Iniquity

In Sunday school today, we discussed a passage from Exodus 34:6-7

The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed,
‘The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.’

Marv began his lesson by asking how we rectify the image of a God that requires adherence to law in the Old Testament and a God of grace in the New Testament?

What about the contradiction of a God who forgives iniquity and transgression and sin and yet does not clear the guilty, visiting iniquity to the third and fourth generations?

Betsy had an excellent explanation. Consider littering. Consider a person who tosses a plastic water bottle out the window of a car. You will be forgiven for the sin, but the consequence of the sin remains for generations.

God forgives our sins and yet he does not promise to remove the consequences of the sin.

I also think we can be reassured by the description of a God who will love us for 1000 generations. I think that might just be another way to say forever.