Most children feel a natural sense of security when their father is around. They feel safe from whatever threats and dangers might come their way. There is something about masculinity that communicates strength, and children pick up on that and take comfort in it.
Dad’s strength can also give a child a certain measure of boldness and confidence in what their Father can do. You’ll probably never hear two children fight about whether “my mom can beat up your mom,” but you just might overhear them fighting about who’s dad is the strongest.
Now, in the same way that we look to our earthly fathers for a sense of security, we can also look to our heavenly Father for a sense of security in our salvation. We’ve learned over the last few weeks that salvation is a gift from God—He has done the work to provide it, and He gives it to us as a gift when we repent of our sins and accept Jesus as our Savior by faith. And since salvation is a work of God, He also does the work to keep our salvation secure.
Over the next two weeks, we’re going to look at each person of the Trinity and focus on that person’s work to secure our salvation. This morning we will consider the work of God the Father, and we’ll answer the question:
How does God the Father secure our salvation?
I. He has chosen us and given us a certain destiny
This point refers to a doctrine known as the doctrine of election, which attempts to explain verses which state that God has chosen believers to be His own people and has marked out a clear destiny for them. This doctrine has been fiercely debated among Christians over the years, but its important to realize that no one really disputes the fact that God has chosen believers—they disagree over how God made His choice. Did He look down through the corridors of time and choose those whom He knew would choose Him, or did He make the choice of His own will and then lead those chosen people to faith?
The question of how God made the choice is open to debate, but we should recognize that the Bible plainly tells us that believers have been chosen by God. Take a look at just a few of the verses that state this doctrine:
• Eph. 1:3-4—“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world…”
• 1 Thess. 1:4-5—“For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit with full conviction.
• 2 Thess. 2:13—“But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.”
• 1 Peter 1:1-2—“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappodocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father…”
These are just a few of the verses that mention this doctrine of election, and I mention this doctrine today because of the implications of it that are stated in Romans 8:28-30. Turn there with me if you would and let’s look at these verses [READ Rom. 8:28-30].
This is an incredible set of verses that gives us a summary of a plan that stretches from eternity past to eternity future. So when God chose believers, He chose us with a definite plan and destiny in mind for them. Notice two things about these verses that apply to all that we’ve been discussing about eternal security. First, in each stage of salvation that is mentioned in vv. 29-30, the same group of people are mentioned as going through each stage [READ vv. 29-30]. Many people have called these verses “the golden chain of salvation,” because all of these stages are linked together in God’s plan. Thus, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you have been chosen by God, and if you have been chosen then your destiny with respect to heaven and hell has been settled! If you are on this “golden chain of salvation,” you will be on it all the way through to the end.
Second, notice that each stage of salvation mentioned here is mentioned in the past tense—even our eventual glorification, which hasn’t happened yet on the timeline of history. Nevertheless, even that future event is mentioned here in the past tense, which would suggest that our glorification—our entrance into heaven—is a settled fact, even though it hasn’t happened yet.
So God is working out a plan that will see our salvation through from beginning to end. This plan involves our justification, which is the second work of God for us to consider today.
II. He has declared that His legal case against us is closed
This is the meaning of the fancy-sounding theological term “justification.” It means that God—as our Judge—declares that all of His demands against our sin have been met. Sometimes in our world, when a person finishes a prison sentence or pays a fine, we say that their debt to society has been paid. What we mean is that in the eyes of the justice system, that person has no more legal requirements against them. Their completed punishment or payment has satisfied the law of the land, and that case is closed.
That’s exactly what God declares when He declares that we are justified! Everything that His law requires as a penalty against our sins has been met—not by us, but by Jesus through His sacrificial death on the cross. We receive the benefit of His sacrificial death when we accept Him as our Savior, and when we do, God renders the verdict that we are justified because all of His demands have been met!
I believe we can rest assured that God will never reverse this verdict that He makes when we are saved, and I think Romans 8:33 communicates this. Paul puts our minds into a courtroom setting here and he writes [READ Rom. 8:33]. In this courtroom setting, Paul is asking who could possibly serve as a prosecutor against us. Who could step into God’s courtroom and press charges against us and win the case if God is the judge and He has already said we’re justified? Such a prosecutor would have to prove to God that He had been wrong in His original verdict, and I think we can safely say that is impossible.
III. He has willed to keep us secure through His sovereign will and power
In the Gospel of John, we find some amazing statements about God’s sovereign will in salvation and what He intended to accomplish by sending Jesus Christ into the world. One statement that is particularly relevant for the discussion of eternal security is John 6:38-40 [READ John 6:38-40].
In v. 39, the picture is that God the Father has taken believers and given them to Jesus for safe-keeping. This same picture is mentioned in John 10:27-29 [READ John 10:27-29].
In my opinion, these verses are a strong affirmation that we will never lose our salvation, but I should mention some of my Christian brothers and sisters who do believe that we can lose our salvation have said that these verses only tell us that no one else can rob us of our salvation, but the possibility still exists that we could reject our salvation and thus lose it. I cannot agree with that conclusion for two reasons: first, Jesus makes a strong statement in v. 28 when He says, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.” In the Greek text that lies behind our English Bibles, Jesus uses of the strongest possible ways of saying “no” to something. The Christian Standard Bible puts it this way: “I give them eternal life—and they will never perish, ever!” Now I think we can all agree that Jesus can speak only the truth; however, if someone eternally perished after receiving eternal life from Jesus, this statement could not be true. But I think we have to conclude that it is true because it was spoken by Jesus.
Second, I cannot agree with the conclusion that we can lose our salvation because we have to remember the limitations of our own will. We cannot always undo the effects of our previous choices simply by choosing to do so. Sometimes our choices set a course of events in motion that we cannot undo simply through our own will. Missed opportunities are a perfect example of this. Think of a high school student who is offered a scholarship by a college, but for some reason, the student chooses not to accept the scholarship. Most colleges then move on and offer the scholarship to someone else, so if the student later changes his or her mind, that opportunity may be gone. The effects of the original choice remain even though the student now desires something different.
Now, you may be thinking, “Okay, I get that example—but salvation is a gift, right? Can’t I reject a gift?” Well, on the human level, we can. If you give me a gift, I can later choose to give it back to you or just get rid of it altogether. But when we consider our salvation, we have to remember one of the lessons we learned last week—God’s gift of salvation involves promises on His part. These are promises that He intends to keep regardless of our faithfulness to Him. As 2 Timothy 2:13 says, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.”
Ultimately, I think we must simply take Jesus at His Word—all who receive eternal life from Him will never perish. That is also because of the final work of God the Father that we need to look at this morning.
IV. He has poured out His enduring love upon us
I take the wording for this point from Romans 5:5, which says that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Paul then goes on in that chapter to describe the depths of God’s love for us. Why don’t you turn with me to Romans 5? [READ vv. 6-10]
These verses highlight the change that has taken place in our relationship with God, and they use an argument from the lesser to the greater to point out how confident that we can be that we will be saved from God’s wrath. As these verses state, we used to be God’s enemies, and even in that condition He loved us enough to die for us. But now, we are no longer His enemies—we are reconciled to Him, which means that we’re back on friendly terms. So if He loved us enough to die for us while we were His enemies, how much more can we count on Him to save us from His wrath now that we are His friends? If that’s what God’s love compels Him to do for His enemies, then surely His friends are in a much better position to always be safe from His wrath.
But is there anything that can separate us from the love of God? Paul answers this question just a few chapters over in Romans 8:35-39 [READ Rom. 8:35-39].
What can I add to that but to say, “Praise God for His amazing love!”
Monday, October 31, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
The Gift That Keeps on Giving--Eternal Security series
Imagine yourself as a young child waking up on Christmas morning. As you sit up in your bed you’re hit with the smell of cinnamon rolls baking in the oven. Of course, there’s no time to eat right now because there are presents to open, so you run out of your bedroom and into the living room to be greeted by a scene that you had only dreamed about the night before. You see a stocking hanging over the fireplace with your name on it, and you can see that it’s big and full of presents. You look under the tree and see big boxes with your name on them. And then, you see your parents coming into the room with big smiles on their faces. You start to run toward them to give them a big hug, and as you do you notice that they are holding something out toward you. They ask you to take a look at it, and what is it—but a contract! You’re kind of surprised by all of this, but then you start to read it and it says this:
“The holder of this contract (hereafter referred to as “The Child”) may open and enjoy all of his/her presents at once, but will lose the aforementioned presents if any of the following agreements are broken:
1. The Child agrees to never again walk past a pile of his/her toys and say, “I’m bored.”
2. The Child agrees to never again roll his/her eyes when hearing that money doesn’t grow on trees.
3. The Child agrees to do everything in his/her power to become worthy of receiving the aforementioned presents.
Now I don’t know about you, but those presents don’t sound much like gifts to me! They sound more like rewards or bribes. I don’t think we would be too happy if our parents thought that was the way to give gifts, because we know a thing or two about what gifts are like. Gifts are supposed to be free to the one who receives them. They’re not supposed to have all kinds of strings attached to them.
Fortunately, that’s not the way that God offers the gift of salvation. He offers it as a real, true gift—with no cost to us, and with no strings attached. But as we continue our study of the doctrine of eternal security, another implication that we need to understand about the gift of salvation is that the fact that it is a gift means that God will never take it away from us. What we are going to see from Scripture today is that…
Salvation is a gift given by God that He will never take away.
I’d like to unpack that thought today by looking at some observations about God’s gift of salvation that should instruct us, comfort us, and inspire us to live for him and him alone.
1. The gift of salvation is given by God
This observation implies two things:
A. Salvation is free to us
Part of the nature of a gift is that it is free to the one who receives it. If the recipient has to pay something for it or do something to earn it, it is no longer a gift. Now accordingly, the Bible states that the gift of salvation is free to us. Rev 22:17 says, “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” And in the Old Testament, Isaiah uses water and food to picture the free gift of God’s mercy: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Is 55:1).
So if the gift of salvation is free to us, this implies that…
B. Salvation was paid for by God
We get a clear statement of this fact in Rom 3:24—“[we are] justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The word for “redemption” in that verse is used in classical Greek to refer to the ransom payment that is made to free a person from slavery. When Jesus died on the cross, he was making that payment to free us from the debt of our sins, and when he said, “It is finished” we can hear him saying, “Paid in full,” because the complete payment for sin was made.
Salvation was paid for by God, or to be more specific, it was paid for when Jesus died on the cross in our place. When you receive Jesus as your Savior, that payment is applied to you, so that, as Colossians 2:14 says, your debt of sin has been canceled. God declares that the payment Christ made for you was enough, and thus all of His demands against you have been met. But think about this—if you could lose your salvation for committing a sin of any kind, then God would be declaring that Jesus’ payment was not enough to cover that sin. We could look at it in two ways—either God would be demanding double payment for that sin (my own payment on top of Christ’s payment), or He would be saying that Christ’s payment was not enough. Either way, we run into problems—if He demanded double payment for the sin, He would be unfair, and if He declared that Christ’s payment was not enough, He would be declaring that His previous verdict was wrong.
Thus, I think it is very important for us to remember that God has paid the full price of the gift of salvation that He offers to us, and when we receive that gift, God declares that the price for our sins has been paid in full, and we can trust that He won’t change that verdict or demand double payment for any of our sins.
So we know that the Bible describes salvation as a gift, and this gift is of course given by God—He has paid for it, and He gives it to us. But there is another observation to be made about the gift of salvation, and it is really the crux of our discussion today.
2. God will not take his gift of salvation away from those who have received it
This is of course the main point under dispute, but I believe the Bible gives us two reasons for saying this.
A. God’s gift of salvation involves a promise
We can learn a lot by comparing God’s gift of salvation to gifts that we might give to each other, but here the comparison kind of breaks down. When we give gifts to one another, we don’t normally make promises to each other, or make any guarantees about future for our relationship. We may give a gift to a co-worker, and then if we change jobs later, we may never talk to them again. We may have family visit us around Christmas, and we’re happy to give them a gift on Christmas day, but when they’ve overstayed their welcome on Jan 5th, we’re ready to send them home and say, “See you next year.” Or worse yet, we might give a gift to a friend, and then a week later they’ll stab us in the back and we’ll never speak to them again. But God’s gift of salvation involves a promise on his part—basically it is a promise to finish what he has started.
Look with me at Eph 1:13–14 [READ Eph 1:13-14]. I like the way the New English Translation puts verse 14. It says that the Holy Spirit is “the down payment of our inheritance,” and that’s the word picture that Paul is using here. Many of you live in your own home right now, and most of you have a mortgage on that home. Hardly anyone is rich enough to pay for a house outright, so we take out a home loan and a sign a contract to purchase a home. Now one of the things that’s required of us when we enter that agreement is to make a down payment, which is a sum of money that you pay toward the total price of the home. That down payment shows your intention to complete the purchase that you just made.
When God gives us his Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation, the Holy Spirit is God’s down payment to guarantee to us that he will complete the purchase that he has made. He is the promise from God that we have been forgiven and that one day he is going to free us completely from the sin that is in our lives. Now I know our housing market is a little shaky right now, but when God makes a down payment, He won’t need a bail out and He won’t be foreclosed on! He will finish what he has started because…
B. God’s promises are guaranteed by His character
Why don’t you turn with me to Malachi 3? Some of you might be familiar with what God has to say in the first part of Malachi 3:6, but almost no one is familiar with the context of that verse. In the first part of that verse the Lord says, “For I the Lord, do not change,” and we usually stop there and say, “Wow isn’t that great!” And we might expect the last part of the verse to say, “therefore you can always count on me” or “therefore I’ve always got your back.”
But instead the Lord says, “therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” Whoa! What a minute! What is God talking about? Well, back in v. 5 he was describing all of the sins that they had committed against him. They had engaged in sorcery and adultery and perjury and had oppressed needy people, so why didn’t God consume them? Why didn’t he just wipe them out? Because he had promised to their ancestors that he would never wipe them out, but that he would make them a great nation and would draw them back to himself. Notice just a few of the promises that God had made to the people of Israel:
• Isaiah 54:10—“‘For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”
• Jeremiah 31:37—“Thus says the Lord: ‘If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,’ declares the Lord.”
• Jeremiah 33:20–21—“Thus says the Lord: ‘If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time, then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and my covenant with the Levitical priests my ministers.’”
God has kept and will keep these promises to Israel because they are guaranteed by His character, which, as he himself says here, never changes. God keeps His promises, so we can rest assured in the promise that He has made to us that we have an inheritance in heaven. God has given us that promise, and He has given us His Holy Spirit as a guarantee of His promise.
Salvation is a gift given by God that he will never take away. God is the one who has paid for it, and he graciously gives it to those who place their faith in Jesus Christ. God’s gift also involves certain promises on his part that he guarantees with his own character.
So with these observations in mind, we can be confident that God will never take his gift of salvation away from us! Certainly he will deal with our sin, as any loving Father would, but what we can know for sure is that He will never cast us out of his family.
Just think about the freedom and the peace that this assurance gives us. Some of us probably grew up in situations where our dad wasn’t around, or if he did come around, it was only a matter of time before he walked out on us again. Or some of us may have grown up in situations where we felt like we had to prove that we were worthy of our father’s love, and we felt like nothing we did was ever good enough.
But if you have received God’s free gift of salvation, you are forgiven of your sins and you are accepted. You don’t have to prove that you’re worthy of his gift in order to keep God in your life. You don’t have to feel like you’re one mistake away from God walking out on you. You are secure, and you are free to serve God in love to show him your gratitude for his gift of salvation.
“The holder of this contract (hereafter referred to as “The Child”) may open and enjoy all of his/her presents at once, but will lose the aforementioned presents if any of the following agreements are broken:
1. The Child agrees to never again walk past a pile of his/her toys and say, “I’m bored.”
2. The Child agrees to never again roll his/her eyes when hearing that money doesn’t grow on trees.
3. The Child agrees to do everything in his/her power to become worthy of receiving the aforementioned presents.
Now I don’t know about you, but those presents don’t sound much like gifts to me! They sound more like rewards or bribes. I don’t think we would be too happy if our parents thought that was the way to give gifts, because we know a thing or two about what gifts are like. Gifts are supposed to be free to the one who receives them. They’re not supposed to have all kinds of strings attached to them.
Fortunately, that’s not the way that God offers the gift of salvation. He offers it as a real, true gift—with no cost to us, and with no strings attached. But as we continue our study of the doctrine of eternal security, another implication that we need to understand about the gift of salvation is that the fact that it is a gift means that God will never take it away from us. What we are going to see from Scripture today is that…
Salvation is a gift given by God that He will never take away.
I’d like to unpack that thought today by looking at some observations about God’s gift of salvation that should instruct us, comfort us, and inspire us to live for him and him alone.
1. The gift of salvation is given by God
This observation implies two things:
A. Salvation is free to us
Part of the nature of a gift is that it is free to the one who receives it. If the recipient has to pay something for it or do something to earn it, it is no longer a gift. Now accordingly, the Bible states that the gift of salvation is free to us. Rev 22:17 says, “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” And in the Old Testament, Isaiah uses water and food to picture the free gift of God’s mercy: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Is 55:1).
So if the gift of salvation is free to us, this implies that…
B. Salvation was paid for by God
We get a clear statement of this fact in Rom 3:24—“[we are] justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The word for “redemption” in that verse is used in classical Greek to refer to the ransom payment that is made to free a person from slavery. When Jesus died on the cross, he was making that payment to free us from the debt of our sins, and when he said, “It is finished” we can hear him saying, “Paid in full,” because the complete payment for sin was made.
Salvation was paid for by God, or to be more specific, it was paid for when Jesus died on the cross in our place. When you receive Jesus as your Savior, that payment is applied to you, so that, as Colossians 2:14 says, your debt of sin has been canceled. God declares that the payment Christ made for you was enough, and thus all of His demands against you have been met. But think about this—if you could lose your salvation for committing a sin of any kind, then God would be declaring that Jesus’ payment was not enough to cover that sin. We could look at it in two ways—either God would be demanding double payment for that sin (my own payment on top of Christ’s payment), or He would be saying that Christ’s payment was not enough. Either way, we run into problems—if He demanded double payment for the sin, He would be unfair, and if He declared that Christ’s payment was not enough, He would be declaring that His previous verdict was wrong.
Thus, I think it is very important for us to remember that God has paid the full price of the gift of salvation that He offers to us, and when we receive that gift, God declares that the price for our sins has been paid in full, and we can trust that He won’t change that verdict or demand double payment for any of our sins.
So we know that the Bible describes salvation as a gift, and this gift is of course given by God—He has paid for it, and He gives it to us. But there is another observation to be made about the gift of salvation, and it is really the crux of our discussion today.
2. God will not take his gift of salvation away from those who have received it
This is of course the main point under dispute, but I believe the Bible gives us two reasons for saying this.
A. God’s gift of salvation involves a promise
We can learn a lot by comparing God’s gift of salvation to gifts that we might give to each other, but here the comparison kind of breaks down. When we give gifts to one another, we don’t normally make promises to each other, or make any guarantees about future for our relationship. We may give a gift to a co-worker, and then if we change jobs later, we may never talk to them again. We may have family visit us around Christmas, and we’re happy to give them a gift on Christmas day, but when they’ve overstayed their welcome on Jan 5th, we’re ready to send them home and say, “See you next year.” Or worse yet, we might give a gift to a friend, and then a week later they’ll stab us in the back and we’ll never speak to them again. But God’s gift of salvation involves a promise on his part—basically it is a promise to finish what he has started.
Look with me at Eph 1:13–14 [READ Eph 1:13-14]. I like the way the New English Translation puts verse 14. It says that the Holy Spirit is “the down payment of our inheritance,” and that’s the word picture that Paul is using here. Many of you live in your own home right now, and most of you have a mortgage on that home. Hardly anyone is rich enough to pay for a house outright, so we take out a home loan and a sign a contract to purchase a home. Now one of the things that’s required of us when we enter that agreement is to make a down payment, which is a sum of money that you pay toward the total price of the home. That down payment shows your intention to complete the purchase that you just made.
When God gives us his Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation, the Holy Spirit is God’s down payment to guarantee to us that he will complete the purchase that he has made. He is the promise from God that we have been forgiven and that one day he is going to free us completely from the sin that is in our lives. Now I know our housing market is a little shaky right now, but when God makes a down payment, He won’t need a bail out and He won’t be foreclosed on! He will finish what he has started because…
B. God’s promises are guaranteed by His character
Why don’t you turn with me to Malachi 3? Some of you might be familiar with what God has to say in the first part of Malachi 3:6, but almost no one is familiar with the context of that verse. In the first part of that verse the Lord says, “For I the Lord, do not change,” and we usually stop there and say, “Wow isn’t that great!” And we might expect the last part of the verse to say, “therefore you can always count on me” or “therefore I’ve always got your back.”
But instead the Lord says, “therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” Whoa! What a minute! What is God talking about? Well, back in v. 5 he was describing all of the sins that they had committed against him. They had engaged in sorcery and adultery and perjury and had oppressed needy people, so why didn’t God consume them? Why didn’t he just wipe them out? Because he had promised to their ancestors that he would never wipe them out, but that he would make them a great nation and would draw them back to himself. Notice just a few of the promises that God had made to the people of Israel:
• Isaiah 54:10—“‘For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”
• Jeremiah 31:37—“Thus says the Lord: ‘If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,’ declares the Lord.”
• Jeremiah 33:20–21—“Thus says the Lord: ‘If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time, then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and my covenant with the Levitical priests my ministers.’”
God has kept and will keep these promises to Israel because they are guaranteed by His character, which, as he himself says here, never changes. God keeps His promises, so we can rest assured in the promise that He has made to us that we have an inheritance in heaven. God has given us that promise, and He has given us His Holy Spirit as a guarantee of His promise.
Salvation is a gift given by God that he will never take away. God is the one who has paid for it, and he graciously gives it to those who place their faith in Jesus Christ. God’s gift also involves certain promises on his part that he guarantees with his own character.
So with these observations in mind, we can be confident that God will never take his gift of salvation away from us! Certainly he will deal with our sin, as any loving Father would, but what we can know for sure is that He will never cast us out of his family.
Just think about the freedom and the peace that this assurance gives us. Some of us probably grew up in situations where our dad wasn’t around, or if he did come around, it was only a matter of time before he walked out on us again. Or some of us may have grown up in situations where we felt like we had to prove that we were worthy of our father’s love, and we felt like nothing we did was ever good enough.
But if you have received God’s free gift of salvation, you are forgiven of your sins and you are accepted. You don’t have to prove that you’re worthy of his gift in order to keep God in your life. You don’t have to feel like you’re one mistake away from God walking out on you. You are secure, and you are free to serve God in love to show him your gratitude for his gift of salvation.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Transaction Complete--Eternal Security Series
If you have ever taken a public speaking course, you were probably told to craft the introduction of a speech in such a way as to grab your audience’s attention and pique their interest in the subject that you are about to discuss. I was told the same thing in my preaching classes, so I am going to attempt to do just that today. But given the subject matter that we’re about to discuss, I imagine that I need to do little more than say the words, “eternal security.”
The question of whether salvation can be lost or forfeited seems to be of perpetual interest among Christians. Some Christians have a definite academic interest in this question. They want to dissect every verse and pull every statement together into an airtight system that answers every question. That’s not a bad desire, but most Christians have a much more personal interest in this question. Most of us just want to know where we stand with God, and if our standing with God could possibly change.
If you ever have doubts about your salvation, you’re not alone. I suspect that most of us have those doubts from time to time, even if they alone last a split-second. But these doubts can have a major effect in our lives. They can rob us of the joy and peace that are available to us in Jesus Christ, and they can have a chilling effect on our relationship with God. After all, what kind of intimacy can you have with someone if you’re never sure where you stand with them? If I woke up every day with doubts about my wife’s love for me, what kind of intimacy could I have with her? If we cannot get doubts about our salvation settled in our minds, we will always have a rift in our relationship with God.
So, we’re going to begin taking a look today at the question of eternal security—is it possible for me to lose or forfeit my salvation? This sermon is the first of a series covering several more weeks, and today we’ll begin this series by taking a look at the nature of salvation. Basically, we’ll answer the question, “How does the Bible describe the transaction that takes place when a person accepts Christ?” I believe the answer to this question will assure us that our salvation is eternally secure and therefore cannot be lost.
So how does the Bible describe this transaction?
1. Salvation is not a wage
This is to say that salvation is not something that we earn from God; it is not a payment that we receive for a job well done. I think we all understand that when we receive wages, our boss is not just giving us money out of the kindness of his heart. He is giving us what we have rightfully earned, because that’s what a wage is.
But the Bible could not be clearer in telling us that salvation is not a wage that we earn from God. This is very clear in Romans 4:1–4 [READ Rom. 4:1–4]. In other words, forgiveness from God comes not by trying to earn it like some kind of wage, but by recognizing our ungodliness and turning to Him in faith.
We do not want our relationship with God to be based on what we could earn from Him, because Romans 6:23 tells us what our paycheck would look like when it says, “the wages of sin is death.” There is no possible way that we could earn salvation like a wage, because before we are saved, even the “good” things we do are tainted by evil motives and desires. Isaiah 64:6 says, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” That translation is kind of politically correct, because when it says “polluted garment,” the Hebrew term actually speaks of the cloth that a woman would use for personal hygiene during menstruation.
That’s not a pretty picture, but that’s what our so-called “good” deeds are like in the eyes of God before we are saved, so its no wonder that we could never earn salvation by offering Him something like that.
So salvation is clearly not a wage, but we must also realize that…
2. Salvation is not a loan
This statement means that salvation is not something that God pays for initially and then offers to give to us as long as we pay him back. This concept is actually the Mormon idea of salvation. Mormons will tell you all day long that they believe Jesus is their Savior, but what they mean is that Jesus has basically re-financed our salvation. In their doctrine, salvation used to be available to us at terms that we couldn’t meet, but Jesus purchased salvation for us and now offers it to us at terms that we can meet. So in other words, salvation to them is like a loan that we have to pay back.
This notion is expressed clearly in a parable that was told by one of the leaders of the LDS Church. In this parable, he describes a man who unwisely took on a massive debt in order to live the high life. But when the payment for the debt finally came due, the debtor could not pay, and so his lender was preparing to have him thrown in jail when another man, a mediator, stepped in and offered to pay the debt. The mediator made the offer to the lender and then turned to the debtor and said, “If I pay your debt, will you accept me as your creditor?” The debtor agreed, and so the mediator said, “Then you will pay the debt to me and I will set the terms. It will not be easy, but it will be possible. I will provide a way. You need not go to prison.”1
Now you can probably tell that the mediator in that parable is meant to represent Jesus, and in that character’s own words, he calls himself a creditor. So according to Mormon doctrine, when you accept Jesus, you are accepting Him as a creditor, and in order to receive salvation you must pay off your debt by doing good works.
But according to the Bible, nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible does describe our sins like a debt, but when Jesus paid our debt of sin, He didn’t purchase it to offer us forgiveness at easier terms—He got rid of it completely! Look with me at Colossians 2:13–14 [READ Col. 2:13–14].
We must make sure that we don’t think of salvation as a debt that we have to pay back. When we sing songs like, “Jesus paid it all/all to Him I owe,” we must make sure that we don’t get the wrong idea. Jesus deserves our gratitude and our allegiance, but we don’t have to pay back the price that He paid for our sins. That’s not what salvation is!
3. Salvation is not a contract
This is to say that salvation is not an agreement that we strike with God in which He agrees to do certain things for us as long as we agree to do certain things for Him. This is the idea that we normally have in our minds when we doubt our salvation. We look at our sins and feel like we haven’t kept up our end of the deal, and so we begin to wonder if God will declare our salvation null and void.
But my friends, we must remember that there is no deal for you to keep. This is not the nature of salvation. The idea of salvation as a contract is ruled out by the biblical concepts of grace and mercy. Grace means that you receive a blessing that you don’t deserve, and mercy means that you don’t receive a punishment that you do deserve.
These ideas rule out the concept of salvation as a contract. Think through this with me—if you enter into a contract with someone, and if you keep your side of the deal, then you deserve to have the other person keep their side of the deal. In fact, you have a legal right to it. So if the other person keeps their side of the deal, they’re not showing you grace because you deserve what they have done for you, and they’re certainly not showing you mercy because you have no punishment to escape.
So God extends grace and mercy to us not in any contractual sense in which we are worthy of it, but in spite of what we truly deserve. The Bible makes it clear that salvation is based on God’s grace and mercy. Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith,” and Titus 3:5 says, “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.”
So what is this transaction called “salvation,” then, if its not a wage, a loan, or a contract?
4. Salvation is a gift
The Bible clearly states that salvation is a gift, which means that it is a token of God’s grace and mercy which He gives to us without cost. Notice the various verses that describe salvation in this way:
• Isaiah 55:1—“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
• Romans 3:22b–24—“For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
• Romans 6:23—“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
• Ephesians 2:8–9—“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
• Revelation 22:17—“The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.”
Now we all know what a gift is, but just by way of reminder, the dictionary defines a gift as “something given voluntarily without payment in return.” If you receive a gift, you are not required to pay for it either before or after you receive it. A gift has no strings attached, and it is given based on the love of the giver—not the worthiness of the recipient.
This observation has tremendous implications for the idea of eternal security. We’re going to talk more next week about the fact that salvation is a gift and what that means for the security of our salvation, but for now, ponder this thought with me—if God gives us the gift of salvation despite the fact that we are unworthy to receive it, what could make us unworthy of keeping it down the road? If we are unworthy to receive salvation in the first place, how could we become unworthy of keeping it? God gives us the gift of salvation when we don’t deserve it, so if we still don’t deserve it later on, why would that move Him to take it away from us? God already knew we didn’t deserve it when He gave it to us.
The fact is that God’s grace and mercy are not based on what we deserve. No one deserves the gift of salvation at any point, ever! We don’t deserve it before we get it, we don’t deserve it at the moment we get it, and we don’t deserve it after we’ve received it. I don’t care how long you have walked with the Lord or how much spiritual growth you’ve had in your life—you don’t deserve salvation anymore today than when you first received it.
But that’s the whole point of salvation! It is a gift that God gives to those who recognize their unworthiness and ask God for mercy. And since it is a gift, there is no price that we have to pay for it. There is no contract that we have to live up to, there is no loan that we have to pay back, and there is no wage that we have to earn.
I believe the recognition that salvation is a gift is foundational to everything else that we could ask about the matter of eternal security. This idea is the anchor that will keep us from going adrift on the sea of questions that surround this subject. With the gift of salvation as our anchor, we can rejoice today that God does not deal with us according to what we deserve, but in His grace and mercy He is willing to give us something that truly is—PRICELESS!
Notes:
1. Boyd Packer, as recorded in Gospel Principles, Missionary Reference Library edition (Deseret Book: 1990), pp. 69-71.
The question of whether salvation can be lost or forfeited seems to be of perpetual interest among Christians. Some Christians have a definite academic interest in this question. They want to dissect every verse and pull every statement together into an airtight system that answers every question. That’s not a bad desire, but most Christians have a much more personal interest in this question. Most of us just want to know where we stand with God, and if our standing with God could possibly change.
If you ever have doubts about your salvation, you’re not alone. I suspect that most of us have those doubts from time to time, even if they alone last a split-second. But these doubts can have a major effect in our lives. They can rob us of the joy and peace that are available to us in Jesus Christ, and they can have a chilling effect on our relationship with God. After all, what kind of intimacy can you have with someone if you’re never sure where you stand with them? If I woke up every day with doubts about my wife’s love for me, what kind of intimacy could I have with her? If we cannot get doubts about our salvation settled in our minds, we will always have a rift in our relationship with God.
So, we’re going to begin taking a look today at the question of eternal security—is it possible for me to lose or forfeit my salvation? This sermon is the first of a series covering several more weeks, and today we’ll begin this series by taking a look at the nature of salvation. Basically, we’ll answer the question, “How does the Bible describe the transaction that takes place when a person accepts Christ?” I believe the answer to this question will assure us that our salvation is eternally secure and therefore cannot be lost.
So how does the Bible describe this transaction?
1. Salvation is not a wage
This is to say that salvation is not something that we earn from God; it is not a payment that we receive for a job well done. I think we all understand that when we receive wages, our boss is not just giving us money out of the kindness of his heart. He is giving us what we have rightfully earned, because that’s what a wage is.
But the Bible could not be clearer in telling us that salvation is not a wage that we earn from God. This is very clear in Romans 4:1–4 [READ Rom. 4:1–4]. In other words, forgiveness from God comes not by trying to earn it like some kind of wage, but by recognizing our ungodliness and turning to Him in faith.
We do not want our relationship with God to be based on what we could earn from Him, because Romans 6:23 tells us what our paycheck would look like when it says, “the wages of sin is death.” There is no possible way that we could earn salvation like a wage, because before we are saved, even the “good” things we do are tainted by evil motives and desires. Isaiah 64:6 says, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” That translation is kind of politically correct, because when it says “polluted garment,” the Hebrew term actually speaks of the cloth that a woman would use for personal hygiene during menstruation.
That’s not a pretty picture, but that’s what our so-called “good” deeds are like in the eyes of God before we are saved, so its no wonder that we could never earn salvation by offering Him something like that.
So salvation is clearly not a wage, but we must also realize that…
2. Salvation is not a loan
This statement means that salvation is not something that God pays for initially and then offers to give to us as long as we pay him back. This concept is actually the Mormon idea of salvation. Mormons will tell you all day long that they believe Jesus is their Savior, but what they mean is that Jesus has basically re-financed our salvation. In their doctrine, salvation used to be available to us at terms that we couldn’t meet, but Jesus purchased salvation for us and now offers it to us at terms that we can meet. So in other words, salvation to them is like a loan that we have to pay back.
This notion is expressed clearly in a parable that was told by one of the leaders of the LDS Church. In this parable, he describes a man who unwisely took on a massive debt in order to live the high life. But when the payment for the debt finally came due, the debtor could not pay, and so his lender was preparing to have him thrown in jail when another man, a mediator, stepped in and offered to pay the debt. The mediator made the offer to the lender and then turned to the debtor and said, “If I pay your debt, will you accept me as your creditor?” The debtor agreed, and so the mediator said, “Then you will pay the debt to me and I will set the terms. It will not be easy, but it will be possible. I will provide a way. You need not go to prison.”1
Now you can probably tell that the mediator in that parable is meant to represent Jesus, and in that character’s own words, he calls himself a creditor. So according to Mormon doctrine, when you accept Jesus, you are accepting Him as a creditor, and in order to receive salvation you must pay off your debt by doing good works.
But according to the Bible, nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible does describe our sins like a debt, but when Jesus paid our debt of sin, He didn’t purchase it to offer us forgiveness at easier terms—He got rid of it completely! Look with me at Colossians 2:13–14 [READ Col. 2:13–14].
We must make sure that we don’t think of salvation as a debt that we have to pay back. When we sing songs like, “Jesus paid it all/all to Him I owe,” we must make sure that we don’t get the wrong idea. Jesus deserves our gratitude and our allegiance, but we don’t have to pay back the price that He paid for our sins. That’s not what salvation is!
3. Salvation is not a contract
This is to say that salvation is not an agreement that we strike with God in which He agrees to do certain things for us as long as we agree to do certain things for Him. This is the idea that we normally have in our minds when we doubt our salvation. We look at our sins and feel like we haven’t kept up our end of the deal, and so we begin to wonder if God will declare our salvation null and void.
But my friends, we must remember that there is no deal for you to keep. This is not the nature of salvation. The idea of salvation as a contract is ruled out by the biblical concepts of grace and mercy. Grace means that you receive a blessing that you don’t deserve, and mercy means that you don’t receive a punishment that you do deserve.
These ideas rule out the concept of salvation as a contract. Think through this with me—if you enter into a contract with someone, and if you keep your side of the deal, then you deserve to have the other person keep their side of the deal. In fact, you have a legal right to it. So if the other person keeps their side of the deal, they’re not showing you grace because you deserve what they have done for you, and they’re certainly not showing you mercy because you have no punishment to escape.
So God extends grace and mercy to us not in any contractual sense in which we are worthy of it, but in spite of what we truly deserve. The Bible makes it clear that salvation is based on God’s grace and mercy. Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith,” and Titus 3:5 says, “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.”
So what is this transaction called “salvation,” then, if its not a wage, a loan, or a contract?
4. Salvation is a gift
The Bible clearly states that salvation is a gift, which means that it is a token of God’s grace and mercy which He gives to us without cost. Notice the various verses that describe salvation in this way:
• Isaiah 55:1—“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
• Romans 3:22b–24—“For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
• Romans 6:23—“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
• Ephesians 2:8–9—“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
• Revelation 22:17—“The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.”
Now we all know what a gift is, but just by way of reminder, the dictionary defines a gift as “something given voluntarily without payment in return.” If you receive a gift, you are not required to pay for it either before or after you receive it. A gift has no strings attached, and it is given based on the love of the giver—not the worthiness of the recipient.
This observation has tremendous implications for the idea of eternal security. We’re going to talk more next week about the fact that salvation is a gift and what that means for the security of our salvation, but for now, ponder this thought with me—if God gives us the gift of salvation despite the fact that we are unworthy to receive it, what could make us unworthy of keeping it down the road? If we are unworthy to receive salvation in the first place, how could we become unworthy of keeping it? God gives us the gift of salvation when we don’t deserve it, so if we still don’t deserve it later on, why would that move Him to take it away from us? God already knew we didn’t deserve it when He gave it to us.
The fact is that God’s grace and mercy are not based on what we deserve. No one deserves the gift of salvation at any point, ever! We don’t deserve it before we get it, we don’t deserve it at the moment we get it, and we don’t deserve it after we’ve received it. I don’t care how long you have walked with the Lord or how much spiritual growth you’ve had in your life—you don’t deserve salvation anymore today than when you first received it.
But that’s the whole point of salvation! It is a gift that God gives to those who recognize their unworthiness and ask God for mercy. And since it is a gift, there is no price that we have to pay for it. There is no contract that we have to live up to, there is no loan that we have to pay back, and there is no wage that we have to earn.
I believe the recognition that salvation is a gift is foundational to everything else that we could ask about the matter of eternal security. This idea is the anchor that will keep us from going adrift on the sea of questions that surround this subject. With the gift of salvation as our anchor, we can rejoice today that God does not deal with us according to what we deserve, but in His grace and mercy He is willing to give us something that truly is—PRICELESS!
Notes:
1. Boyd Packer, as recorded in Gospel Principles, Missionary Reference Library edition (Deseret Book: 1990), pp. 69-71.
Monday, October 10, 2011
What's the Connection Between the Lord's Supper and the New Covenant?--Understanding the Lord's Supper series
Over time, traditions have a way of becoming rituals that people mindlessly repeat even if they have no idea where the tradition came from or what it means. Take, for instance, the Rock Chalk chant of my beloved Kansas Jayhawks. Every year, thousands upon thousands of people participate in the Rock Chalk chant at sporting events, yet most people have no idea what it means.
All traditions can follow that pattern, including the traditions that we uphold within the Church. That’s why we have been taking a close look at the Lord’s Supper each time we have observed it over the last few months. Today we’re going to discuss a question that may have come to your mind before: what is the connection between the Lord’s Supper and the New Covenant?
Whenever we observe the Lord’s Supper together, we read from the instructions of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, and in v. 25, he quotes the words that the Lord Jesus spoke when He gave the cup to his disciples and said, “this cup is the new covenant in my blood.” What did Jesus mean by that statement? That’s what we’re going to discover today.
1. What is the New Covenant?
First of all, we need to answer the simple question, “What is the New Covenant?” This phrase might be very unfamiliar to you, even if you have heard it many times while observing the Lord’s Supper. To put it simply, the New Covenant is a promise made by God to the nation of Israel during one of her darkest hours, in which He promised to restore her fortunes both materially and spiritually. This was the promise that the Jewish people were clinging to when Jesus came into the world, though by and large they had unfortunately overlooked the spiritual aspects of this promise. They were eagerly waiting for the material aspects of this promise—such as a restored kingdom for Israel and other such blessings—but their overlooking of the spiritual aspects of this promise led to a great misunderstanding of Jesus’ ministry. This misunderstanding, among other things, led to the crucifixion of Jesus, though ironically, as we will learn, the sacrificial death of Jesus actually established the New Covenant.
The phrase “New Covenant” is found in Jeremiah 31:31. Why don’t you turn there with me? There are other passages that also describe the details of this promise, but we’ll focus on a few points from Jer. 31:31–34.
A. It is “new” in contrast with the “old” covenant that God made with Israel through Moses (vv. 31–32)
Follow with me as I read vv. 31–32 [READ vv. 31–32]. Here the Lord expresses this promise to make a new covenant with Israel and Judah, which was necessary because the people had broken the former covenant that was made after God brought them out of Egypt. Let’s talk about that “old” covenant for a moment.
According to the book of Exodus, after God graciously and powerful saved Israel from their slavery in Egypt, He led them into the wilderness of Sinai, which is the easternmost part of Egypt today, and just south of modern-day Israel. At a mountain in that wilderness, God entered into an agreement or a covenant with the people. In Exodus 19, beginning at v. 4, the Lord said, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:4–6).
The agreement was very straightforward—God stated that if the people would obey Him, He would confirm with them the special relationship that He had promised them since the time of Abraham. He would use them in a very special way to be like priests for the rest of the world, so that the rest of the world could learn about God through them.
God then spelled out the way that the Israelites were supposed to behave and the way that they were supposed to worship Him. These commands are what we normally call the Law of Moses—they are all of the rules and regulations that you read about in Exodus through Deuteronomy. Its important to note that these commands were not designed to allow the Israelites a way to earn a place in heaven or anything like that. They were meant to show the people how to live as God’s priests to the rest of the world.
So the covenant was clear-cut—if the people would obey God’s commands, God would confirm His special relationship with them. But the sad testimony of the Old Testament is that the people did not obey God’s commands. They broke His commands, and thus they broke the agreement of the covenant. As a result, they received the curses mentioned in that covenant rather than the blessings. In fact, at the time that Jeremiah recorded the words of the New Covenant, the people of Israel were experiencing one of those curses—they were being oppressed by the armies of Babylon and were about to be taken from their land and relocated. But in the midst of that dark hour, God allowed the light of His grace to shine through by telling the people about the significant blessings that He still had in store for them.
B. It contained the promise of significant spiritual blessings for Israel and Judah (vv. 33–34)
Other passages, such as Ezekiel 36, contain information about the material blessings of this covenant, but the Lord spoke through Jeremiah about the spiritual blessings of the New Covenant, as we see here in vv. 33–34. There are four significant blessings mentioned here:
1) God’s law will be written in the hearts of the people [READ 33a]. This idea is amplified in Ezekiel 36:26–27 when the Lord states that He will put His Spirit within the people and give them a heart of flesh rather than a heart of stone.
2) God will establish an intimate fellowship with the people [READ 33b]. No longer will there be a strain in God’s relationship with the people. They will serve Him alone as their God, and He will give them the fullness of His blessing.
3) God’s people will have a universal knowledge of Him [READ 34a]. No longer will Israel be divided between those who know the Lord and those who don’t know Him. They will all know Him.
4) God will forgive the sins of the people [READ 34b].
As you can see, God promised some tremendous blessings to the people of Israel in the New Covenant. Its no surprise that the promise of this covenant became a special thing to them. But what does this have to do with the Lord’s Supper? Why did Jesus mention this covenant on the night before He was crucified?
2. How is the New Covenant related to the Lord’s Supper?
If you will think back to the words of Jesus that Paul recorded in 1 Cor. 11:25, the Lord made the statement, “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood.” So the Lord tied the New Covenant to His own blood that He was about to shed in His sacrificial death on the cross. What did Jesus mean by this statement? I think a little piece of history will clear things up for us.
In ancient times, when two people would make a binding agreement like a covenant, that agreement would often be accompanied by the sacrifice of an animal. That sacrifice would solemnize the occasion, and oftentimes it represented a challenge for the two parties as well. The idea is that they were saying, “May I end up like this animal if I break my word!”
So the sacrifice ratified or established the covenant. We can see this practice within the pages of Scripture. You may remember that in Genesis 15, when God made His covenant with Abraham, he told Abraham to gather a heifer, a goat, and a ram. Abraham gathered the animals and killed them, cut them in half, and laid the two halves opposite each other with a walkway between the halves. A vision of the Lord then passed between the two halves of the animals, which symbolized that His covenant with Abraham was now officially established.
Also, when the Lord made His covenant with Israel through Moses—which we just discussed a moment ago—a sacrifice was made on that occasion. It says in Exodus 24 that Moses offered sacrifices to God and then sprinkled the blood of the sacrifices on the people as they were gathered together before God. That sounds a little gross, but that was an element of the culture at that time.
Thus, when Jesus associates His blood with the New Covenant, He is saying that He is the sacrifice which establishes this promise between God and Israel. His sacrificial death was the foundation of this promise, because as we learn from other Scriptures, His death was necessary to provide that spiritual blessings of the covenant. His death was a necessary step in order for sins to be forgiven, which was necessary for God to put His law in the hearts of mankind through the Holy Spirit, which was also necessary for mankind to experience the fullness of fellowship with God.
And so, Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross made it possible for the promises of the New Covenant to be fulfilled. Now remember, these promises were made to the people of Israel, the same people with whom the old covenant was made through Moses. Since we have not yet seen these promises fulfilled with the nation of Israel, that gives us every reason to expect that they must be fulfilled in the future. I think we have every reason to believe that God is not done with His Old Testament people—He still has outstanding promises to them that He intends to fulfill.
But in the meantime, the spiritual blessings of the New Covenant are available to anyone who will accept Jesus as their Savior by acknowledging their sins to God and believing that Jesus paid the full penalty for their sins through His death on the cross. Our sins are washed away by the same blood that established the promises of the New Covenant, and so we can have our sins forgiven; we can have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us; we can have the fullness of intimacy with God.
The Lord’s Supper reminds us of all that God has done to extend His grace to us. He is a God who delights to show mercy, who chooses to make promises to His unworthy creatures and follow through with them. The fact that He sent Jesus to establish the New Covenant tells us that He will fulfill every promise that He has made to us, and that gives us tremendous reason to rejoice.
All traditions can follow that pattern, including the traditions that we uphold within the Church. That’s why we have been taking a close look at the Lord’s Supper each time we have observed it over the last few months. Today we’re going to discuss a question that may have come to your mind before: what is the connection between the Lord’s Supper and the New Covenant?
Whenever we observe the Lord’s Supper together, we read from the instructions of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, and in v. 25, he quotes the words that the Lord Jesus spoke when He gave the cup to his disciples and said, “this cup is the new covenant in my blood.” What did Jesus mean by that statement? That’s what we’re going to discover today.
1. What is the New Covenant?
First of all, we need to answer the simple question, “What is the New Covenant?” This phrase might be very unfamiliar to you, even if you have heard it many times while observing the Lord’s Supper. To put it simply, the New Covenant is a promise made by God to the nation of Israel during one of her darkest hours, in which He promised to restore her fortunes both materially and spiritually. This was the promise that the Jewish people were clinging to when Jesus came into the world, though by and large they had unfortunately overlooked the spiritual aspects of this promise. They were eagerly waiting for the material aspects of this promise—such as a restored kingdom for Israel and other such blessings—but their overlooking of the spiritual aspects of this promise led to a great misunderstanding of Jesus’ ministry. This misunderstanding, among other things, led to the crucifixion of Jesus, though ironically, as we will learn, the sacrificial death of Jesus actually established the New Covenant.
The phrase “New Covenant” is found in Jeremiah 31:31. Why don’t you turn there with me? There are other passages that also describe the details of this promise, but we’ll focus on a few points from Jer. 31:31–34.
A. It is “new” in contrast with the “old” covenant that God made with Israel through Moses (vv. 31–32)
Follow with me as I read vv. 31–32 [READ vv. 31–32]. Here the Lord expresses this promise to make a new covenant with Israel and Judah, which was necessary because the people had broken the former covenant that was made after God brought them out of Egypt. Let’s talk about that “old” covenant for a moment.
According to the book of Exodus, after God graciously and powerful saved Israel from their slavery in Egypt, He led them into the wilderness of Sinai, which is the easternmost part of Egypt today, and just south of modern-day Israel. At a mountain in that wilderness, God entered into an agreement or a covenant with the people. In Exodus 19, beginning at v. 4, the Lord said, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:4–6).
The agreement was very straightforward—God stated that if the people would obey Him, He would confirm with them the special relationship that He had promised them since the time of Abraham. He would use them in a very special way to be like priests for the rest of the world, so that the rest of the world could learn about God through them.
God then spelled out the way that the Israelites were supposed to behave and the way that they were supposed to worship Him. These commands are what we normally call the Law of Moses—they are all of the rules and regulations that you read about in Exodus through Deuteronomy. Its important to note that these commands were not designed to allow the Israelites a way to earn a place in heaven or anything like that. They were meant to show the people how to live as God’s priests to the rest of the world.
So the covenant was clear-cut—if the people would obey God’s commands, God would confirm His special relationship with them. But the sad testimony of the Old Testament is that the people did not obey God’s commands. They broke His commands, and thus they broke the agreement of the covenant. As a result, they received the curses mentioned in that covenant rather than the blessings. In fact, at the time that Jeremiah recorded the words of the New Covenant, the people of Israel were experiencing one of those curses—they were being oppressed by the armies of Babylon and were about to be taken from their land and relocated. But in the midst of that dark hour, God allowed the light of His grace to shine through by telling the people about the significant blessings that He still had in store for them.
B. It contained the promise of significant spiritual blessings for Israel and Judah (vv. 33–34)
Other passages, such as Ezekiel 36, contain information about the material blessings of this covenant, but the Lord spoke through Jeremiah about the spiritual blessings of the New Covenant, as we see here in vv. 33–34. There are four significant blessings mentioned here:
1) God’s law will be written in the hearts of the people [READ 33a]. This idea is amplified in Ezekiel 36:26–27 when the Lord states that He will put His Spirit within the people and give them a heart of flesh rather than a heart of stone.
2) God will establish an intimate fellowship with the people [READ 33b]. No longer will there be a strain in God’s relationship with the people. They will serve Him alone as their God, and He will give them the fullness of His blessing.
3) God’s people will have a universal knowledge of Him [READ 34a]. No longer will Israel be divided between those who know the Lord and those who don’t know Him. They will all know Him.
4) God will forgive the sins of the people [READ 34b].
As you can see, God promised some tremendous blessings to the people of Israel in the New Covenant. Its no surprise that the promise of this covenant became a special thing to them. But what does this have to do with the Lord’s Supper? Why did Jesus mention this covenant on the night before He was crucified?
2. How is the New Covenant related to the Lord’s Supper?
If you will think back to the words of Jesus that Paul recorded in 1 Cor. 11:25, the Lord made the statement, “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood.” So the Lord tied the New Covenant to His own blood that He was about to shed in His sacrificial death on the cross. What did Jesus mean by this statement? I think a little piece of history will clear things up for us.
In ancient times, when two people would make a binding agreement like a covenant, that agreement would often be accompanied by the sacrifice of an animal. That sacrifice would solemnize the occasion, and oftentimes it represented a challenge for the two parties as well. The idea is that they were saying, “May I end up like this animal if I break my word!”
So the sacrifice ratified or established the covenant. We can see this practice within the pages of Scripture. You may remember that in Genesis 15, when God made His covenant with Abraham, he told Abraham to gather a heifer, a goat, and a ram. Abraham gathered the animals and killed them, cut them in half, and laid the two halves opposite each other with a walkway between the halves. A vision of the Lord then passed between the two halves of the animals, which symbolized that His covenant with Abraham was now officially established.
Also, when the Lord made His covenant with Israel through Moses—which we just discussed a moment ago—a sacrifice was made on that occasion. It says in Exodus 24 that Moses offered sacrifices to God and then sprinkled the blood of the sacrifices on the people as they were gathered together before God. That sounds a little gross, but that was an element of the culture at that time.
Thus, when Jesus associates His blood with the New Covenant, He is saying that He is the sacrifice which establishes this promise between God and Israel. His sacrificial death was the foundation of this promise, because as we learn from other Scriptures, His death was necessary to provide that spiritual blessings of the covenant. His death was a necessary step in order for sins to be forgiven, which was necessary for God to put His law in the hearts of mankind through the Holy Spirit, which was also necessary for mankind to experience the fullness of fellowship with God.
And so, Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross made it possible for the promises of the New Covenant to be fulfilled. Now remember, these promises were made to the people of Israel, the same people with whom the old covenant was made through Moses. Since we have not yet seen these promises fulfilled with the nation of Israel, that gives us every reason to expect that they must be fulfilled in the future. I think we have every reason to believe that God is not done with His Old Testament people—He still has outstanding promises to them that He intends to fulfill.
But in the meantime, the spiritual blessings of the New Covenant are available to anyone who will accept Jesus as their Savior by acknowledging their sins to God and believing that Jesus paid the full penalty for their sins through His death on the cross. Our sins are washed away by the same blood that established the promises of the New Covenant, and so we can have our sins forgiven; we can have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us; we can have the fullness of intimacy with God.
The Lord’s Supper reminds us of all that God has done to extend His grace to us. He is a God who delights to show mercy, who chooses to make promises to His unworthy creatures and follow through with them. The fact that He sent Jesus to establish the New Covenant tells us that He will fulfill every promise that He has made to us, and that gives us tremendous reason to rejoice.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Uprooting Myths about Forgiveness
The invention of e-mail has made it possible for myths, urban legends, and outright lies to spread like wildfire. I’m sure many of us have received e-mails from people claiming to be African princes who need our help with a bank transfer, or people claiming to be lawyers who have found inheritance money for us. These e-mails can unfortunately be devastating for people who are tricked by them.
The same can be said for myths and incorrect ideas that we buy into. It has often been said that “ideas have consequences,” and that statement is absolutely correct. Ideas are more powerful than we often realize because their influence in our lives can be so subtle. Not every idea will lead you to go out and start a revolution, but some ideas will lead you through a series of small choices that wind up changing your life forever.
Today we are going to discuss some false ideas about forgiveness—some myths that have sprung up like weeds in a beautiful garden. If we don’t uproot these myths, they could choke out the truth about forgiveness in our minds. So this morning, we are going to look at four myths about forgiveness—some that you may have thought about before, and some that you may have never considered.
1. “I haven’t truly forgiven someone until I’ve forgotten all about their sin.”
This myth is based on the old phrase “forgive and forget.” I imagine that phrase began as a clever sermon title that has probably been taken out of context over the years. Unfortunately, this myth has lead to a lot of misunderstanding about the true nature of forgiveness, which in turn has lead many people to deal with unnecessary feelings of guilt for failing to live up to this false standard.
Within the church at least, I think this myth is based on a misunderstanding of God’s example of forgiveness. Verses like Jeremiah 31:34 and Isaiah 43:25 state that when God forgives us, He makes the promise, “I will remember your sins no more.” Some people may have concluded from these statements that God forgets about our sins, but that would be an incorrect conclusion. Since God knows everything, He cannot actually forget anything; He cannot lose information from His mind.
These statements are actually statements of the will; they are promises from God, and a promise is an active choice, not a passive act like forgetting about something. You can’t promise to forget something, because if you try to forget something, you will simply keep that thing in the forefront of your mind.
Instead, God is simply saying that He won’t dwell on our sins; He won’t bring them to mind when He thinks about us. He doesn’t forget that our sins took place, but He chooses not to let them define the way that He thinks about us.
So if that is the choice that God makes, that is the true standard for us as well. We are not expected to completely forget that an incident took place, as though we could wake up one day and say, “Oh, I completely forgot that you stole $1,000 from me!” We are simply called not to dwell on it or brood over it. Unfortunately, some people carry around the idea that they are unforgiving because they can’t forget the sins that were committed against them. But remember—forgiveness is a promise; it is a commitment that you make, and just like any commitment it will get tested. Just because an incident may come to mind someday doesn’t mean you haven’t truly forgiven the person—it simply means that your commitment is being tested. But as long as you choose not to deliberately dwell on a person’s sins or to use them to feed bitterness, then you can be confident that you have kept that commitment.
2. “I need to ask for forgiveness anytime someone is upset with me.”
Sometimes asking for forgiveness is our automatic response when a person is upset with us. We immediately want to diffuse the situation, and an apology feels like a good way to do that. So, we may offer a vague apology like, “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.” In reality, what you’re thinking is this: “I have no idea what you’re upset about, but I want to get you off my back, so I’ll tell you what I think you want to hear.”
Truthfully, we shouldn’t rush to ask for forgiveness simply because someone is upset with us. The Bible sometimes uses a financial metaphor to describe forgiveness, so let’s think about forgiveness in financial terms for a moment. When we talk about forgiving a debt, that means that we choose not to require a person to pay back money that they owe us. But let’s assume for a moment that you have no debts to me; you do not owe me a penny. But let’s say that I walk up to you and say, “Hey! Where’s that $50 that you owe me?” How would you respond? Would you say, “Oh, would you please forgive that debt?” No! You would say, “What $50? I don’t owe you $50!” You’re not going to ask me to forgive that debt unless you actually owe it.
The same principle applies when we talk about forgiveness of sins. You shouldn’t ask for forgiveness unless you’re convinced that you’ve sinned against someone. Remember—one of the key elements of a true confession is repentance, which is changing your mind about the way you’ve behaved. But if you don’t believe you’ve done anything wrong, then you can’t repent, which means that your confession would be a sham. Nothing is truly resolved through a so-called “confession” like that.
Unfortunately, I think we often allow manipulative people to get away with manipulation by asking them to forgive us when we haven’t done anything wrong. Some people have mastered the art of acting upset in order to get their way, because they know that many people will simply try to pacify them. But we can’t let ourselves get sucked into that game. If we’re not convinced that we’ve done anything wrong, then we must not apologize.
Now if someone is upset with you, you should certainly consider whether you’ve done anything to sin against them. You don’t want to brush aside what they’re saying without thinking about it. If you come to realize that you have in fact sinned, then make an honest confession and offer to make restitution. But if you’re still not convinced that you’ve sinned, then make that known to the person in a kind way. If they continue to be upset with you, it may be necessary to ask a third party to help the two of you resolve the situation. An impartial opinion could help one of you change your mind and then take steps to put the matter to rest.
3. “There may be times when I need to forgive God for the circumstances that I’ve dealt with in life.”
This myth is a sinister one because it involves not only a misunderstanding about forgiveness, but a misunderstanding about God as well! It is based on the assumption that God can do wrong by allowing us to go through difficult circumstances, but this assumption doesn’t line up with the truth. By definition, God can do no wrong because His character is the standard by which right and wrong are determined. And since His actions flow from His character, His actions are always right.
In fact, the idea that we can declare that God has done wrong is actually a subtle form of idolatry. In order to say that God has done wrong, we have to put ourselves in a position to judge God. We actually enthrone our own opinions as the final standard of right and wrong, which means that we are putting ourselves in the place of God.
Now, it seems that some people have suggested the idea of forgiving God as a way to try and get rid of feelings of anger and bitterness toward God, but that is really an unhealthy way to deal with our feelings. Its like telling a recovering alcoholic to have a drink so that his withdrawal symptoms go away. The drink might make him feel better for a while, but it doesn’t accomplish the overall purpose of getting him off the alcohol.
Likewise, telling God that we forgive Him might make us feel a little better, but it won’t solve the real problem. In reality, if I am angry and bitter toward God because I think He has wronged me, I need to ask for forgiveness, not the other way around! I need to repent of my attitude that makes me think I can tell God that He’s wrong. That will bring about a true and proper resolution of my feelings.
4. “There may be times when I need to forgive myself for things that I’ve done.”
This myth is very widespread in our world today. If you read self-help books, magazines, or blogs—even from some Christian authors!—you will hear all about the need to forgive yourself if you are dealing with feelings of guilt for something that you have done. But this myth is like the previous one—it points us in a direction that may take the edge off of our emotions, but it’s a false idea that doesn’t truly resolve the underlying problems.
Think through this idea with me from a biblical perspective. As I mentioned before, the Bible in some places uses a financial analogy to help us understand sin and forgiveness, and its helpful to think in those terms for this discussion. To use a financial term, sin creates a debt between two people that must be resolved through confession and forgiveness. Forgiveness declares that the debt has been paid in full.
Now, if you consider your own finances, it is impossible to be in debt to yourself. You cannot owe yourself a debt that would need to be forgiven. The same principle holds true with sin. You cannot technically sin against yourself, and thus there is no need for you to forgive yourself.
But perhaps you’re thinking, “Wait a minute! Can’t I sin against myself? I can harm myself, can’t I? I can physically harm myself, or I can beat myself up emotionally or psychologically. So wouldn’t I need to forgive myself for something like that?”
That objection sounds convincing at first, doesn’t it? But think of forgiveness in terms of personal property for a moment. If I damage someone’s property, I need to ask the owner of the property for forgiveness, right? So when we think about harming ourselves, we need to ask the question, “Who owns me? Whose property am I?” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19–20, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” Thus, if you do something to harm yourself, you are damaging God’s property, and thus you must ask Him for forgiveness, not yourself!
Now sometimes we do ask God for forgiveness, but because we’ve heard about this myth, we may find ourselves saying, “I believe God has forgiven me, but I just can’t forgive myself!” Think about what we’re communicating with a statement like that. We’re basically saying that God’s forgiveness is not sufficient; it is not enough—there is an additional forgiveness that is necessary, a higher forgiveness that I can only grant myself. My friends—that is idolatry! We must not go down this path in our minds.
Now most of the time when we say that we can’t forgive ourselves, we are dealing with severe guilt over something we’ve done, and by saying that we can’t forgive ourselves, we are trying to hang on to that guilt, because we think that if we can make ourselves feel guilty enough, then we will never commit those actions again. It’s a good desire not to commit those actions again, but hanging on to guilt is not the right way to pursue that goal.
There is a much better way of making changes in our lives, and that is by embracing God’s truth. If we will take God at His Word, we will see that His forgiveness is sufficient! He has wiped away our guilt, so instead of hanging on to something that is no longer there, we can focus on changing the attitudes and behaviors that lead to the sin in the first place. That is when change will truly take place.
As Jesus said in John 8:31–32, “If you abide in my word…you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” It is dangerous to make our decisions based on ideas that are actually nothing more than myths, and the subject of forgiveness has enough myths to keep us in doubt and confusion. But the light of God’s Word cuts through the fog of myth and allows us to enjoy the benefits of God’s true plan of forgiveness, both for our own sins, and for those that others commit against us.
The same can be said for myths and incorrect ideas that we buy into. It has often been said that “ideas have consequences,” and that statement is absolutely correct. Ideas are more powerful than we often realize because their influence in our lives can be so subtle. Not every idea will lead you to go out and start a revolution, but some ideas will lead you through a series of small choices that wind up changing your life forever.
Today we are going to discuss some false ideas about forgiveness—some myths that have sprung up like weeds in a beautiful garden. If we don’t uproot these myths, they could choke out the truth about forgiveness in our minds. So this morning, we are going to look at four myths about forgiveness—some that you may have thought about before, and some that you may have never considered.
1. “I haven’t truly forgiven someone until I’ve forgotten all about their sin.”
This myth is based on the old phrase “forgive and forget.” I imagine that phrase began as a clever sermon title that has probably been taken out of context over the years. Unfortunately, this myth has lead to a lot of misunderstanding about the true nature of forgiveness, which in turn has lead many people to deal with unnecessary feelings of guilt for failing to live up to this false standard.
Within the church at least, I think this myth is based on a misunderstanding of God’s example of forgiveness. Verses like Jeremiah 31:34 and Isaiah 43:25 state that when God forgives us, He makes the promise, “I will remember your sins no more.” Some people may have concluded from these statements that God forgets about our sins, but that would be an incorrect conclusion. Since God knows everything, He cannot actually forget anything; He cannot lose information from His mind.
These statements are actually statements of the will; they are promises from God, and a promise is an active choice, not a passive act like forgetting about something. You can’t promise to forget something, because if you try to forget something, you will simply keep that thing in the forefront of your mind.
Instead, God is simply saying that He won’t dwell on our sins; He won’t bring them to mind when He thinks about us. He doesn’t forget that our sins took place, but He chooses not to let them define the way that He thinks about us.
So if that is the choice that God makes, that is the true standard for us as well. We are not expected to completely forget that an incident took place, as though we could wake up one day and say, “Oh, I completely forgot that you stole $1,000 from me!” We are simply called not to dwell on it or brood over it. Unfortunately, some people carry around the idea that they are unforgiving because they can’t forget the sins that were committed against them. But remember—forgiveness is a promise; it is a commitment that you make, and just like any commitment it will get tested. Just because an incident may come to mind someday doesn’t mean you haven’t truly forgiven the person—it simply means that your commitment is being tested. But as long as you choose not to deliberately dwell on a person’s sins or to use them to feed bitterness, then you can be confident that you have kept that commitment.
2. “I need to ask for forgiveness anytime someone is upset with me.”
Sometimes asking for forgiveness is our automatic response when a person is upset with us. We immediately want to diffuse the situation, and an apology feels like a good way to do that. So, we may offer a vague apology like, “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.” In reality, what you’re thinking is this: “I have no idea what you’re upset about, but I want to get you off my back, so I’ll tell you what I think you want to hear.”
Truthfully, we shouldn’t rush to ask for forgiveness simply because someone is upset with us. The Bible sometimes uses a financial metaphor to describe forgiveness, so let’s think about forgiveness in financial terms for a moment. When we talk about forgiving a debt, that means that we choose not to require a person to pay back money that they owe us. But let’s assume for a moment that you have no debts to me; you do not owe me a penny. But let’s say that I walk up to you and say, “Hey! Where’s that $50 that you owe me?” How would you respond? Would you say, “Oh, would you please forgive that debt?” No! You would say, “What $50? I don’t owe you $50!” You’re not going to ask me to forgive that debt unless you actually owe it.
The same principle applies when we talk about forgiveness of sins. You shouldn’t ask for forgiveness unless you’re convinced that you’ve sinned against someone. Remember—one of the key elements of a true confession is repentance, which is changing your mind about the way you’ve behaved. But if you don’t believe you’ve done anything wrong, then you can’t repent, which means that your confession would be a sham. Nothing is truly resolved through a so-called “confession” like that.
Unfortunately, I think we often allow manipulative people to get away with manipulation by asking them to forgive us when we haven’t done anything wrong. Some people have mastered the art of acting upset in order to get their way, because they know that many people will simply try to pacify them. But we can’t let ourselves get sucked into that game. If we’re not convinced that we’ve done anything wrong, then we must not apologize.
Now if someone is upset with you, you should certainly consider whether you’ve done anything to sin against them. You don’t want to brush aside what they’re saying without thinking about it. If you come to realize that you have in fact sinned, then make an honest confession and offer to make restitution. But if you’re still not convinced that you’ve sinned, then make that known to the person in a kind way. If they continue to be upset with you, it may be necessary to ask a third party to help the two of you resolve the situation. An impartial opinion could help one of you change your mind and then take steps to put the matter to rest.
3. “There may be times when I need to forgive God for the circumstances that I’ve dealt with in life.”
This myth is a sinister one because it involves not only a misunderstanding about forgiveness, but a misunderstanding about God as well! It is based on the assumption that God can do wrong by allowing us to go through difficult circumstances, but this assumption doesn’t line up with the truth. By definition, God can do no wrong because His character is the standard by which right and wrong are determined. And since His actions flow from His character, His actions are always right.
In fact, the idea that we can declare that God has done wrong is actually a subtle form of idolatry. In order to say that God has done wrong, we have to put ourselves in a position to judge God. We actually enthrone our own opinions as the final standard of right and wrong, which means that we are putting ourselves in the place of God.
Now, it seems that some people have suggested the idea of forgiving God as a way to try and get rid of feelings of anger and bitterness toward God, but that is really an unhealthy way to deal with our feelings. Its like telling a recovering alcoholic to have a drink so that his withdrawal symptoms go away. The drink might make him feel better for a while, but it doesn’t accomplish the overall purpose of getting him off the alcohol.
Likewise, telling God that we forgive Him might make us feel a little better, but it won’t solve the real problem. In reality, if I am angry and bitter toward God because I think He has wronged me, I need to ask for forgiveness, not the other way around! I need to repent of my attitude that makes me think I can tell God that He’s wrong. That will bring about a true and proper resolution of my feelings.
4. “There may be times when I need to forgive myself for things that I’ve done.”
This myth is very widespread in our world today. If you read self-help books, magazines, or blogs—even from some Christian authors!—you will hear all about the need to forgive yourself if you are dealing with feelings of guilt for something that you have done. But this myth is like the previous one—it points us in a direction that may take the edge off of our emotions, but it’s a false idea that doesn’t truly resolve the underlying problems.
Think through this idea with me from a biblical perspective. As I mentioned before, the Bible in some places uses a financial analogy to help us understand sin and forgiveness, and its helpful to think in those terms for this discussion. To use a financial term, sin creates a debt between two people that must be resolved through confession and forgiveness. Forgiveness declares that the debt has been paid in full.
Now, if you consider your own finances, it is impossible to be in debt to yourself. You cannot owe yourself a debt that would need to be forgiven. The same principle holds true with sin. You cannot technically sin against yourself, and thus there is no need for you to forgive yourself.
But perhaps you’re thinking, “Wait a minute! Can’t I sin against myself? I can harm myself, can’t I? I can physically harm myself, or I can beat myself up emotionally or psychologically. So wouldn’t I need to forgive myself for something like that?”
That objection sounds convincing at first, doesn’t it? But think of forgiveness in terms of personal property for a moment. If I damage someone’s property, I need to ask the owner of the property for forgiveness, right? So when we think about harming ourselves, we need to ask the question, “Who owns me? Whose property am I?” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19–20, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” Thus, if you do something to harm yourself, you are damaging God’s property, and thus you must ask Him for forgiveness, not yourself!
Now sometimes we do ask God for forgiveness, but because we’ve heard about this myth, we may find ourselves saying, “I believe God has forgiven me, but I just can’t forgive myself!” Think about what we’re communicating with a statement like that. We’re basically saying that God’s forgiveness is not sufficient; it is not enough—there is an additional forgiveness that is necessary, a higher forgiveness that I can only grant myself. My friends—that is idolatry! We must not go down this path in our minds.
Now most of the time when we say that we can’t forgive ourselves, we are dealing with severe guilt over something we’ve done, and by saying that we can’t forgive ourselves, we are trying to hang on to that guilt, because we think that if we can make ourselves feel guilty enough, then we will never commit those actions again. It’s a good desire not to commit those actions again, but hanging on to guilt is not the right way to pursue that goal.
There is a much better way of making changes in our lives, and that is by embracing God’s truth. If we will take God at His Word, we will see that His forgiveness is sufficient! He has wiped away our guilt, so instead of hanging on to something that is no longer there, we can focus on changing the attitudes and behaviors that lead to the sin in the first place. That is when change will truly take place.
As Jesus said in John 8:31–32, “If you abide in my word…you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” It is dangerous to make our decisions based on ideas that are actually nothing more than myths, and the subject of forgiveness has enough myths to keep us in doubt and confusion. But the light of God’s Word cuts through the fog of myth and allows us to enjoy the benefits of God’s true plan of forgiveness, both for our own sins, and for those that others commit against us.
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