So this has become a topic among Evangelicals (though, to be honest, I’m not sure that term is meaningful any more). I thought I should address it.
The Bible teaches that the sin of our first father condemned the entire human race. That is why the Bible can be interpreted of teaching some form of “hereditary guilt.” So I need to comment on what the Bible says about that. I plan to do so in these posts.
But the first thing that needs to be understood because it is clear in the Bible is that the Fall of the Human Race in Adam isn’t that important to human relationships, especially legal relationships. If we’re discussing who we get to hold responsible, punish, and plunder for sins, the Bible addresses that situation in particular:
BIBLICAL JUSTICE
Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.
Deuteronomy 24:16
Not only is this law in the Bible, but we are later told of an instance where it was applied. In Second Kings 12:20 we are told that Joash, king of Judah, was assassinated by a conspiracy of his own servants. His son Amaziah took the throne but lacked the political power to bring his father’s murderers to justice. That changed, yet Amaziah limited his actions to justice as defined by God’s law:
And as soon as the royal power was firmly in his hand, he struck down his servants who had struck down the king his father. But he did not put to death the children of the murderers, according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, where the LORD commanded, “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. But each one shall die for his own sin.”
2 Kings 14:5–6 ESV
Chronicles 25 repeats the story, tells of the same restraint, and quotes the same law.
This is especially noteworthy because people often take it upon themselves to avenge the killing of their fathers even if their not kings and even if the killing was just. It might have easily been safer for Amaziah to wipe those families out. But he obeyed the Law.
Perhaps someone suggested to him that “the imputation of Adam’s sin” meant that he should hold the son responsible for the homicide committed by their fathers. If so, he didn’t think that reasoning held up.
In my next post, I will make some comments on Ezekiel 18.