Good evening and thanks for joining our Bible study tonight. If you've been following along with us for a while, you know that we've been examining how life should be for Christian believers under the New Covenant compared to living under the Old Covenant of the LAW. The key issue is that the Bible actually says that the LAW is for non-believers and the New Covenant is for believers (1 Timothy 1:9), but believers have difficulty moving out from under the LAW and over to a life of total FREEDOM that's under the direction of the Holy Spirit. The Flesh wants to hang onto the LAW but the model for the New Covenant is to be Spirit led (Romans 8:14) and the Bible says that it's not possible to be under the LAW and Spirit-led at the same time (Galatians 5:18).
Last week we looked at the subject of CONFESSING our sins and how that fits into life under the New Covenant. And, there was quite a bit of feedback from that article both pro and con leading to my conclusion that we need to look at this subject more deeply. In considering the feedback, I also realized that I had written something I no longer believe is correct so I need to clarify that too realizing that a lot of Christians may have agreed with last week's article the way it was written.
The Problem of Tradition
With that said, let's look again at a particular scripture we considered last week which happens to be one of the most misunderstood (and hotly contested) verses in the New Testament:
1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
One of the huge problems in the Body of Christ is that we easily become committed to tradition. Jesus Himself said out of His own mouth as recorded in red letters that the handed-down traditions of men INVALIDATE the Word of God (Mark 7:13). There is the POWER of life itself in the SEED of the Word (1 Peter 1:23) but there's nothing whatsoever of any spiritual value in the traditions of men. And so, we have to be on guard that we don't allow tradition to infiltrate our personal belief structure which is why I'm willing to consider anyone's point of view about Scripture and come to my own conclusions. Within that context though, there are some ideas that I have pretty much settled on and would be greatly surprised if opposing viewpoints came along and caused me to abandon what I believe.
For example, I believe that Jesus is Lord, that He was resurrected on the third day and that people are saved and receive eternal life by GRACE through FAITH. And until further notice, I also believe the following ideas:
I believe that the blood of Jesus paid in full for all my sins for all time: past, present and future (Hebrews 9:12, 10:12).
I believe that since the moment I trusted in Jesus as Lord, I received forgiveness for ALL my sins (Hebrews 9:12).
I believe that because all sin has already been paid for, God isn't counting current sins against me (2 Corinthians 5:19).
I believe that God has chosen to NOT remember my sins: past, current and future (Hebrews 8:12, 10:17).
I believe that Christians on average are TOO conscious of past sins resulting in the presence of guilt (Hebrews 10:2).
I believe that ALL Scripture has to fit together and bring us to the same conclusion.
An Important Clarification
What I should have written last week taking from the fourth option is that I believe the letter was written to believers and is referring to the one-time event of being made righteous and forgiven of all sin (see verse 1:7 also). In other words, the verse was a faith-building exhortation from an Apostle in authority to reassure believers that when they had first agreed with God that they were sinners, i.e. when they had been born again and become new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17), they had indeed been made righteous, forgiven from ALL sins for all time and cleansed from ALL unrighteousness.
Why This Is Important
Rightly dividing this scripture is important because the consequence of misunderstanding it is to question whether or not the believer must go back to either God or other people to REPEATEDLY request forgiveness for ongoing sins which would be a system similar to the Law of Moses. THERE ARE WHOLE DENOMINATIONS IN THE BODY OF CHRIST THAT HAVE MADE THIS INTERPRETATION. I encourage folks to read Hebrews 9:12 that says CLEARLY that there's one act of forgiveness for which the required shedding of blood (Hebrews 9:22) has ALREADY occurred. If I have to go back to God for forgiveness every time I sin, then the work of Christ on the Cross has been rendered incomplete and I have to go perform a work outside of GRACE to obtain my own forgiveness for my current and future sin. That would be really scary because there's no work good enough including the shedding of my own blood that I'm capable of carrying out to make up for anything Jesus would not have ALREADY taken care of.
In sum, my CONFESSIONS of current and future sin are NOT a REQUIREMENT or a condition for maintaining the forgiveness Jesus has ALREADY won for me. As a believer I ALREADY have my forgiveness and it cannot be taken away from me. Nevertheless, I don't want to imply that CONFESSION isn't important and here's why. When we commit sin, especially repetitive or habitual sin, our response must be to AGREE with the Word, to AGREE with God as soon as possible that what we did was sin. The Flesh wants to gloss over it as if the sin was incidental but a practice of not dealing with sin will begin to harden our hearts to the things of God and allow Satan to become increasingly involved in the destruction of our lives (John 10:10).
The correct response to our own sin is to REPENT which means to turn and go in the opposite direction. Whatever my sin was I want to come to the point of doing the opposite. AGREEING that what I did was sin is the first step in a process of repentance and I think that the AGREEMENT often needs to be said out loud privately and directly to the Lord. Then the next step can be taken which is to make ourselves available to the Holy Spirit for whatever teaching and correction is necessary to bring about the permanent turn around that's needed. What we won't ever be able to do is overcome our sin in our own power and we have to admit this to ourselves. We've ALWAYS needed help from God to deal with sin and He's not expecting us to be able to overcome it without help after we're born again.
The bottom line for all of this is that knowing we're ALREADY forgiven opens the door for us to fellowship with God without the presence of GUILT. That's important because guilt is the main thing that impairs our fellowship with the Father. It's NOT sin that impairs it because sin has already been paid for and God isn't holding us accountable for it. According to the Bible, He doesn't even remember it. God doesn't withhold His fellowship from Believers in the face of sin, but we often withhold ourselves from the fellowship because of GUILT. That's why the enemy comes to ACCUSE the brethren (Revelation 12:10). Under the New Covenant, his accusations are directed to us, not to God because he knows he can't get through our Advocate. No, his purpose is to make us feel bad about ourselves so we withdraw ourselves from the fellowship. We're the ones who do that. God has said He'll never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5) but we can take ourselves out of fellowship by being overly conscious of our sin.
In conclusion, the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). My forgiveness is secure but I need to deal with the sin or face the consequences of what the devil will be able to do in my life because my heart has been hardened to spiritual things. I don't need to ask God for forgiveness anymore because it's already been taken care of. Tradition says to ask God for forgiveness every time we sin and then feel guilty and remorseful about it so that the relationship can get back to normal as soon as possible. The Bible says we're already forgiven but we DO need to eagerly make ourselves available to the Holy Spirit so that He can bring about correction. We can't make the correction on our own, we must have the Holy Spirit working with us, working willingly TOGETHER in order to overcome our own sin. That's just the way we are.
Thanks for joining our discussion tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night on May 22. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), pushing you to VICTORY in every area of life!
Sinners' Prayer
If you've never invited Jesus to be your Lord, you can do so today by believing and saying out loud the following simple prayer:
Jesus, I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and I believe that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven for all time and I ask you to come into my life today and be my Lord and Savior. Thank you for salvation and eternal life.
If you were sincere as you prayed, God has already come into your life and you're a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God.
When you get a moment have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer and believing what you said:
Romans 10:9
2 Corinthians 5:17
Ephesians 2:8
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