Author's Preface
1. Accepting Or Uniting
   
2. Who Is A Christian?
   
3. "Why Don't You Leave The Church of Christ?"
   
4. The Iniquity Of The Fathers
   
5. Our Judicial System
   
6. "You Are My People Now"
   
7. Serving "Otherwise Than As Prescribed"
   
8. Does Baptize Really Mean To Immerse
   
9. Our Relationship Through Baptism
   
10. Those Gospel Meetings
    
11. A Prelude To Worship
    
12. Worshipping In Spirit And Truth
    
13. The Forbidden Prayer
    
14. "I Didn't Hear Nobody Pray"
    
15. Communion Prayers
    
16. Communion With Bread, Wine, And Money
    
17. Thursday Is The Lord's Day Too!
    
18. Not Forsaking The Assembly
    
19. Acts 20:7 One More Time
    
20. Our Father Who Art Where?
    
21. Does Nature Reveal God's Love
    
22. Copyrighted: All Rights Reserved
    
23. Don't Pour Water On Them
    
24. The Remaining Restriction For Women
    
25. Some Questions About Revelation
    
26. Must One Fully Repent Before Baptism?
    
27. Nicodemus In Context
    
28. Our Respected Myths Of Religion
    
29. Hook's Points: A Potpourri
    

Does our just God hold children accountable for the sins of their parents? An emphatic and clear answer is: "The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son" (Ezek. 18:20).

If that were all that is written on the subject, the answer would be concise and simple. But God himself declared, "For I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me" (Exo. 20:5). In search for harmony of these seemingly contradictory declarations, let me offer a few thoughts and make a specific application for us today.

The statement from Exodus is a part of the Ten Commandments forbidding idolatry. God had chosen a nation to uphold his name in a pagan world. He was jealous of any straying of their affections toward other gods. If they should turn to idols, which they often did, His disciplinary punishments would be felt by succeeding generations until they returned to him. Inspired history reveals that Israel turned away many times, and succeeding generations felt the jealous wrath brought by the iniquity of the fathers.

This was a national punishment which did not necessarily relate to the personal sins of each individual. No doubt, even in the time of total national abandonment into idolatry, there were individuals who were not guilty. God always has a remnant-seven thousand who do not bow down to Baal. Although these persons would suffer the national chastisement, their souls would not be lost.

Here is where Ezekiel's statements fit in. Jerusalem's unfaithfulness was bringing God's wrath on Judah. The people developed a proverb of complaint against God: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" (Ezek. 18:1-4). They were complaining that the children were bearing the sins of the parents, but God spoke of their individual accountability: "Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins shall die." This is speaking of loss of the soul due to personal guilt rather than corrective punishment brought on the nation.

From this we can conclude that people may suffer various temporal consequences of the sins of their parents, but they do not bear the guilt of their parents. If they continue in the sins of their forebears, they will be guilty because of personal sins. If they do not embrace the sins of their fathers, there is no personal guilt.

While we conclude that God still works within nations, we are not to think that he has a chosen nation today nor that America is a counterpart to Israel. We who are subjects of Christ are the spiritual Israel. As such we are not judged as a church but as individuals.

In time various corruptions have affected the universal church. From our fathers we have inherited a sectarianized, divided community of believers which we did not create. Even though we are adversely affected by these organized divisions. This sin of sectarianism cannot be laid to our account.

Just as there were righteous, God-fearing people like Elijah and the seven thousand in the times of Israel's idolatry, there are non-sectarian people in our divided communities of believers. The children of God are scattered among these divided groups. They did not form them, but they inherited the results of the sins of others. There is no such thing as an organized "one, true church" to be found with which you may align yourself.

For many years I reasoned that I only obeyed the gospel and let the Lord add me to his universal church, and that I never joined a sectarian group. But I came to see that when a group of disciples refuses fellowship with others in Christ, it becomes a sect. When it accepts a name to distinguish itself from other children of God, it becomes a denomination. Did God add me to the local Church of Christ (or church of Christ, if you prefer) which rejects other Christians and wears a distinguishing name? I had to be honest with myself. God added me to his one universal church, but I joined a local group which is a sectarian denomination. I could explain that I did not join a church but that I just placed membership. What is the difference other than terminology? I aligned myself with an exclusive group. And therein is the problem.

Most of those Christians in the various parties believe in the correctness of their distinctive groups and give their consent and energy to protect and promote them. Although they do not bear the guilt of their predecessors, they incur their own guilt be perpetuating a sectarian spirit which maintains their exclusiveness.

There are Christians in Babylon, however, who decry the division caused by the rejection of others in Christ. They accept God's children without regard to denominational boundaries. They are caught in a circumstance that suffers from the results of division, just as all present-day disciples are, yet they are not sectarian in attitude. Such people are guilty of neither inherited sin of division nor personal sins of judgmental rejection of fellow believers.

There is no such thing as a pure congregation of the Lord's people because they are all composed of erring brethren. Each man is to examine himself rather than his brother. A person is not guilty of his brother's sins unless he approves them. Fellowship is not approval, but it is sharing life in Christ. The Lord sets us in that fellowship. We do not choose our brothers, judge them, or bear their sins. "The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself" (Ezek. 18:20).

Israel was always called upon to reform and return, but never to start a new nation. Because congregations are composed of misunderstanding and erring humans, we must be in a continuous process of reform. There is no advice from an inspired pen, however, for Christians to abandon erring brethren and start a pure church. Not even the sin-plagued Corinthian fellowship or the seven churches of Asia with their glaring iniquities. That remedy for purity was devised by partisans. It is a work of the flesh, not a refinement of the Spirit.

Let us repeat: You and I do not bear the guilt for the divisions brought into existence by our forefathers though we suffer many ill consequences of their sins. We are individually accountable though for our perpetuation of the sectarian spirit shown in rejecting brothers in Christ.