You Can't Say Fairer Than That?

Ezekiel 18 spells out a scenario of direct justice: your behaviour controls your outcome of life or death. Evidently the people did not expect this, presuming a parent's legacy would bear on their own standing (see v19 - possibly because of Exodus 20:5). Certainly the whole exile deal was an expression of generations of diverging from God's standards.

Perhaps the concept of direct justice could now be seen as a relief from the inherited situation: "Our fathers may have sinned, but at least God will now measure us on our own merits".

But God goes even further: if you repent your own prior wickedness you will be forgiven (v21f). In other words there is scope for our own lives and thus our own scenario to change. Now you can't say fairer than that? There is a way out, even if you yourself have messed up you no longer need to be consigned to doom.

Yet maybe with that comes a responsibility: to indeed repent of what has gone before whether it be your inherited legacy or your own personal wrongdoings. You can't simply 'blame the parents' any more for your own demise - you have to take responsibility for your own actions.

Is that fair? You bet - no matter what has gone before, and what influences that has put into you, God gives you scope for change.