Sin and Forgiveness - Conclusion

Spurgeon writes:

"According to this gracious covenant (the new covenant of Hebrews) the Lord treats His people as if they had never sinned. Practically, He forgets all their trespasses. Sins of all kinds He treats as if they had never been; as if they were quite erased from His memory. O miracle of grace! God here does that which in certain aspects is impossible to Him. His mercy works miracles which far transcend all other miracles. Our God ignores our sin now that the sacrifice of Jesus has ratified the covenant. We may rejoice in Him without fear that He will be provoked to anger against us because of our iniquities. See ! He puts us among the children; He accepts us as righteous; He takes delight in us as if we were perfectly holy. He even puts us into places of trust; makes us guardians of His honor, trustees of the crown jewels, stewards of the Gospel. He counts us worthy, and gives us a ministry; this is the highest and most special proof that He does not remember our sins. Even when we forgive an enemy, we are very slow to trust him; we judge it to be imprudent to do so. But the Lord forgets our sins, and treats us as if we had never erred. O my soul, what a promise is this! Believe it and be happy."

You may be thinking, "Yes, that's all well and good but we do sin. How do we overcome this sinful tendency?" That's a topic for another day. But the short answer is that as we live by faith in the truth of Scripture, and meditate on his Word, God's Spirit will gradually make us more like Christ:

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

Sanctification -- growing in Christlikeness, including the desire for such growth are all part of what Christ purchased for us on the cross and provided in the New Covenant. He gives the new life and the desire to grow.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Jeremiah 31:33

I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Ezekiel 36:27

for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13

But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—  1 Corinthians 1:30 (Christ is our righteousness and our sanctification.)

Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?  Galatians 3:3 (The question expects an answer of "No".)

Sin and Forgiveness - Part 5

Now let's look at 1 John 1 and then we'll sum up this study. In 1 John 1:7 John says that if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ continuously cleanses us from all sin. This is a description of believers. John had earlier said in verse 3 that our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. In 2 Corinthians 6:14 Paul asks what fellowship righteousness and unrighteousness can have with one another. The implication from the passage is that they cannot. But here John is saying we have fellowship with both God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. If we are to have fellowship with God or better if God is to have fellowship with us, we can't be unrighteous. But why aren't we unrighteous? Because we have been cleansed by the blood of Christ and our sins have been removed from us and the cleansing is ongoing and continuous.

            So 1 John 1:7 is speaking of believers. If on the other hand, we walk in darkness, or deny that we sin, or deny that we have a sin nature, we are lost (1 John 1:6, 8, 10). So we're not talking about two kinds of Christians here but the difference between believers and unbelievers.

            In the middle of these verses we come to 1 John 1:9 which most of us are familiar with. In my opinion, this verse is primarily a verse contrasting believers with the unbeliever mentality mentioned in verses 6, 8, and 10. It is not primarily a verse about daily confession of particular sins. Please don't read this statement as though I am saying we don't need to confess sins. I'm not saying that. But this verse is primarily a verse that tells us the contrast between an unbeliever who doesn't admit he is a sinner and the believer who confesses that he is a sinner.

            If we walk with God in humility, acknowledging our situation as sinners, God is faithful and just to continuously forgive us of our sins and to continuously cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Notice the word "all".  His forgiveness and cleansing are continuous. It doesn't get applied to each particular sin but His blood stands as the continuous cleansing agent for all of our sins, past, present and future, recognized and unrecognized, thoughts, attitudes and actions. We walk in the blaze of his all-seeing holiness and we have fellowship with him because our sins have been removed from us.

            Sir Robert Anderson said, "It is not in order that it may thus cleanse him that the believer confesses his sin; his only right to the place he holds, even as he confesses, depends on the fact that it does thus cleanse him."

            Jesus Christ is our advocate or attorney pleading our case continually because his blood is the propitiation (continual satisfaction before God) for our sins (1 John 2:1-2).

            So we can see from Scripture that God has provided for every aspect of our sin problem. He accepts Christ as our head and sees us as saints rather than sinners. He resurrects our dead spirit and provides the motivation to follow him. And finally he completely and totally forgives and removes all of our sins on a continual basis based on the sacrifice and continuing advocacy of his Son, Jesus Christ.

Sin and Forgiveness - Part 4

Finally we want to look at God's solution to the sinning problem. We have looked at how God has solved our guilt in Adam and how he has changed our hearts so that we don't have that old dead, fallen nature any more. But what to do about sins we commit. That is the problem we want to look at next.

            First of all we have to believe God when he says that we have forgiveness of our sins (Ephesians 1:7), and that he has forgiven all our trespasses (Col 2:13). The Psalmist reminds us that as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:12). Notice the word "from". Our sins are removed from us. Mary's baby was to be called Jesus because he would save his people from (there it is again) their sins. I think we have a huge problem believing what God is saying about our sins. I'm not speaking to the world here; I'm speaking to those who have trusted Christ as savior, those whom the Holy Spirit as regenerated through the Gospel. So I would like to look at this subject through some important teaching found in Hebrews 9-10 and then in 1 John 1. So first, Hebrews 9-10

            The author of Hebrews tells us that the old sacrificial system, the Old Covenant could not make a person perfect with respect to conscience (Heb 9:9, 10:1). Now as we'll see, the implication of his teaching is that what the Old Covenant could not do, Christ and the New Covenant could and would do. Therefore I conclude that there should be cleansing with respect to the conscience through the New Covenant.

            Next the author tells us that Christ obtained eternal redemption for us through his sacrifice once for all (Heb 9:12). That means it was sufficient and does not need to be repeated. He goes on to say in verse 14 that his blood cleanses our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Dead works are those we try to do to make ourselves acceptable to God or to win his approval. In chapter 6 of Hebrews, the author had connected this with elementary teaching. Elemental principles are those of basic religion where people try to make God happy with them through endless human effort, ceremonies, rituals and penance. Even Christians do this. When they confess their sins, people sometimes don't believe that God forgives them and so they try to do things to prove they are really, really sorry. If they can cry they will do that. They may put extra money in the offering or do extra works of penance so that God knows they really, really, really mean it. They may abstain from certain pleasures that aren't sinful in themselves, but somehow it makes them feel as though they are proving a point to God. Paul, at the end of Colossians 2 tells us that these efforts don't work in stifling our fleshly tendencies or in approving us to God. So the blood of Christ cleanses our consciences from the need to perform these sorts of deeds.

            Hebrews 9:26 tells us that he came to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. We need to understand that Jesus put away sin. He removed it. He even says of the people in the world, "that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them" (2 Corinthians 5:19). We need to remember that the whole point is for him to solve the sin question. He put way sin by the sacrifice of himself.

            The author goes on in Hebrews 10 to tell us that if the old system had made the worshippers perfect, two things would have happened:  the sacrifices would have ceased (10:2), and  the consciousness of sin would have been removed (10:2).  But as it was, those sacrifices didn't stop, and instead of solving the conscience problem, they actually made it worse by reminding people day after day that they were sinners because new sacrifices were required all of the time. And so the author concludes that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin (10:4).

            But in contrast to that, the sacrifice of Christ has sanctified forever (10:10), and those who are sanctified have been perfected forever (10:14). So what the Old Covenant could not do, the New Covenant has accomplished. In fact he quotes from the New Covenant passages we studied earlier. And he summarizes with this amazing statement, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more" (Hebrews 10:17).

            I take all of this to mean that if we keep resurrecting our sins in a way that is reminiscent of the Old Covenant we are acting in disbelief of what God has promised us in Christ. He put away sins by the sacrifice of himself and separated them from us and refuses to remember them or impute them to us (Romans 4:8).

Sin and Forgiveness - Part 3

            What is God's solution to the perverseness and wickedness of our hearts? The question of being sinners is more related to the sin issue rather than the sins issue. First we find out in 2 Corinthians 5:17, 21 that we have been made new creatures in Christ. The old has passed away and all things have become new. We also learn that Christ became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Note that in this verse he doesn't say Christ took our sins upon himself. It says that he became sin. In doing so it allows us to be the righteousness of God in him.

            Since our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), they need to be completely replaced with a righteousness from outside of ourselves. Paul's request is that he might be found in Christ not having a righteousness of his own, but a righteousness from God (Phil 3:9). The Bible teaches us that God's righteousness is imputed, or placed on the record of those who believe God (Romans 4:5-8, 22-25). That means if we believe the record that God has given of his son, our filthy rags righteousness is replaced by the righteousness of God and credited to us as though we had been the one who actually obeyed perfectly.

            We also learn in Scripture that Christ himself is our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30). God doesn't add to your righteousness to bring you up to the level required. Your righteousness, no matter what it is, is wiped out and replaced with Christ's righteousness. That means some good deed you did for someone today is wiped out because it was probably tainted with some amount of selfishness or pride and is replaced with Christ's perfection. In the end God is going to present us to himself as holy, blameless and above reproach in his sight! (Colossians 1:22)

            Finally in this part of the discussion of what God has done to fix our sinful heart, we learn that God has done an amazing thing as part of his promise in the New Covenant. At the last supper, Jesus said that this cup was the New Testament in his blood. In other words he was initiating the fulfillment of the promised New Covenant. If we look back at Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Ezekiel 36:25-27 we can summarize the promises this way. He has promised to (1) remove our old stoney heart, (2) replace it with a new heart, (3) give us a new spirit, (4) give us his Holy Spirit, and (5) motivate us to follow God and his ways. This completely reverses what happened to our spirit in the fall. This is what we mean by the new birth.

            But, the problem is that we have the remnants of what the Bible calls the flesh or the "old man" within us. There is a battle that needs to be fought to tame and keep in subjection those old habits and tendencies that still stay with us. But we should not think of ourselves as though we were still under the bondage of the old fallen self. God has provided all we need for a life of godliness. Old things are passed away and all things have become new.

Sin and Forgiveness - Part 2

What we need to do is be prepared to deal with our sin problem on the basis of truth. So many times we face life letting our feelings and emotions lead the way. Feelings and emotions are real, but they should not be the determiner of truth. We may feel like something has been resolved when it really hasn't been and we may feel as though God hates us when he may not, depending on our relationship with him. The truth should lead the way, with faith believing the truth and then let feelings follow along and adjust themselves to the first two.

So what is God's answer to the three-fold aspect of our sin and guilt? First we'll look at the guilt we have because we sinned in Adam. Those who are in Adam (i.e. those who have been born human) are sinners, guilty and condemned because of the decision of their head, Adam (Romans 5:18). But, those who are in Christ (i.e. those who have been born again of the Spirit of God) are saints, righteous and alive because of the actions of their head, Jesus Christ. Romans 5:19 says, "For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous." 1 Corinthians 15:22 says, "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive."

            Just as Adam's sin makes us a sinner, Christ's righteous obedience makes us a saint! How much of a sinner did Adam make you by his disobedience? Then more so Christ makes you a saint by his obedience. Thus God has dealt with the first aspect of our sin problem.

Sin and Forgiveness - Part 1

When Eve took of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and gave to her husband, the human race fell and sin and death entered the world. As Romans 5:12 explains it: "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned."

There are three basic ways we can look at the effect of sin entering the world. The solution that God provides speaks to each one of these facets.  First, Adam was our representative and therefore when he sinned, we were all counted guilty in him and therefore we were born sinners. We are not speaking here of our propensity to sin, but the fact that we already were guilty at conception. Adam's decision was counted as if it had been our own. Romans 5 explains this when it says that sin is not imputed when there is no law and yet the people between Adam and Moses died even though there was no law for them to violate. No sin was imputed to them and yet they died. They, and all of us, were guilty of Adam's sin.

Second, we inherit a sin nature. Our hearts are evil at the core. The Bible says that every imagination of the thoughts of our hearts are only evil continually (Genesis 6:5). Man's heart is evil from his youth (Genesis 8:21). The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). There is none righteous, none who understands, none who seeks for God. All have turned aside (Romans 3:10-18).

Third, we also commit sins either by doing what is forbidden by God or by omitting what he commands. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

So what is God's solution to these three facets of our sin problem? One of the things we usually do is focus on the confession aspect of particular sins. Confession of identified sins is important, but there are also some dangers if we don't face the entirety of the problem I outlined above. For example, at the end of our day we may list a few specific sins and confess them to God. We may even list 10-15 specific sins. We may have been upset with a store clerk, frustrated with a waitress, impatient with traffic, angry with our spouse, excessively demanding of our children, etc. We may list all of these and confess them to God with the biblical knowledge that if we confess our sins God is faithful to forgive them.

The problem comes in if we think that we have now cleared the deck of today's sins. We found fifteen sins and confessed them. We don't realize that underneath and along side these were countless more. During how many minutes of the day did we come short of loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength? During which hours of the day did we fall short of loving our neighbor as much as we love ourselves? In how many ways did we fail to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness? In what ways may we have been impatient, worried, lusted, coveted, or been insensitive to someone elses needs? Is it possible to recognize all of these and list them?  I don't think so.

So one possibility is that we trivialize our sinfulness by listing a few sins we can remember. We don't mean to do this, but we do. We end up thinking pretty good thoughts about ourselves, because, after all, our sin problem is manageable. On the other hand, if we do recognize the almost limitless number of ways we have sinned in any given day and the impossibility of listing them all, we may be driven to despair over our wretched lack of achievement when it comes to behaving in a godly way.

Forgiveness of Sins

Psalm 32:1     Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity.


Psalm 103:8     The Lord is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.
Psalm 103:10     He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities.
Psalm 103:12     As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Isaiah 1:18     “Come now, and let us reason together,”  Says the Lord,  “Though your sins are like scarlet,   They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.
Isaiah 55:7     Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts;  Let him return to the Lord, And He will have mercy on him;  And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.
Jeremiah 33:8 I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against Me.
Micah 7:18 Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in mercy.
Micah 7:19 He will again have compassion on us, And will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins Into the depths of the sea.
 Ephesians 1:7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace
Acts 13:38 Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins;
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Hebrews 8:12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

Memorization Monday - Hebrews 10:14

 14 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

Don't just read by this verse. It has important implications. Here are verses 1 and 2 from the same chapter:

 For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. 2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.


From these verses we learn that the law could not make the worshipers perfect. If they could have, the sacrifices would have ceased and the worshiper would no longer have a conscience of sins. The great thing about the gospel is that what the law could not do, God did through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. His sacrifice was successful in perfecting those He is sanctifying as verse 14 says. The conclusion is that Jesus should only have to die once. That is certainly the case as all of the New Testament testifies. But in addition, we need to grasp by faith that the sin question has been completely dealt with and so rather than being reminded of our sins day after day as the sacrificial system caused, we should be able to live in the light of sins forgiven and our conscience should not be in a continual state of turmoil over sins that have already been forgiven and removed from us.

Memorization Monday - Hebrews 10:2

10     For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. 2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.



I've included verse 1 from last week as well.  There are a couple of key points here that are very important to understand. The Old Testament Sacrifices could not make the worshippers perfect. Verse 2 tells us what would have happened if they had been successful. First, the sacrifices would have stopped because they would no longer have been needed. Second, the consciousness of sin would be no more. In other words, the cleansing would be so perfect, and sins' removal so complete that the conscience would not be constantly badgering the mind. Verse 3, which is not on our memory list tells us that the sacrificial system had the opposite effect. Rather than putting away sins, people were constantly reminded of their sinfulness because they had to keep bringing in the sacrifices.

Come back here next week to see the conclusion of this line of reasoning from verse 14.

Hymn of the Week - Whiter Than Snow

1. Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole;
I want Thee forever to live in my soul.
Break down every idol, cast out every foe
Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

2. Lord Jesus, look down from Your throne in the skies
And help me to make a complete sacrifice.
I give up myself and whatever I know
Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

3. Lord Jesus, for this I most humbly entreat;
I wait, blessed Lord, at Thy crucified feet.
By faith, for my cleansing I see Your blood flow
Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

4. Lord Jesus, before You I patiently wait;
Come now and within me a new heart create.
To those who have sought You, You never said "No"
Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Chorus:
Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow
Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Lyrics: James L. Nicholson
Music: William Gustavus Fischer

God's Power to Save - Even Me

The book of Romans in the Bible is one of my favorite portions of Scripture because in it the gospel of Jesus Christ is so clearly and logically laid out.  This article today is based on a study I call Truths for Meditation and comes from Romans 1:16-17; 3:21-27. So what I'm hoping to accomplish here is not so much to go through this passage as a lesson to be learned, but as truth that will build us up and sustain us in our walk of faith. It would be helpful to have your Bible open to this passage since I won't be quoting it in its entirety.

Paul writes that the gospel is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. One has to almost stop at each word in order to grasp what this is saying. The basic hunger of the human heart is for salvation. Death is seen by most people as an enemy and even life has so many challenges that people want to be assured of a rescue, if not now then certainly after death. Where is that rescue to be found and who is eligible? What the Bible is saying is that the power to save us is found in the good news of Jesus Christ. This saving power is available to everyone, everyone who believes. There's no limit.

The reason that the gospel is the power of God for salvation is that the gospel reveals the righteousness of God. This phrase, "righteousness of God" is repeated several times in this passage. God is perfect and perfectly righteous. That means that He never does anything wrong. All of His motives are perfectly right. All of His decisions and actions are perfectly right. In comparison to God we fall way short of His perfections. The Bible calls that sin.

How does the gospel reveal the righteousness of God? Let me explain it this way. If I can say it respectfully, God has a "problem". He loves us. God does not want any of us to perish. But on the other hand He is so perfect and righteous that He cannot just overlook sin. He can't be like a kind, gentle grandfather who simply overlooks his grandson's misbehavior. He must punish sin. So what the gospel shows is that God is so loving and yet so intent on punishing sin that he entered the world Himself in the person of Jesus Christ and took the punishment that His righteousness demanded so that He would be "free" to justly release sinners from their death sentence. That is what verse 3:26 is saying.

The gospel is the good news that God is righteous, but He applied that righteous judgment on Himself rather than on His creatures. But the gospel is also the message that God gives His righteousness to all who believe. In other words, it's not enough just to have our punishment taken by someone else. We also need to be positively righteous. God is basically saying, "I've taken the punishment you deserve. The condemnation has been removed if you will believe me and trust me.  In addition, I will give you my righteousness, my perfection as a gift if you will accept it." Here's the way Paul puts it in the passage we are looking at:  "But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe." Romans 3:21, 22






In 2 Corinthians 5:21 he says it this way, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."



It almost sounds too good to be true doesn't it?  To think that on judgment day, God would look up your record and on it He would find no sins, and then as He looks more closely to see what good things you have done He would find that you have been perfectly loving, perfectly others-focused, perfectly thankful, and so on. Why?  Because your sinful record has been replaced by God's perfect righteousness.  Believing this is what saves, not just believing in general. We are asked to believe the record that God has given of His Son, and trust His method of salvation. In doing so, all of the benefits of the power of the gospel will be ours.

Presumptuous Sins

In one of David’s prayers, recorded in Psalm 19:13, he says this, “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression.”

A presumptuous sin is one that is done willfully. To presume means to assume something is true in advance without any evidence to support that assumption. People presume upon God in many ways. Probably the biggest way in which we do this is to presume upon the forgiveness and grace that God promises. People sometimes knowingly and willfully sin against God counting on the fact that God has promised to forgive all sins.

According to Scripture it is true that God has promised to forgive all sins of those who come to Christ in faith and trust Him as their savior. If this is so, why is it wrong to presume upon that forgiveness?

In David’s prayer, he suggests that such sins can gain dominion over a person. The sin becomes the master. Paul, in Romans 6:15 Paul asks the question, “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” His answer in the next verse is revealing. He says, “Don’t you know that whoever you yield to in obedience, you are that one’s slave.” If we yield to those presumptuous sins, we are in effect making those sins our master.

Another reason David gives for his request is so that he will be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Blameless doesn’t mean perfect. It means that there is nothing there that will stick when people try to attach blame to him. Presumptuous sins are a great transgression against God and when they become known they give people something to blame us for. In so doing the testimony of Christ is damaged and the Gospel is diminished in peoples’ eyes.

Committing presumptuous sins on a regular basis should cause one to question his own salvation. Paul, at the beginning of Romans 6 writes, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” A few verses later he says, “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.” Certainly we know that Christians sin. John wrote in his first letter, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”

I’ve been challenged by David’s prayer in that he was bold enough to ask God to keep him from presumptuous sins. He knew he was weak and needed the strength of God in order to stand. Are we any stronger than David whom God called a man after his own heart? As Christian men who desire to be faithful, let’s acknowledge our weaknesses and seek God’s help in avoiding this kind of sin.

Some thoughts on Forgiveness

I've been doing some thinking on the topic of forgiveness lately. In the study of Acts that I've been doing, it seems that forgiveness is the primary thing offered to people in the Gospel. It isn't eternal life that is mentioned or being with Jesus, even those are clearly taught elsewhere in Scripture. I then got to thinking about why we don't appreciate forgiveness more. My son Tim told me about a book called Plague of Plagues written in 1669 by Ralph Venning. I'm going to take the liberty of quoting some sections from this book off and on over the next couple of weeks for your consideration. Even though the language is a little archaic, I found the things he had to say sobering and challenging and helped me to appreciate forgiveness all the more.

Here's today's installment--

If we consider man in a natural or physical state, we shall find sin to be (i) against the well-being, and (ii) against the very being of man. It will not suffer him to be well or long in the world, nor if possible to be at all.
(i) It is against man's well-being in this life. Well-being is the life of life, and sin bears us so much ill-will, that it deprives us of our livelihood, and of that which makes it worth our while to live. Man was born to a great estate, but by sin, which was and is treason against God, he forfeited all. Man came into the world as into a house ready furnished; he had all things prepared and ready to hand. All the creatures came to wait on him and pay him homage; but when man sinned, God turned him out of house and home, and all his lands, goods and chattels were taken from him. Paradise was man's inheritance, where he had everything pleasant to the eye and good for food (he needed no clothes while innocent). But when he sinned, God dispossessed him of all, and drove him out into the wide world, like a pilgrim or a beggar, to live by his own hands and to earn his meat by the sweat of his brow, as you may read at length in Genesis 3.

Thus, by sin, man, who was the Emperor of Eden, is banished from his native country, and must never see it again but in a new and living way; for the old is closed up, and besides that, it is kept against him with flaming swords. Ever since, it has been every man's lot to come into and go out of this world naked, to show that he has no right to anything, but lives on the alms of God's charity and grace. All we have or hold between our birth and death is clear gain and mere gift. God might choose whether he would allow us anything or not, and when he has given he may take back again, and none of us has cause to say anything but what Job did: 'Naked came I into the world, and naked shall I return; the Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord' (Job 1.21). All we have, our food and raiment, is only lent to us. We are only tenants at will, and therefore, seeing we deserve nothing, we should be content with, and thankful for anything (1 Timothy 6.7,8).

The Wages of Sin

After the victory at Jericho, the Israelites felt pretty confident about the next battle at Ai. What most of the people didn’t know is that one of the men had taken some things from Jericho as spoil. God had commanded them to take nothing but to burn everything.

When the Israelites went to attack Ai, they were soundly defeated. Obviously God wasn’t with them on this venture. When Joshua asked the Lord why such a defeat, God told them about Achan’s sin and disobedience.

There are several things we can learn from this. First, our sin affects everyone. Even for so-called secret sins, we shouldn’t think that others in the body of Christ are not hurt. This is a spiritual battle we’re in and there are spiritual consequences that we may not be able to see.

Israel’s response to this revelation was to repent. There was repentance, humility and a sincere concern for God’s name and His glory. Repentance and sorrow weren’t enough, however. Action had to be taken. Achan had to get specific about his sin explaining how he had seen then taken and hidden the loot.

What was the result for Achan? He and his entire family were put to death. This reminds me that God is serious about sin. Romans 3:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death. Those of us who know that Scripture well repeat it so easily and without feeling, but I wonder if we really understand the impact. The sins you and I commit are enough to cause us to be stoned as Achan was. Somehow I don’t think we look at it that seriously.

Finally, I’m reminded of the awesome grace of God toward a sinner like me. Second Corinthians 5:21 says that Christ was made sin for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Galatians 3:10 explains how He was cursed for us so that we would be released from the curse. I Peter 2:24 tells us that He bore our sins on the cross. “Sin has left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.”