Christ Church

Real Forgiveness

Ben Zornes on

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Introduction:
Everyone knows that the Christian faith revolves around the forgiveness of sins. But because there is a gospel logic involved in it that eludes every form of carnal reasoning, we have to be careful to understand what is actually involved. What is real forgiveness?

The Text: 
“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:31–32).

Summary of the Text:  
There are two ways of conducting life together. One of them is the enemy of life together, and the other is the true friend of life together. One drives us apart and the other knits us together.

The first is the way is the way of keeping score, with the intention of winning. It is the way of bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander and malice (v. 31). This all sounds pretty bad, but we have to remember that all these plug-uglies travel under an alias. They call themselves righteousness, and have a deep commitment to being right. This approach makes koinonia community impossible.

The alternative is kindness and tenderheartedness. And the way that kindness and tenderheartedness “live out” is by forgiving one another, and doing so in exactly the same way that God has forgiven us for the sake of Jesus Christ (v. 32).

What Forgiveness is Not:      
We often feel like we are asking God for His forgiveness when what we are really doing is asking Him to accept our excuses. And because we know that we are to forgive as we were forgiven, as per our text, we often seek to forgive others by agreeing beforehand to accept their excuses, when possible. But (unlike ourselves) they had better have a good one.

Our problem is that, when living together with other sinners, we frequently run smack into what can only be called inexcusable. And because it is inexcusable, our scheme with the excuses cannot work.

Forgiveness deals with sin. And sin, by its very nature, is inexcusable. But what is inexcusable is not (thank the Lord) unforgiveable.

Pardon Me and Forgive Me: 
If you accidentally back into someone during fellowship hour, and make them spill their coffee, you naturally say pardon me, or please excuse me. By this you mean to say that you did what you did to them in a way that was entirely unintentional. They respond accordingly—don’t mention it. No problem. The accident was an accident, and it was therefore excusable.

But suppose you looked across the fellowship hall, and there saw your enemy, as pleased with himself as a conceited Pharisee could be, and so you lowered your shoulder and ran straight into him, knocking him clean over. Under such circumstances, the only reason you would say “pardon me” would be if you had decided to taunt him after bowling him over. In this case, your behavior is inexcusable.

That doesn’t mean that nothing can be done about it. The inexcusable is not the same kind of thing as the unforgiveable.

A Mixed Bag: 
But there is another category. What if we don’t have something that is purely wicked or purely accidental? Suppose it is a mixed bag.

Yes, you snapped at the kids, but it was at the end of two days of migraine headache. Yes, you said some things to your wife that were rude and thoughtless, but she was the one who started the argument, and would not let it go, not even after you had asked her to. You asked her three times. Yes, you sent an email to your boss that you regret sending, but it was 2 in the morning, and the beer you had made you careless.

There are extenuating circumstances, in other words. But we should all remember two things about this. The first is that we will tend to stretch our legitimate excuse part to cover over our sin part. But the only thing that can actually cover sin is the blood of Jesus Christ. When apologizing, we lead with the excuse. “Bob, sorry about yesterday. I had a long day, and I didn’t really mean what I said.” And Bob often responds in kind (because he wants to play the same game when he needs to). “Oh, well, because you didn’t mean it, forget about it.” In other words, because the “you” who said those things was not the real you, he can let it go.

The second is that we want our excuses to be way stretchier than our neighbor’s excuses. But as C.S. Lewis pointed out one time, the chances are excellent that our neighbor’s excuses are way better than we tend to believe. And it is also true that our excuses are way lamer than we think they are. When we handicap the competition between us and our fellow Christians, we are not nearly as objective as we think we are.

A Variation on the Golden Rule:
The basic Christian response is to forgive as we have been forgiven. In our text, the apostle Paul is simply repeating what the Lord taught us when He taught us to pray. Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we ask Him to forgive us as we forgive others. The way many Christians live, the room actually ought to become much quieter when we get to that part.

Lord, doubt the sincerity of my repentance the way I doubt his. Lord, dismiss my excuses with a wave of your hand the way I dismiss his excuses. Lord, keep a hidden tally so that if I sin in this area again, You can bring everything up again, and throw it in my face, the way I do with him. Amen.

The Golden Rule teaches us that we should do for others what we wish they would do for us. This is in the same spirit, but there is a higher level of danger in it. Here we are asking God to treat us the way we treat our brother. If I give my brother an orange, he might give me an apple. But if I give my brother a stone when he asked for bread, and then I ask God to treat me in the same way, I may find out the stone is one that will crush me. God can give me a much bigger stone than my brother ever could.

By Grace Alone:
But how is this consistent with salvation by grace alone? “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:14–15). If you refuse to forgive your brother, you are not failing to earn your salvation. If you refuse to forgive your brother, you are revealing to the world that you have no understanding of what salvation by grace through faith actually is. Remember that Christ is all.

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Three Chains II: Guilt

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

The solution to fear is deliverance. The answer to guilt is justification. The solution to shame is the honor of glorification. To release someone from one of these chains requires that he be released from all. And Jesus Christ is the only one who can do any of it. Last week we considered the authority of fear, and the deliverance provided by the fear of God —which is love for God, given by the grace of God. This week we move on to the chain of guilt in order to address how God has released us from it.

The Text

“Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19).

Summary of the Text

In the first chapter of Romans, we learned that the Gentiles were under the power of sin. In the second chapter, Paul argued that the Jews were also under that same power. Here in the third chapter, he is showing us that Jews and Gentiles together were sinners together, and that all are under the power of sin. Everyone is a sinner, and everyone is a sinner in accordance with the law. God gave the law to those who are under the law (meaning under the condemnation of it), and God’s purpose in giving the law was so that every mouth would have to shut up, and so that whole world would become objectively guilty before God.

Guilt Outside and Inside

In Scripture, guilt is not primarily existential guilt. When we say “guilt” our primary meaning for this is guilt feelings. But guilt is created by, and measured by, the law of God. In other words, guilt is objective, regardless of how the guilty party feels about it. Once the judgment of the law is passed, and the accused has “his mouth stopped,” there are certain subjective sensations that come when the holy law of a holy God comes into the conversation and shuts you down. But that is a consequence.

When a man is wounded, that wound is objective. As a result, he usually feels wounded also. But the feeling is the result of the wound. We don’t create wounds out of feelings, unlike so many today, but rather the feeling comes after the wound.

The Stain of Guilt

A common image or metaphor for guilt in Scripture is the image of the stain. Saul’s house is described as blood-stained because of what he did to the Gibeonites (2 Sam. 21:1).

David says that Joab had his belt and sandals stained with blood (1 Kings 2:5-6). Soap cannot wash away this kind of stain (Jer. 2:22). Stains are problems of a more permanent nature. Sin is not something that can be dusted off. No, the guilt of sin is there, and what can be done?

False Guilt

Guilt is always a function of a standard of righteousness, and false guilt is a function of a false standard of righteousness. This harkens back to the point about guilt and guilt feelings. A false standard of righteousness can create feelings every bit as intense as those created by a violation of the true law of God. A man might feel more guilty about eating a piece of cheesecake, or about not doing his part to save the rain forest, than he does about his fornication.

The solution to false guilt is to repent of the false standard that has been set up in place of the law of God. The solution to false guilt is real guilt and real repentance. When you are confessing your sins, always make sure to be confessing the right ones.

Jesus, the Lord our Righteousness

So how is guilt addressed in Scripture? God will by no means clear the guilty (Ex. 34:7) —so how then can the guilty be cleared? The answer is just a few verses down from our text.

“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:21–26).

In this passage, we are “justified freely” and God offers “propitiation through faith in his blood.” Propitiation means the turning aside of wrath—and wrath is always aimed at guilt. God offers “remission of sins” that are past, and how is this possible?

God could just say “whatever, let’s let everybody into Heaven.” But if God just throws the gates of Heaven open, what is the problem? The problem is that He is no longer just. Or God could be very, very strict, and He could send us all packing off to condemnation. Now He is just, but He is no longer the one who justifies. God set Christ out to be a propitiation so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Him.

In order to understand this, you cannot understand Jesus as just another individual, or even as a perfect individual. Jesus is an Adam. He is the head of the new human race, which means that His obedience is imputed to us, just as the disobedience of the first Adam was imputed to us.

Because of this, a glorious exchange can be made. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Christ had no sin, and was made sin. We had no righteousness, and were made righteousness. This means that when God looks at you, He sees nothing to condemn (Rom. 8:1). When God looks at you, He sees Jesus, which means that He sees no guilt. None. Gone. Washed. Cleansed. This is because we can call the Lord our righteousness.

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The Forgotten Duty

Christ Church on

 

Introduction: 
Forgiveness of sin is forgiveness of sin, not redefinition of sin (Rom. 13:8-10). “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven” contains a glorious truth. But, misapplied as it frequently is, it also represents a travesty of biblical living.

The Text:
“And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the Lord, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour; or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein: Then it shall be, because he hat sinned, and is guilt, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found, or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering. And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest: And the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord: and it shall be forgiven him for any thing of all that he hath done in trespassing therein (Lev. 6:1-7).

Overview:
God is the only ultimate owner of anything. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof (Ps. 24:1; 1 Cor. 10:26). This is why property sins and crimes are sins against the Lord (v. 2). This is what God Himself says (v. 1). Property sins of various kinds can be perpetrated by means of deceit or by violence (v. 2). They can also occur through a windfall, with lying as a follow-up (v. 3). All the kinds of things that men do are covered here (v. 3). The thief must restore what is not his (v. 4). Whatever means he used to filch it, he must return it, along with an additional 20% (v. 5). He is to bring a trespass offering to the Lord (v. 6), and the Lord will forgive him for this kind of sin (v. 7).

Basics of Restitution:
In the Old Testament, restitution was accompanied by the guilt offering. In the New Testament, the fact that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross fulfills the guilt offering does not mean that it fulfills the restitution.

Second, when God prohibited adultery in the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20: 14), this presupposed that He had established and defined the institution of marriage. When He says not to steal, this means that He has established and defined the idea of private property (Ex. 20:15). We reject the Enlightenment idea that property rights are somehow held autonomously—whether by individuals or the state. We “own” only what God has given us stewardship over—but if God has granted that stewardship then it cannot be abrogated by man. Attempts to do so are called stealing.

Third, men are stewards not just of “stuff” but are also stewards of time, and the fruitfulness that time makes possible. There is no such thing as static wealth. So when a thief restores the property, he must also restore the time it was gone. This, presumably, is why the twenty percent is not a constant. Sometimes the thief had to pay double (Ex. 22:4,7).

Yeah, but…
We can certainly come up with all kinds of reasons why restitution is not practical for us. For example, we might say that restitution would make the future inconvenient for me. To which the answer should be so? If a thief cannot pay the amount back, the Scriptures allow for slavery (Ex. 22:3). We might say that we did not mean to harm our neighbor’s goods. But the Bible requires restitution for culpable negligence (Ex. 22:5-6), not just for deliberate theft. We have scriptural contingencies that distinguish between borrowed and rented (Ex. 22:14). We might say that we can’t make restitution because it is simply impossible to do so. If so, then the money goes to the Lord (Num. 5:5-8). We don’t get to keep it. We might say that the coming of Jesus has wiped the slate clean. And so it has, making restitution a joy (Luke 19:10).

Time does not make that twenty dollars yours. The blood of Christ does not make that twenty dollars yours. Forgetfulness does not make that twenty dollars yours. A deficient view of the Old Testament does not make that twenty dollars yours. The fact that you swiped it from your mom does not make it yours. The fact that the person you took it from never missed it does not make it yours. “Fools mock at making amends for sin, but good will is found among the upright” (Prov. 14:9, NIV).

Property Rights Are Human Rights:
When economic libertarians try to ground property rights in the autonomous individual, without any reference to Christ, they are making an idol out of property. Whatever good things they might say about economics do not keep this from being an idol, and behaving as idols always do. And one of the things that idols always do is destroy that which is idolized. Those who worship sex destroy it. Those who worship wine destroy it. Those who worship mammon destroy our ability to enjoy it as a very fine fellow creature (1 Tim. 6: 17). We refuse to worship property, and this is why stewardship-property can be secure. With autonomous property as the rope, atomistic libertarians will always lose their tug of war with the state. When we compare the secularist (economic) libertarians with the secularist statists, we are looking at the difference between a competent businessman who loves money and an incompetent businessman who loves money. We have no reason to cheer for one over the other.
Christians are to see property as an incarnational and God-given way to love other people (Rom. 13: 8). And this leads to our last point, the most important one, really.

One More Thing:
“Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth” (Eph. 4:28). Hard-line theonomists can pound the text—“take the money back, you antinomian!”—and miss the point of the law, which is love. What is the greatest commandment? That you love God. What is the second? That you love your neighbor. When the thief repents, he is to get a job— but not so that he can become a fat cat. He is to labor with his hands . . . why? So that he might give.
Whenever anyone puts property ahead of people, he is assaulting the reason God gave property to us in the first place. But when others foolishly react to this error, putting people ahead of property, they have abandoned the only material God gave us for loving others. One of the best ways to recover this understanding is to recover wisdom about restitution.

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