Someone told me this week that he was doomed because his entire family was under a curse passed down from previous generations. Isn’t it sad to think that your life is burdened with the actions of people you have never met? Unfortunately some faulty teaching has not helped to dispel the misunderstandings that abound about that issue.
I have heard some insist that demons are able to torment people based on the actions of their ancestors. You can, they would say, inherit red hair, freckles and a family demon from your parents. Let me set your mind at ease about that scary idea. The Bible never describes any demon as a curse. Neither demons nor the devil have the ability to curse a person and they don’t attach themselves to families.
Others claim that generational curses are family illnesses, like cancer, that result from the sins of an ancient ancestor. Continual financial difficulties, mental problems, persistent irrational fears and depression or anything that seems to be a persistent struggle or problem may be labeled a generational curse. It’s almost enough to make us join the besieged Israelites who cried out, “Our fathers sinned and are no more, but we bear their iniquities.” (Lamentations 5:7)
The concept of generational curses comes from several passages in the Bible, like Exodus 34:6, 7, where the Lord describes Himself as “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation." So to understand this idea we need to camp on the text for a while.
The text tells us that the Lord “visits” the iniquity of the fathers. Is the Lord’s visitation a curse? The Hebrew word actually means to attend to or pay attention to someone or something. It can refer to either blessing or judgment, but when our sin attracts the Lord’s attention, we can be sure that some sort of judgment is implied.
You may also notice that it is the “iniquity” of the fathers that attracts the Lord’s attention. This does not mean that God judges anyone for sins he or she has not committed. It does mean that when one person allows a consistent pattern of sin in his life, his children and grandchildren are likely to repeat the same sin and be judged for it. It’s the iniquity, not the family connection that is judged.
Remember Abraham? He was a great man of faith, but he had a problem with honesty. Genesis records two near disasters that resulted from his pattern of telling people that his wife, Sarah, was his sister. This was half true, because she was his half sister, but it was also completely a lie. Genesis 26 records the pattern repeated in his son, Isaac, who also told people that his wife, Rebekah, was his sister, another lie. Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, was also famous for his dishonesty and even planned an elaborate hoax to deceive his father and cheat his brother. Three generations picked up the same sinful pattern of dishonesty.
However, when God ‘visited’ Jacob, He was not judging the grandson for sins of Abraham but for his own iniquity. That’s why no one can call himself “doomed” by the sins of the prior generation. When God encountered Jacob by the Jabbok he limped away from the experience with a bad leg, a new name and a changed heart. (See Genesis 32) You will never find another example recorded in Scripture of deceit or dishonesty on Jacob’s behalf. The pattern had been broken. Let me suggest that’s why you can see evidence of the old family sin in his older sons but not in his younger sons, Joseph and Benjamin.
Yes, we are all influenced by patterns of sin we learn from our ancestors, but by God’s grace we can change. Those patterns can be broken.
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 3:18
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