The Joshua Victor Theory

Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our OT text from Ezekiel 18 strikes on an issue that we often wrestle with today—our personal responsibility for sin, and the temptation to question God’s justice or fairness in how sin is punished. God spoke through Ezekiel during one of the darkest times for the Jews—when the kingdom of Judah and the city of Jerusalem were facing God’s judgment for their sin, and war and destruction from the armies of Babylon was pressing down on them. A popular saying was going around the nation: “ The fathers have eating eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge .” It meant that the children were suffering for the sins of their parents, not their own sins. In essence, it said God was being unjust because “you’ve got the wrong guy!” It was a victimization mentality that passed off the blame of guilt to someone else, and/or accused God of taking pleasure in punishing those who d...

• the signs of Jesus’ innocence are repeatedly ignored and overlooked, and He is sentenced to crucifixion against all justice and with no fair trial. There was no “Innocent till proven guilty” for Jesus. No one ever proved any guilt in Him. • Take the life of another person and you have their “blood on your hands.” Since Pilate knew he was killing an innocent man, he tried to exculpate himself (free himself from blame) by washing his hands. But this couldn’t free him from guilt. Shockingly, the mob made no such attempt to exculpate themselves--they brazenly said: “His blood be upon us and on our children!” They took the responsibility and were glad for it, thinking that they were vindicated by the fact that they were supposedly doing good by getting rid of this troublemaker Jesus. • What are the different ways we try to exculpate, exonerate, absolve, vindicate, ourselves from sin or guilt? We “wash our hands” of the matter, saying we had nothing to do with it, or if we knew we shared n...