Luke 11:50
That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation;
The generation Jesus addressed would be held accountable and required to answer for the blood of all God's prophets shed from the foundation of the world throughout history. Their guilt was shown by continuing their fathers' rejection of God's messengers while honoring the dead prophets by building their tombs, for they opposed Jesus Himself and would persecute the prophets and apostles God sent. They incurred this guilt by rejecting the clear word of God, light, truth, warnings, and the Son of God, and by clinging to human traditions, despite great light and repeated warnings. Through successive generations the nation rebelled against God, forgot His requirements, and disregarded and perverted what He had entrusted to it.
Guilt accumulated through generations of transgression and resistance until it filled up the measure of the fathers' guilt, with each generation surpassing the preceding one in guilt. By rejecting mercy and warnings as their ancestors had, they filled up that measure, and the accumulated wickedness would bring punishment upon their nation. In Christ's day, those who set themselves up as judges over people moved by the Holy Spirit stood within this history of accumulated guilt. The declaration was a terrible denunciation of sinful practices, made more awful because Christ, though reviled, reviled not again but restrained His own power and prerogatives.
The verse shows that God restrains His power and bears long with deception, impiety, transgression of His holy law, and with people claiming piety, punishing them less than their sins deserve. When the appointed time for retributive justice arrives, God requires the accumulated guilt to vindicate His honor and law and to show before a transgressing world that He is God and beside Him there is none else, for past deeds are neither forgotten nor overlooked. Long-delayed punishment is not made less severe by God's patience, for He gives nations time and further light before judgment, but when they become persistently impenitent, persist in rejecting Him, and exhaust divine patience, judgment follows.
The judgment that came upon the Jewish nation and the destruction of Jerusalem typifies, illustrates, and serves as a pattern for the destruction of the world, and the same pattern of rejecting light is repeated in the Christian church. The same requiring falls on present-day cities, places, and transgressors who give themselves to satanic agencies, fill up the cup of iniquity to its full measure, and wear out divine patience. Then, when God arises speedily in authoritative power, He pours out fierce, signal, unexpected wrath with no further opportunity for repentance, sparing destruction in the extreme only because some souls will yet break away, repent, and be converted.