What about this expression: “In those days they will no longer say, ‘The fathers ate sour grapes, but the teeth of the sons were set on edge. But then each one will die for his own error. Any man eating sour grapes will have his own teeth set on edge?” (Jeremiah 31:29-30)
Does it mean that the days are coming (1) in which no one will be judged for their parent’s deeds, as in ‘Your parents were trash, so you must be too.’
Does it mean that the days are coming (2) when the parents no longer bring disaster upon themselves and it is the kids who end up trekking through the wilderness or hiking to Babylon?
Does it mean that the days are coming (3) when people will hold themselves accountable for their own actions and quit blaming their parents for every little thing?
It means all those things and more, most likely, with the ‘more’ part the most significant. The ‘more’ part comes into the new system, during the 1000 year reign of Christ, and progressively towards the end. During this time, the benefits of Christ’s spilled blood, will be poured out upon redeemed humankind, with children and resurrected ones added to that number. Toward the end of that period, as humans close in on the unblemished state once enjoyed by the first parents, there will be no bad examples to blame one’s on conduct on.
There certainly is today. If alcoholism runs rampant in the family, or abuse, or hotheadedness, or just general dysfunction, it has a way of being picked up by the next generation. Dysfunction may be bad, but it defines “normal” to a child so molded. That’s why a woman so often marries someone just like her dad. Lout though he may be, he is the only type of man who registers with her as “normal.”
It takes relentless pressing to break away from dysfunction. Who doesn’t know the feeling, at least once, of spending years breaking away from the pattern of the folks, imagining success, then one day realizing that beneath the facade, one is just like them? The transformation has been surface. Rinse, wash, and repeat is what is needed.
Not so, however, at the end of the thousand years. If one dies then, it will be entirely due to their own transgression. That this will happen is seen from Revelation 20: 7-9:
“Now as soon as the 1,000 years have ended, Satan will be released from his prison, and he will go out to mislead those nations in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Maʹgog, to gather them together for the war. The number of these is as the sand of the sea. And they advanced over the whole earth and encircled the camp of the holy ones and the beloved city. But fire came down out of heaven and consumed them.”
Most likely those who have passed through the great tribulation into the new system will not succumb to this. They stood up to Satan once; why not again? Not so, however, for ones resurrected during this time, or for children born. They won’t have parents to blame in those days—something that is completely plausible today—because humankind will have been restored by then. “Each one will die for his own error. Any man eating sour grapes will have his own teeth set on edge,” as the verse says.
****** The bookstore
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