home Beautiful figure Punishment for sins: the concept of sin, repentance and salvation of the soul. Does God punish children for the sins of their parents? Why does God punish death for sin?

Punishment for sins: the concept of sin, repentance and salvation of the soul. Does God punish children for the sins of their parents? Why does God punish death for sin?

Man has always had the desire for happiness. But human life is such that it is often filled with sorrows, illnesses, and sorrows. People in all centuries have sought to understand why their lives are full of suffering and tried to understand their cause. Some saw this as a fatal coincidence of circumstances, while others understood the connection between the sin committed by a person and the retribution for it. From this point of view, no matter what a person does on earth, he will answer for everything before the Supreme Judge. For every evil deed a person will be rewarded by God here or in the future life. This idea is common to many religions. But the Christian understanding of sin and punishment is more complex and deeper.

It was expressed by the Lord Himself in a conversation with Nicodemus, one of the Jewish military leaders, who secretly came to ask about His teaching. This conversation is given in the Gospel of John. Christ said that God loved man so much that He sent His Son to suffer on the cross and die, so that everyone who believes in His resurrection could be saved from the slavery of sin and death.

Human history, full of troubles and suffering, began thousands of years ago in the Garden of Eden. The Lord, giving the whole earth into the dominion of man, forbade him to eat the fruits of one tree in paradise. He warned Adam that if he ate from it, he would become mortal.

Adam and Eve violated God's commandment. They ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and became mortal. They doomed themselves and their descendants to illness, suffering, and death. But was this God's punishment?

The Lord does not punish Adam and Eve for breaking the commandment. Man punishes himself by rejecting God, the source of life and immortality. All troubles in a person's life occur because he rejected divine love. He turned away from the Light, and his deeds became dark. The tragedy that unfolded in paradise reveals to us a true understanding of death. The true and most terrible meaning of death is the separation of man from God. Physical death, the separation of soul and body, is only a consequence of this spiritual choice.

The Almighty Lord could have stopped the further course of events by His intervention. He could support fallen man in immortality. But by doing so, He would show disrespect for human freedom. After all, He created him as a rational and free being, just like Himself. And from this moment on, no one, not even God, can trample human freedom. Man did not want to be with God, did not want to respond with love to love, and the Lord bows to this choice. He will undertake the feat of the cross so that those who wish to reject Him can once again, also freely, make the most important choice in their life. Choose between life and death, between light and darkness.

And therefore the Lord does not interfere in the natural course of events. Adam and Eve are losing paradise. Human history begins, full of suffering, hatred, wars. A story in which injustice often reigns and evil triumphs over good.

And here the whole depth of the wisdom of God is revealed to a person who has eyes. Mortality, to which a person has doomed himself, puts an end to his iniquities, stops the murderer, the tyrant, the executioner. Experiencing suffering and illness, a person becomes more and more aware of the impossibility of coping with them only by human forces. He turns to the One Who has the power to alleviate suffering and heal illness. Man comes to know the good wisdom of Him who put a limit to his sin. Who allowed suffering, illness, death to admonish the lost.

From a Christian point of view, the true punishment for sin is not the troubles and misfortunes that befall a person, but his confirmation in sin. Man was created by a good God for a righteous life. When a person does evil, he goes against his nature. Sin, like an invisible ulcer, attacks his soul, upsetting his life and making him unhappy.

Over time, sin committed many times will take hold in a person and become a sinful passion, an invisible spiritual illness. A person will strive to commit more and more sins, sometimes despite the weakening voice of his conscience. Passion is especially terrible because it affects a person with spiritual blindness: he ceases to be aware of his iniquities. A person’s soul grieves and suffers, but he cannot understand the cause of his suffering and does not see a way out of it. Only God's help and deep, sincere repentance can save a person from final death - from spiritual death and stay in hell.

With the help of God, this person will be able to heal his soul from sinful ulcers. He will gain perfection and holiness, happiness and peace will reign in his soul. He will be able to comprehend the most important meaning of everything that happens to a person.

He will understand that for those who have let Christ into their soul, troubles and misfortunes do not exist. Illness, suffering, and deprivation will be a gift from God for him. For by experiencing them worthily, he will become like God Himself, who endured and suffered for us. Death for him will not be emptiness, but a union with the One who conquered death. He, following the Apostle Paul, will be able to say: “My life is Christ, and my death is gain.”

Does God punish children for the sins of their parents?
Hieromonk Theognost (Pushkov)

for now - I’m only posting the first part, as soon as I finish writing and publishing the full article, I’ll announce it

Preface

In Old Testament times, there was an opinion that for the guilt of parents, their children were punished (that is, not just the consequences of the sins of the parents, such as hereditary diseases that the parents “awarded” their children with, namely “punishment”). Is it so?
God, having created man in His Image, implanted in us a natural concept of justice. By sin this concept was distorted in man, but not completely destroyed. Revenge is a distorted perception of justice, viewed from the perspective of pride. But it is organically unnatural for the purest of hearts to punish children for the guilt of their parents.

However, apologists of the medieval wild norm of Roman law refer to the words of Scripture in their defense: “I am the Lord your God, a jealous God, punishing the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth [generation] of those who hate Me, and showing mercy to a thousand generations of those who love Me and to them that keep my commandments” (Ex. 20:5-6). “And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed: The Lord, the Lord, a God loving and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in mercy and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but not leaving it unpunished, punishing the iniquity of the fathers in children and in children children to the third and fourth generation” (Ex. 34:6-7). But at the same time they absolutely do not want to take into account what was said in the 18th chapter of the prophet Ezekiel (even moreover, this chapter, which the prophet addressed to his contemporaries, by such persons as the home-grown “Uniate” Evgeniy Kadosov, is interpreted as a prophecy about future salvation in Christ) .

So, we should consider how the texts themselves speak about the “inheritance of the guilt of the fathers by children” (i.e., study the context of the quotes and their interpretation by the Holy Fathers of the Church), and especially consider the 18th chapter of the prophet Ezekiel.
Chapter 1.
Common sin or inherited sins?
So, supporters of the doctrine of the inheritance of guilt and sins by children from their parents usually refer to some quotes from the books of the Old Testament. Let's look at each of them in detail.

“And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed: The Lord, the Lord, a God loving and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in mercy and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but not leaving it unpunished, punishing the iniquity of the fathers in children and in children children to the third and fourth generation” (Ex. 34:6-7). “I am the Lord your God, a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, and showing mercy to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments” (Ex. 20:5-6 – cf. Deut. 5:9-10).

Let us immediately give the interpretation of the saint of the Church, an authoritative teacher, the blessed Bishop Theodoret of Cyrus: “God has more threats than punishments. And this is not difficult to prove from Divine Scripture. It is said: “Eight days from birth, every male [baby] born in the house and bought for money from some foreigner who is not of your seed will be circumcised throughout your generations... But an uncircumcised male who is not If he circumcise his foreskin, that soul will be cut off from his people, [for] he has broken My covenant" (Gen. 17: 12, 14). But we will find that those who were circumcised perished in the wilderness, and those who remained uncircumcised were made worthy of the promises given to their ancestors, because Joshua circumcised them in Gilgal (see Joshua 5:1-8). God also threatens those who have leaven in their houses [during unleavened bread – named after F.] (Ex. 12:15), but He did not punish anyone according to the threat. Therefore, here too as those who love children and those who care for their children, He terrifies with the threat: “I am the Lord your God, a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth [generation] of those who hate Me” (Ex. 20:5). And that it is ungodly to focus on one letter, God Himself teaches this, establishing the opposite as a law. For He Himself says: “Fathers should not be punished with death for their children, and children should not be punished with death for their fathers; everyone should be punished with death for his own crime” (Deut. 24:16). AND through the prophet Ezekiel says: “Why do you use this proverb in the land of Israel, saying: “The fathers ate sour grapes, but the teeth of the children are set on edge”? As I live, says the Lord God, they will not speak this proverb in Israel. For behold, “All souls are Mine: both the soul of the father and the soul of the son are Mine: the soul that sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:2-4). I think that the threat especially shows Divine love for mankind. For it is added: Those who hate Me. Those. I am long-suffering towards the fathers of those who sinned, and long-suffering towards their children. But if the grandchildren and great-grandchildren become jealous [i.e. They will imitate - im.F.] the cunning of their fathers and ancestors - then I will impose punishments... One can also find in history the actual fulfillment of Divine words. For it is said that in the fifth generation the sons of Israel came out of Egypt, but neither their fathers nor their grandfathers were punished for those who served the Egyptian gods in Egypt, but only those who imitated the wickedness of Egypt themselves were punished, because after so many good deeds and miracles they did not reject the wickedness of Egypt. And their sons, who loved their Savior - God, accepted the forefathers' blessings" ( St. Theodoret, bl. Bishop of Cyrrhus. Commentary on the book of Exodus. Question No. 40 on Ex. 20:5 // Bl. Theodoret of Cyrrhus. Explanation of Difficult Places of Divine Scripture. M. IS ROC. 2003 With. 98-99.) .
So we see that:
1. In this threat God addresses fathers, that when they sin, they should think of their children, who may suffer the consequences of their sins;
2. God’s punishment extends to posterity in that case, if they become imitators of the sins of their parents (i.e., parents are the culprits when children sin, because fathers set a bad example for their children). The accuracy of this is emphasized by the words “he who punishes the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth [generation] of those who hate Me,” i.e. if enmity towards God extends to the 3rd or 4th generation, God extends his hand for punishment. This perfectly confirms Rev. Ephraim the Syrian comments on Ex. 20:5:
“God, in His longsuffering, endures the evil man, and his son and grandson. But if they do not repent, he imposes punishment on the head of the fourth, since in his wickedness he is like his fathers» ( . Ephraim the Syrian. Interpretation on the book. Exodus. Ref. 20:5 // Creations in 8 vols. M. 1994 T. 6. p. 369.). “And behold, instead of your fathers, you, a generation of sinners, have arisen to increase the fury of the wrath of the Lord against Israel. If you turn away from Him, He will leave it again in the wilderness, and you will destroy all this people” (Numbers 32:14-15). Again, we are talking precisely about the fact that descendants aggravate the guilt of their forefathers. It is in this context that the prayer stands: “The Lord is long-suffering and abounding in mercy, forgiving iniquity and crimes, and not leaving unpunished, but punishing the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. Forgive the sin of this people according to Your great mercy, just as You have forgiven this people from Egypt until now” (Num. 14:18-19). If it were not possible to forgive the descendants of sin during repentance, which the descendants learned as a tradition from their ancestors, but subsequently realized the sinfulness of this tradition, then prayer would be meaningless;
3. There are many examples in history that God is long-suffering and does not carry out threats;
4. Also, examples of the historical inheritance of God's blessings by the children of sinners prove for us the fact that if children do not follow the path of the sins of their fathers, then they are not punished;
5. Ezek. is also cited in support. 18., from which it is clear that the Church Fathers understood this text not only as a prophecy about messianic times, but also as a direct denunciation of the prophet’s contemporaries (we will return to this text more than once or twice).

“I will send timidity into the hearts of those who remain among you in the land of their enemies, and the sound of a wavering leaf will chase them, and they will flee as from a sword, and will fall when no one is pursuing, and they will stumble over each other as from a sword, while no one persecutes, and you will not have the strength to resist your enemies; and you will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will devour you; and those who are left of you will perish for their iniquities in the lands of your enemies, and for the iniquities of their fathers they will perish; then they confess in their iniquity and in the iniquity of their fathers how they committed crimes against Me and went against Me” (Lev. 26:36-40). Those. they are punished because they themselves followed the path of the iniquity of their fathers, and not at all for the very iniquities of their ancestors. If children had not followed their parents in sins, they would not have been punished. In the words of God, the iniquities of those exposed and the iniquity of their fathers are presented as one guilt, one sin, which they committed from generation to generation.

So, God Himself repeatedly explains why children are punished along with their fathers: not because they inherited some abstract guilt of their parents, but because they inherited the disposition of their parents and began to imitate their fathers in sins; children became accomplices of the evil committed by their parents.

Conclusion

So, we have seen that the theory of “transmission of guilt by inheritance” is alien both to patristic theology and to the very spirit of Holy Scripture. We can only talk about the transmission of some negative consequences that arise as a result of the fact that parents (who are the root for children) through their sins themselves distort their nature and introduce defects into it. Having damaged themselves, they pass on their damage to their children. But this is not the fault (culpa) of the children, but the disease they inherited. But all this will be healed by the almighty grace of Christ, the grace and gift of the New Testament. In baptism, a person is cut off from the old, decaying root and grafted into a new root - to Christ. A baptized person died to the old life and was born to the new; in the new life he lives and is saved. So, all “evil inheritance” is completely erased in Christ.
But that’s not what we were talking about initially. Can God “punish” children for the sins of their parents? – The answer is clear: No! He can admonish parents about the suffering of their children, but in this case the blame for their suffering must be directly seen as the parents themselves, who with their sins inflict wounds on their loved ones. After all, it is known that a vicious word can wound the heart and destroy a life, but a good word of peace and love can heal long-term wounds of sins.

Can God punish? Can God take revenge? Can He remember evil? Many are sure that it can. After all, there are many places in the Bible where we see traces of God’s “wrath”: burned cities where sin, now fashionable in Europe, triumphed - Sodom and Gomorrah; the absorption by the open earth of self-proclaimed competitors of Moses - Korah, Dathan and Abiron. There are countless examples – right up to Christ’s scourging of the merchants in the temple.

On the other hand, one of the hypostases of God is the Spirit, which is Love. The Apostle Paul said about her: Love is long-suffering, kind, love does not envy, love is not conceited, is not proud, does not act rudely, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; covers all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

And another apostle wrote: “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, but walk in darkness, then we lie and do not act in the truth.”

How can this be combined? The only way. Remembering the days of the creation of the world and understanding the freedom given to man at the creation of the world.

God created Adam like himself. The main imprint of God's ring in the wax of our soul is goodness and freedom. God does not need toy soldiers that He, like a player, would move around the chessboard. He needs living and free individuals.

Freedom has a choice - to love God or not to love, otherwise it would not be freedom. A person is free to go to the villages of paradise or, conversely, to voluntarily retire into outer darkness.

By sinning, a person comes to an area inhabited by devils. To a certain Mordor, where everything thunders, explodes, brings stench and pain. And God cannot, without damaging the deep structure of a person, forcibly pull him out of the horror into which he has dragged himself. You cannot save someone who hides his hands behind his back. Anyone who wants to fall will fall anyway, no matter how you hold him. And if you hold back, he will still be angry.

Thus, there are some rooms of horror in the universe where a person comes by himself. It is not the wrath of God, but our stupidity that executes us away from God. It is our anger, and not the cruelty of God, that throws us into the arms of merciless destroyers - the spirits of evil. And we, in our blindness and cruelty, attribute our properties of evil to God.

A person himself is responsible for his choice, for what will be written on the pages of the Last Judgment in the volume dedicated to his life. We write the pages of our charter ourselves, this very second, under the polite gaze of Christ, who worries for us. Anger is a thing that has absolutely no application to God.

When there was no Christ and the Apostle Paul, there were no words about Love, people rightly decided that God was something like a Heavenly King and Judge. For some reason this Judge needed to create a world. In it He established the rules. Good is following His Law. Sin is a crime against the Law, lawlessness. Crime involves punishment. Everything is like with people: the Tsar, the court, the prison or the sanatorium.

But with God everything is not like with people. He is good. He is in absolute peace. What we mean by His “wrath” is our perverted projection of His care. “The Wrath of God” is Providence, crookedly reflected in our soul.

A person acts disgracefully - the Lord deprives him of the strength to sin. He goes crazy and brings grief - he binds him like a patient in a clinic. Not because he is strict and angry, but because he wants salvation for a madman.

We read in the Gospel about the sick man:

And so they brought to Him the paralytic, lying on the bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic: Be of good cheer, child! your sins are forgiven you.

Let us note three important points that the Pharisees did not grasp.

First, he was brought to God. It happens that God Himself tries to attract a son who has been on a spree to himself. And then people did His work. This means that love glimmered somewhere next to the patient, and he could learn it. This partly attracted the attention of Christ to this company in the midst of a sea of people.

The second is “seeing their faith.” We also take our infirm relatives to hospitals, having an insurance policy or money in hand. And these came without insurance and without money. What were they hoping for? For a miracle! Wow. So, be sure that if you pull God by the hem of his robe, then He will give it to you. In order to demand a miracle, you must have absolute confidence in His love. You need to know God. And this is what faith is. After all, they did not come by works of the law to buy health for their comrade.

By this act, the patient’s friends confessed a new, or more precisely, forgotten quality of God - goodness and love. And the evidence was public, which in this case was also important.

And thirdly, Christ, having recorded the first two points, teaches the patient: “Do just like your friends: love your neighbor and know that God is good. God calls you a child, understand that He is not a king, not a judge, but your Father!”

« Dare“- this is what they say to a child taking his first steps.

« Your sins are forgiven“- in this dialogue means that if the lost son changes the vector of movement from destruction to God, then he is no longer a sinner.

It is no coincidence that in the Word of John Chrysostom, read at Easter, it is written:

“...for this Lord is curious and accepts the last as he did the first: he gives rest at the eleventh hour to him who has come, as he did from the first hour. And he has mercy on the last, and pleases the first, and gives to this, and grants to this, and accepts deeds, and kisses the intention, and honors the deed, and praises the proposal.”

Stunning revelation of the saint: and he accepts deeds, and kisses intentions, and honors deeds, and praises proposals.

That is, God is not as interested in deeds as in the goal to which the soul strives.

It was the different understanding of sin that gave rise to the conflict between the Pharisees and Christ. The Pharisees were outraged by parole - the conditional early release of the patient. After all, it seemed to them that God was the same as them - a judge, a prosecutor, a security guard all rolled into one. We often attribute our weaknesses to God.

The criminal has been punished, a sentence has been imposed, a sentence has been assigned. Such a criminal is shamed and isolated from the people of Israel. For the Pharisees, sin is an article of the Law. For Christ, sin is a vector, a movement from God. That is, sin is everything that is done without God. And good is everything that is done in the name of God. It's very simple if you base it on love. For the Pharisees, the basis of the law is fear. For Christ - love. In the eyes of the Pharisees, someone came, breaking the Law and introducing new rules.

An attack on the Law in their eyes was an attack on the foundations of the universe, on the foundations of the agreements between God and man. God had not previously told them anything about love because of their hardness of heart. But when a critical mass of people with pure and merciful hearts accumulated in Israel, a new stage of revelation became possible.

And the most important theme of the conflict is Christ’s appropriation of God’s powers to Himself: to forsake sins. For the Jews, God was like some terrible, great, incomprehensible being. His glory was only partially visible to them in the bright, menacing cloud, flashing with lightning and leading Israel through the desert.

This is where a very important line of knowledge of God passes in the history of mankind. Christ's action was a lightning bolt of personal revelation. God Himself lifted the veil of His mystery. He himself, wanting peace, tried to eliminate the alienation. He Himself reminded of His phenomenal closeness. He gave a new interpretation of sin as a person’s unwillingness to love God. He showed that he did not want to communicate with his creation through a contract. We are not business partners, but relatives.

With this healing, Christ recalled the forgotten words of what God said on the day of Adam’s creation:

God said: Let us make man in Our image [and] after Our likeness.

It is clear that not by external similarity, but by internal similarity. And the inner seal is the part of God that lives in us. The seal of God in the soul is not a dead stamp on paper. The soul is not paper, and the image is not a dead print. This is a reflection in a living mirror of a living Image. It is not only external! It is also inside a person. It is comprehensive. The living seal of God is generally visible on everything that is in the world. God is near.

Christ, in fact, did not say anything new. The Pharisees simply forgot about the main thing, about divine gifts, about the father’s ring on his hand: about freedom, kinship and love. And this turned out to be terrible in its consequences. Jerusalem was not destroyed because the Jews crucified Christ and shouted:

– His blood is on us and on our children.

Christ felt sorry for the city and cried, looking at Jerusalem, preparing to collapse into the abyss. Christ did not take revenge. These are the people who crucified Christ, turning away the hands of God, they themselves passed through the gates of Mordor and surrendered themselves to the power of destruction.

What could be done if neither the tears nor the joy of Christ could stop them: “All the day long have I stretched out My hands to a disobedient and stubborn people.”

No one wished death for Jerusalem except himself. The people stopped realizing that the Law and life in God are different things. The sin of Jerusalem was that the vector of its movement became directed not towards God, but towards the mechanical Law, away from the Plan of God, realized in the days of creation.

This dialogue with the Pharisees was an attempt to remind us of the essence of the relationship between God and man. Christ was not angry and reproached the Pharisees quite gently. In general, they were the only opponents with whom he considered it necessary to talk. He urged them to look not at the letter of the law, but at their hearts, which should have rejoiced being close to the Lord. But it did not flinch and remained motionless. Christ tried in vain to awaken their hearts. He remained faithful to His kind, unexpected fatherly feeling:

– Why do you think evil in your hearts?

He considered it necessary to talk to them. He considers it necessary to speak to us with kind words, waiting for us to turn our face to Him.

How well this conversion is described in the eighth prayer of John Chrysostom’s Evening Rule:

“By her, my Lord and Creator, not desiring the death of a sinner, but as he was converted and lived, grant me conversion, the accursed and unworthy; take me away from the mouth of the destructive serpent, who yawns to devour me and bring me to hell alive.”

The dramaturgy of those days is still relevant today for every person living in the world. We can choose for ourselves who our God is: a Judge or a Friend, a Father or someone external. We ourselves establish a relationship with Him: an agreement or love. We decide for ourselves what to think about God - whether He is evil or good. A person may even decide that he does not need God. The decision to be with God or without Him is the main decision in life. And the next decision is who we want God to be.

He wants us to be His children. He wants to be his own Father.

The main thing is not to make a mistake, as people arguing with Christ already made a mistake. They wanted him to be the King and Judge, to live with him according to the Law, turning off their hearts, pushing God into heaven. They wanted to give something to God and keep something for themselves. Pinch.

God left man some space of freedom within his personality. And man, taking advantage of freedom, decided to expand it significantly. Which, in fact, was the subject of original sin. Man wanted to have his own space, into which God would not enter by agreement, according to the Law. Here is the world of God and the Church, and here is my personal world, in which I am the only master. And the laws in it are only mine.

A story familiar to all of us.

Such a damaged soul is like a broken mirror that reflects the fragments. Therefore, it sees part of the world with God, and part without Him. Only in a crooked and broken mirror is the spirit of anger visible in God.

And He is Love. Well, Lord, this can be seen by anyone who can see, but repeat for us:

God is light and there is no darkness in him.

In memory of how friends brought the sick man to Christ, and I ask for prayers for R.B. Sergius, who, among other things, needs a miracle.

A person inherits not only facial and character traits from his parents or relatives. Unfortunately, illnesses and sinful tendencies of loved ones are passed on to us. But is it true that children are punished for the sins of their father and mother? Is there a generational curse?

Ancestral sin is an unpleasant “gift” of parents

Each person is born with his own individual appearance and character traits. But nevertheless, he inherits a lot from his parents. Sometimes the influence of distant relatives makes itself felt: for example, the boy received tall height from his great-grandfather, or the gift of drawing from his great-grandmother.

In addition, behavioral skills make us more and more like our fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers. They are formed as a result of upbringing. Whether a child wants it or not, he involuntarily inherits adults.

Unfortunately, some physical diseases can also be passed on from parents to children. But, besides them, a person also receives other, even more unpleasant hereditary “gifts” from his relatives - the virus of spiritual ailments. In Orthodoxy, this “gift” is usually called ancestral sin. What does it mean? Should children be responsible for the vicious lives of their parents? It is not entirely correct to draw such a conclusion, so let’s try to find the correct answer to this question and give relevant examples.

Predisposition ≠ sinful dependence

Surely every reader knows examples of families in which parents suffer from alcoholism. There is a very high probability that children raised in such conditions will also become addicted to this passion.

But this does not mean at all that a newborn baby will necessarily grow up to be an alcoholic.

The same goes for generational sin. He does not at all indicate that for the vices of parents God will punish their offspring with drunkenness. But sons and daughters in such families have a greater predisposition to the sin of alcoholism. However, one should not recognize these children as “hopeless”: it depends on the person himself whether he will overcome the vice or fall for its bait.

But where did the opinion come from that God punishes children for the sin of parents? And what arguments can be used to convince people that this is not so?

For the misdeeds of one, does God punish the family to the sixth generation?

The stumbling block in understanding the consequences of generational sin was the words from the Old Testament books. In the Book of Exodus the following words are given:

I am the Lord your God, a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me (Exodus 20:5).

The same thoughts about generational sin are heard in Deuteronomy, Numbers, and the book of the prophet Isaiah. But already the prophet Ezekiel, famous for his prediction of the birth of the Messiah from a Virgin, points out that children are not responsible for the vices of their parents:

You say: “Why does not the son bear the guilt of his father?” Because the son acts lawfully and righteously, keeps all My statutes and fulfills them; he will be alive. The soul that sins, it will die, the son will not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father will not bear the iniquity of the son, the righteousness of the righteous remains with him, and the iniquity of the wicked remains with him... I will judge... everyone according to his ways, says the Lord God" (Ezek. 18. 19-20, 30).

And another prophet, Jeremiah, brings clarity to the issue of understanding generational sin and the responsibility of children for the actions of their parents:

In those days they will no longer say, “The fathers ate sour grapes, but the teeth of the children are set on edge,” but each will die for his own iniquity; whoever eats sour grapes will have his teeth set on edge (Jer. 31:29-30).

In the New Testament, God is presented not as a Just Judge, but as a Merciful and Loving Lord.

The Calvary sacrifice testifies to the degree of God’s love for man: for the vices of each of us, the immortal God is crucified on the cross.

And how can this loving God punish children for the misdeeds of their parents? No. But what then to do with the consequences of generational sin? After all, there are dynasties where a certain curse seems to hang for several generations? What does it mean?

It’s not at all like what sorcerers and fortune tellers offer you, ready to “lift the generational curse.”

Ancestral sin is a punishment not from God, but from parents

Let's return to our example with the family of alcoholics. The virus of a terrible spiritual illness is transmitted from children to children. But if you already have the virus, then the likelihood of getting sick increases.

If children do not resist the temptation to drink, but succumb to temptation, then they also become addicted. It will be even more difficult for their future sons and daughters to stop this sinful lump, which is rolling in with greater force.

And if, with God’s help, prayer and the Sacraments, they are not cured of ancestral sin, then they will pass on an even greater tendency to spiritual illness to the next generation.

This can continue for many generations until people realize and honestly admit to themselves the sin of alcoholism: “Yes, I succumbed to demonic temptations, fell into the most serious ones. But I want to overcome addiction, not on my own, but with God’s help.” After such recognition, the most difficult stage of spiritual struggle begins. It is very difficult. But with God everything is truly possible.

It is not out of nowhere that stereotypes arose that children left in an orphanage will not grow up to be “normal” people. According to the General Prosecutor's Office, in Russia only 10% of children in orphanages establish a normal life. Others cannot cope with drunkenness and drugs (40%), become criminals (40%) or even commit suicide (10%).

What is this? God's punishment? No, these are the consequences of generational sin. Parents, having sinned, punish themselves and infect their children. But, as you know, one serious vice is associated with many others. If a person drinks, he becomes irritable and in anger can lead to beatings and even murder.

If a child grows up in an environment where a tyrant father allows himself to get drunk and beat his mother, then the son in the future will either follow the same scenario or hate this sin and make every effort to prevent this from happening again in his life.

How to get rid of the consequences of generational sin?

Priests, Orthodox psychologists and theologians highlight the following components in overcoming passions that are firmly entrenched in your family or even clan:

desire to change;
reading the Gospel and striving to live according to the commandments;
prayer and hope in God;
regular confession and repentance;
communion;
Unction.

It is also worth praying for your deceased relatives. After all, if during their lifetime they did not repent of their passions, then in the other world it is especially difficult for them. Here it is worth remembering that the Orthodox Church does not commemorate the unbaptized and suicides.

How to protect children from generational sin?

It is best to answer this question in the words of the theologian Alexei Osipov:

Parents, be afraid to commit sins if you truly love your children. Do not think that your personal life does not concern them: all your sins and crimes will be reflected in the lives of your children. Therefore, to the question “What to do with naughty children?” There is only one answer: think first what you need to do with yourself, then you will know exactly what to do with the child.

Take care of the Orthodox upbringing of your child even before his birth.

Priests and Orthodox psychologists advise parents to spiritually prepare for fatherhood and motherhood before the birth of a baby, to confess during pregnancy (thereby being cleansed of personal and family sins), to receive communion regularly, to attend divine services, and, if possible, to abstain from marital communication. It is useful to read the Gospel and the Psalter, listen to classical music. It is also advisable to avoid noisy companies with excessive fun, alcohol, indiscreet jokes and gossip.

Raise your child by the example of godly life in your family. After all, you can pass on to your son or daughter not only ancestral sin, but also love for virtues.

If parents, instead of quarreling and shouting, prefer to discuss problems and listen to the opinions of others, then their child will strive for the same scenario.

If parents read the Gospel at home, attend church, observe fasts together and approach Communion, then their son or daughter will consider this the norm of Christian life. And no supernatural efforts will have to be made for Orthodox upbringing and overcoming bad inclinations.

Professor Alexey Osipov talks about generational sin as a hereditary disease:

Take it for yourself and tell your friends!

Does God punish for sins?

SEMENOV: Dear Vladyka, we receive many questions where people are trying, well, literally, just not to confess, they are calling for help. For example, we received this question from our viewer Lyudmila: “Many years ago,” she writes, “I fell into an unforgivable sin. And the Lord condemned me during my lifetime. I have irrevocably lost the grace of God. I’ve been suffering for 13 years now, even though I go to church. I live in constant fear of future torment. Tell me, how should I live now? What to hope for? Is there salvation for me or not?

LORD: First, I must say that there are no unforgivable sins at all. There is no sin that God cannot forgive a person. Second, God does not punish people in retaliation for their sins. The punishment that comes from God is a lesson for man. The very word Slavic “punishment” just means “teaching”. God can admonish a person in one way or another, but he never takes revenge on a person for his actions. That is, the ordinary human law of crime and punishment does not work here. Although sin is a crime before God. And finally, the most important thing I would like to say is that God never turns away from man. Subjectively, a person may have the feeling that God has turned away from him, that God has forgotten about him, that God has deprived him of grace. In fact, God does not deprive us of His grace. God is always close to us. It’s just that when a person sins, he sometimes loses this feeling of God’s closeness. He becomes so far from God that God is nearby, but he is far away. God is inside man, and man is outside God. And the most important thing in such a situation is not to give in to despair. Because when a person sins, it can be compared to the fact that he falls. But a person can fall and then continue to lie, but he can get up, shake himself off and move on. Confession helps us receive forgiveness for our sins. If there is no peace in the soul, then you need to come to confession again and again. And the most important thing is that the evil deeds committed, the sins committed, must be made up for with good deeds that are the opposite of them. If, for example, an event such as a violation of marital fidelity occurred in a person’s life, then how can one make amends for it? Marital fidelity. That is, not by repeating that sin. And therefore, if a person does not repeat his old sins, if he repents of them, confesses, then sooner or later, of course, he will feel this forgiveness that comes from God. And the most important thing, I repeat once again, is not to despair, not to fall into even greater sins after committing one sin.

Women's fashion and beauty