Category Archives: Grace

Living without sin — it IS possible!

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8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.…10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. 1 John 1:8, 10

That seems pretty clear — we all sin. That’s exactly what Paul wrote to the Romans as well — “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23). That word “all” is pretty inclusive.

Ok, so no argument there. I’m a sinner. But I want to be this guy: “…the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him” (Psalm 32:2, quoted in Romans 4:8).

Quick recap: No one can claim to be without sin. If we claim we haven’t sinned, we’re calling God a liar. There is someone who, when he sins, God doesn’t count it against him.

Do I have that straight? Because it’s not really adding up.

It’s not adding up because I’m not considering the whole context. Let’s see that 1 John passage again:

5This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. 1 John 1:5-10

“All have sinned”, but if we don’t see ourselves as sinners, we have no need to confess anything (v. 9), do we? I believe John is telling us that if you’re “living in the light”, as opposed to “living in darkness” (v. 6), your focus is on Jesus rather than on yourself, and you’re living for Him rather than for yourself. If that is the case, then you are the one “whose sin the Lord will never count against him” (Psalm 32:2). Therefore in a very real sense you can claim, through the victory of Jesus, that you have no sin because Jesus has taken it away! Those who claim because of their own pride and their own goodness that they have no sin — they are deceived indeed, and have no truth in them (v. 8).

Will God always honor man’s repentance?

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30Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him. 31He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. 32He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. 33Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him. (1 Kings 16:30-33)

20Ahab said to Elijah, “So you have found me, my enemy!” “I have found you,” he answered, “because you have sold yourself to do evil in the eyes of the LORD. 21‘I am going to bring disaster on you. I will consume your descendants and cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel-slave or free. 22I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat and that of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin.’ 23“And also concerning Jezebel the LORD says: ‘Dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.’ 24“Dogs will eat those belonging to Ahab who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country.”…27When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly. 28Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite: 29“Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.” (1 Kings 21:20-29)

Have you ever felt like such a sinner, like you’ve made so many fall-on-your-face blunders that you’re beyond hope and God will never forgive you?

Ok, let me ask you this — is your life so bad that you could compete with someone who “did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of [the kings] before him”? Unless your name is Jeffrey Dahmer, I’d be willing to bet your life can’t even come close to that of Ahab’s on the scale of “badness”. (Oh, and Jeffrey Dahmer? I fully expect to see him in heaven. If you want to learn about his conversion story, write me and I’ll tell you about it.)

Ahab doesn’t even come close to comparing with King David, but the way he reacted after hearing Elijah’s curse was reminiscent of David’s reaction after Nathan’s confrontation (2 Samuel 12:1-9). Make no mistake; this was real repentance. Ahab was not simply putting on a show to get Elijah to change his curse to a blessing.

So does this mean we can expect to see King Ahab in heaven? Sorry, not my call — nor yours.

Nor is it the point of this post.

The point is God noticed and God honored Ahab’s repentance. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). He waited patiently for Ahab to repent. He waits patiently for you too, but He will not wait forever. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:1-3), when neither you nor I expect it.

God is waiting; what are you waiting for?

Maranatha.

So what about the sins of the Israelites? When were they forgiven?

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At the cross? Allow me to suggest that’s only partially true.

Ask many Christians about the sins of the Israelites, and they’ll explain that the sins were “rolled forward”, and forgiven at the cross, as if each Israelite kept adding sins to his account until the day he died. I’d like to also suggest this to be an unscriptural concept. Follow me here…

Forgiveness is not a distinctly New Testament concept.

27If a member of the community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the LORD’S commands, he is guilty. 28When he is made aware of the sin he committed, he must bring as his offering for the sin he committed a female goat without defect. 29He is to lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and slaughter it at the place of the burnt offering. 30Then the priest is to take some of the blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. 31He shall remove all the fat, just as the fat is removed from the fellowship offering, and the priest shall burn it on the altar as an aroma pleasing to the LORD. In this way the priest will make atonement for him, and he will be forgiven. (Leviticus 4:27-31)

Did you notice the words God spoke through Moses in the last verse there? “…and he will be forgiven.” Does that sound synonymous with “rolled forward”? Forgiven is forgiven; it is not “kept on account until such time as it can truly be forgiven”. You know what else? That phrase “will be forgiven” is repeated 7 more times in Leviticus 4-5, once each in Leviticus 6:7 and Leviticus 19:22, and three times in Numbers 15:25-28.

That’s a total of 13 times God promised the Israelites He would forgive them.

“Wait”, you say. The word “will” simply means that it’s a future action — one that doesn’t take place at the present time. Yes, I agree, but the context certainly doesn’t suggest that it would be another 2000 years before God would follow through on any such “future action”. Context demands the conclusion that the point in the future when God would fulfill His promise was when the sacrifice was made — in other words, when repentance was visibly demonstrated.

One more.

In Moses’ plea before the Lord, recorded in Numbers 14, he reminds God of one of His promises:

17“Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: 18‘The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.’ 19In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.” 20The LORD replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked…” (Numbers 14:17-20)

What about the fact that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins?

1The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” (Hebrews 10:1-4)

That looks like an apparent contradiction to me. We just saw 8 times in Leviticus 4-5 where God specifically promised to forgive the Israelites. We read in Numbers 14 where He said He already had forgiven them. Now He says that “the blood of bulls and goats [can’t] take away sins”. There are only 2 possibilities here. One possibility is that this could be a contradiction. But if you believe, as I do, that the Bible does not contradict itself, that leaves only the second possibility, that our understanding of passages that appear to contradict themselves, is itself incorrect.

If you want the full context of Hebrews 10:1-4, read chapters 9 and 10. The context shows how the sacrifice of Jesus was infinitely more perfect than animal sacrifice. One of the ways animal sacrifices were imperfect is that they had to be offered over and over. After one sacrifice was offered and one sin was forgiven, the newly-forgiven person would soon commit another sin, requiring another sacrifice. And so on.

Christ’s sacrifice, being perfect, had to be offered only once. It had the power to forgive Israelites who lived 2000 years before, and it had the power to forgive me 2000 years later. Animal sacrifice could never do that.

The sins of the Jew were not “rolled forward”. They were forgiven. The sins that were not forgiven until Christ’s death on the cross were the sins committed between sacrifices — between one Day of Atonement and another, between one sin offering and before the next.

God is, and always has been a God of forgiveness. Those aren’t my promises; they’re His.