities of your
fathers, but you have not had to bear them. The Lord has borne them all
the way along, and at length He removes them forever. They shall trouble
you no more. You shall be forever free, in the land, where,
The wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest.
LESSONS
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