Each Will Die For Their Own Sin

Deuteronomy 24:15-16 – Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin. 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.

Jeremiah 31:29-30 – “In those days people will no longer say, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ Instead, everyone will die for their own sin; whoever eats sour grapes—their own teeth will be set on edge.

Ezekiel 18:4 – For everyone belongs to me, the parent as well as the child—both alike belong to me. The one who sins is the one who will die.

Application:

• ·         In the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, many people felt that God’s hand of judgment against them was due not to their own sins but to the sins of their ancestors.
• ·         Although group or collective responsibility is an important concept, Jeremiah and Ezekiel emphasize individual responsibility as both preparation and explanation for the imminent destruction of Jerusalem, which the people might have been tempted to blame on the sins of their ancestors.
• ·         Ezekiel spoke out against a false use the people were making of a doctrine of inherited guilt.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV