What is Christianity Wiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Forgiveness of Believers

Introduction

In the New Testament there are a number of key passages which are important to the subject of sin and forgiveness for the child of God.

Acts 24:16 In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.

1 Corinthians 4:3—4 But to me it is a very small thing that I should be examined by you, or by any human court; in fact, I do not even examine myself. 4 For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted; but the one who examines me is the Lord.

1 Corinthians 11:28-29 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judge­ment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

1 John 1:5:10 This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not prac­tice the truth.

7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

1 John 2:1:2. My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for those of the whole world.

1 John 3:19—22 We shall know by this that we are of the truth, and shall assure our heart before Him.

20 For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.

21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.

22 And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.

The Old Testament is not silent on this subject and adds to our understanding of forgiveness for the believer. Some key passages are Genesis 3 and the responses of Adam and Eve who tried to cover their sin by blame and their own solution of fig leaves. In addition to those below, compare also Psalm 32:1-7 and 51:1—13.

Psalm 66:18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear.

Psalm 139:23—24 Search me, 0 God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxieties;

24 And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the ever­lasting.

Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, Searching all the in­ner depths of his heart.

Proverbs 28:13 He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will find mercy.

There are three needs involved in forgiveness:

Examination(1 Cor. 11:28)

Self-judgement(1 Cor. 11:31)

Confession(1 John 1:9)

The above passages from the Old and New Testaments clarify this whole element of forgiveness and our responsibility regarding personal sin. From these passages, a number of important principles emerge.

The Problems We Face

Inherent sinfulness with a bent for foolishness or the disease of self—management (Prov. 4:23; Jer. 17:5; 1 John 1:8; Isa. 2:6—8 with 1:3—4).

The delusions and temptations of Satan to tempt us to sin. We should be aware that the key goal of Satan, regardless of the sin or the temptation, is to get us to act independently of God.

Defilement as we walk in an evil world using human solutions (John 13:l; 1 John ,1:9).

This defilement and the use of human strategies form a barrier to fellowship, growth, and honest change from the inside out (Isa. 2:6; 30:1—2; 50:10—11; with 59:1—2).

Unconfessed sin constitutes negative volition to the Holy Spirit

(Jam. 4:17; Rom. 14:23). It grieves >His person (Eph. 4:30), quenches His power

(1 Thess. 5:19), causes God to ignore our prayer requests </i>(Ps. 66:18), and cuts us off </i>from experiencing much of the blessing and power of God

(Prov. 28:13).

Our love for self—management and control, and our failure to recognise this and deal with it, not only creates a barrier to fellowship with God but it creates a barrier to real inward change. We devise methods by which we can appear and act religious on the outside (Isa. 29:13) while we seek to manage our own lives by handling our fears, insecurities, and frustrations with our own strategies (our man-made firebrands) rather than with God’s resources (Isa. 50:10—11; Jer. 2:13).

The Needs We Have Examination

We each need not a morbid preoccupation with self, but a daily inside look at our lives, our patterns of behaviour, our strategies for living, and our feelings, fears, and attitudes (Ps. 139:23—24; Prov. 20:27; 1 Cor. 11:28).

Honesty

An inside look is useless without honesty with God and with self. Duplicity or deceit by way of self-justification or just plain denial through which we seek to cover up our attitudes and behaviour is the enemy of spiritual growth and fellow­ship with God (Ps. 32:2b; 51:6; 15:1—2; Prov. 24:12; 21:2; Luke 16:15).

Confession

Honest examination is needed for the purpose of confession in the form of genuine repentance specific acknowledgement of all known sins with a commitment to change by God’s grace through faith.

But what is confession?

“It is saying the same thing about sin as God does. It is having the same perspective on that sin as God does. This must include more than simply rehearsing the sin, for God’s perspective would also include forsaking that sin. Therefore to confess includes an attitude of forsaking that sin.

Vital to self judgement and confession is the need for a commitment to allow God to change us from the inside out or at the core of our lives through faith, not in our own strategies or even for our own purposes, i.e., to make life work so we can be happy, but by faith in His resources, the Word, the control of the Spirit, prayer, and even the trials of life (James 1:2—4).

Also crucial to biblical change through confession and dependence on the Spirit of God is a biblical view of sin. We particularly need to understand that the root of sin in all its various shades and colours is the sin of self. Self is the culprit that sprouts up like a weed and produces the other categories of sin with which we deal. Here is an issue that is often either not understood or ignored because the hardest thing for all of us to do is to relin­quish control.

We tend to confess the surface sins, the obvious, but we fail to see them for what they really are, the fruit of a deeper problem of sin that we typically want to disregard, indeed, one that we want to overlook, one that is at the heart of man’s sinfulness the desire to run our own lives, to live independently through our human strategies for life.

Categories of Sin

(1) Sins of Commission: doing what we should not.

(2) Sins of Omission: failing to do what we should.

Or

(1) Overt Sin—murder, fornication, theft, manipulating others, and sins of the tongue such as lying, criticism, murmuring, nagging, foul language, gossip.

(2) Mental Attitude Sins—resentment, anxiety, hatred, fear, pride, sinful desires like coveting.

(3) Root Sins—Self-management sins, failing of the grace of God, human substi­tutes (religionism, secularism, materialism, human strategies for handling life, defence and escape mechanisms, etc.).

Therefore, in light of the effects of sin and self—controlling strategies on our fellowship with the Lord and our capacity to change, we need to:

(1) Examine our lives regularly in the light of God’s Word through study and meditating on the Word.

(2) Confess, acknowledge specific sins, as they are revealed to us by the tools God uses (the Spirit, the Word, failures, people, trials).

(3) Trust God’s promise to forgive us when we confess sin and know that our sins are forgiven.

(4) Draw upon our resources in Christ to enable us to deal with our sinful nature and those areas of foolishness that produced the sin, draw near to God, to make Him our refuge and source of life.

There is no point in saying to yourself I will get right with God in the morning, as it may be to late.

Do it now and He will forgive you all your sin right now, just ask and it will be given to you. (Luke 11:9)