September 2, 2012

• Forgiveness of sins EVERYDAY STUFF!

  Salvation: then, now, and later

   

              THE PROBLEM:   Confession of sin in our churches most often comes from those who are just being saved.  We hear their stories as the equivalent of the “before” pictures in liposuction ads with all that detestable flab hanging out over the edges of ill-fitting bathing suits.  The assumption is that the rest of us have had all the sin sucked out of our abs and buttocks and are currently enjoying our slim, trim “after” bodies.  If sin does happen to show up later in a believer’s life, WE ASSUME it is the result of a temporary backsliding.  It happens to the best of us now and then.  This is ‘solved” by a simple rededication of our lives to God -- a sort of “salvation refresher.”  Sin is rarely, if ever, addressed as a normal part of a believer’s everyday experience.

   

  Is salvation a one-time experience or something that we need everyday of our lives?  THE ANSWER:  Yes and yes.  These are actually two aspects of a three- pronged process of salvation – past, present, and future.  The theological names for these three aspects of salvation are justification, sanctification, and glorification.  Justification is what has happened to us in relation to our sin, once and for all, on the cross.  Jesus Christ’s death in our place has justified us forever before God and made possible our fellowship with him.

  But this does not mean that we are sinless.  Paul calls it a “body of death” that we still have to carry around in this life even though we have received the first fruits of the Spirit in our hearts (Romans 8:23.)  We are currently caught between our ultimate glorification when we will receive our resurrection bodies like Christ, and the past-tense justification of ourselves through the finished work of Christ on the cross.  Everything in between is our present-tense experience of the process of sanctification.  That experience includes both sin and forgiveness of sin as a daily occurrence.  Though our salvation is secured in heaven, we experience it currently as we struggle with our sin nature and feel God’s knife cutting more deeply into the subtleties of our flesh.

   

  The experience of sin in a believer’s life is not always backsliding.  Nor is it always willful disobedience.  Often it is what is simply revealed or brought into view because of the Holy Spirit’s work at peeling away our sin nature like the layers of an onion.  The longer we follow Christ the more we discover how deep the sin goes and how deep and wide are his mercy and love.  Realization of sin, confession, and forgiveness continue as we find out more about ourselves.  This is why this process is both painful and rewarding.  Painful because we keep discovering how far we still have to go, but rewarding because we keep discovering, as well, how far Christ has gone for us.  This is also why the older believer always has an affinity for the new believer.  It’s the same process.  The new believer may be experiencing God’s forgiveness for the first time, but the experience is immediate, real, and necessary for both of them.

   

  (The preceding is almost entirely quoted from 12 Steps for the Recovering Pharisee by John Fischer, which I highly recommend to all who wish to understand genuine Christianity and the problems of the modern- day church.)   

  • 7:20 am
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