Like father like son

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

LIKE FATHER LIKE SON

Matt 23:29-32

29 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30 And you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!

NIV

Hypocrites hardly describes these men. The idea here is that by decorating the tombs of the prophets which may or may not actually be their tombs, but rather tombs built for the purpose of saying they were the tombs of the prophets. This way they could give homage to the prophets. By giving homage, decorating the tombs they were showing how much respect they had for them. They certainly would not have taken part in the brutal act of killing them as their forefathers did. Jesus uses their own testimony against them. What he was proving to them was they were just as much as a sinner as their forefathers were. The historical fact is they will be responsible for the killing of Jesus. But the spiritual fact is they are still guilty of sin, because all men are being the descendant of Adam, our forefather. This is where some denominations take a twofold stance on sin. They divide it into original sin and personal sin. By doing this they can say we are all guilty of original sin because of Adam, but we can be sanctified or completely sanctified of personal sin, that is we would then not have any personal sin. The problem is there will always be a conflict within. We might have the head knowledge and think we have no sin, but in fact that would be the sin of spiritual pride. In addition how would we ever think we never ever have the slightest of unrighteous thoughts? How could we say we are completely obedient to ever command of our Lord? We might look at the acts of unrighteousness only in the framework of spiritual things, but in fact they deal with the material things as well. Jesus is simply saying we are all sinners because we are descendants of Adam. This is not just because Adam sinned, but the fact is because we are like Adam, we also sin. Ever man who is born of man is like the man before him, with the capacity to sin and in fact sins. This is in that essence both original and personal. It cannot be divided. We have the DNA of our parents who have the DNA of theirs and on the line goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. We have the same genetic markers as Adam. We were made in the image of God, but because we testify that Adam sinned by his disobedience to God, we testify to our own disobedience to God. But we have been forgiven. Although because of Adams disobedience he was cast out of paradise, Jesus has paid the price for our disobedience and thus gained us entrance back into paradise. This is a wonderful truth as we cannot ever be completely free of both the sin of our forefather Adam, and our own disobedience because we are his descendants. Like father like son.