Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The Forgiving Father!

The Forgiving Father!

by Clint Baker on Friday, January 13, 2012 at 10:48am
   There are a few commonly asked questions that need to be addressed. These questions are those of a person's that are saved by Gods grace, so they already have forgiveness of sin. 1) "What happens if I commit a sin and forget to confess it or die before I get to confess it?" 2)" Do we still sin after salvation?" Both of these questions are normally asked because of the lack of understanding God's forgiveness and rest on faulty assumptions. Salvation is not a person trying to repent or confess every sin they have committed before they die. If this was the case, we would be taking salvation into our own hands. We would be saying that what Jesus did for us was not enough and unfortunately each one of us would miss some of the sins all together. Salvation is NOT based on whether a Christian confessing every sin, and yes, we should confess our sins to God as soon as we are aware of them. However as Christians we place our faith in Jesus Christ for salvation and He forgives us of ALL of our sins, past, present and future. As believers we don't have to keep asking for forgiveness over and over again to be keep our salvation, it's just a way of restoring our fellowship with God (Colossians 1:14, Acts 10:43).
  The second question of "Do we still sin after salvation?" is simple. 1 John 1:8 says, "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us." John was telling them that the denial of a persons sinful nature is a false teaching. So the answer to this question is, yes, we still have a sinful nature, as Paul said, he fought sin (Romans 7:21-25), he also says why do I do the things I shouldn't and don not do the things I should (Romans 17:9). So if Paul battled with sin, then yes we all still have a sinful nature, therefore we are sinners saved by God's grace. Gods grace is all that sets us apart.
 The first question was what happens if we do commit sin and don't get it confessed? 1 John 1:9 says, " “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness”. But if we miss one and we all will, God is faithful and has already forgiven us. On the day of our salvation we had a "Judicial forgiveness" of sins, that means we owed the Judge (God) for our sins. When we trust what Jesus did, He puts all of our debt we owe on His account and He makes us righteous in Gods eye for ever. After salvation, when we ask for forgiveness, Jesus isn't constantly reapplying His blood to our account. If we believe that we are taking away the power of His blood and making it of that of that of a sacrificial cow of the OT.  What does 1 John 1:9 mean about, “confess” our sins to God. The word “confess” means “to agree with.” When we confess our sins to God, we are agreeing with God that we were wrong, that we have sinned.
  Verse 9 also indicates a "Parental forgiveness", How does this work if all of our sins are forgiven the moment we receive Christ as Savior? All of our sins are forgiven “Judicial Forgiveness", the moment we receive Christ as Savior. This "Judicial Forgiveness", guarantees our salvation and promise of an eternal home in heaven. When we stand before God after death, God will NOT deny us entrance into heaven because of our sins that is Judicial forgiveness. The concept of "Parental forgiveness", is based on the fact that when we sin, we offend God and grieve His Spirit (Ephesians 4:30). While God has ultimately forgiven us of the sins we commit, they still result in a blocking or hindrance in our relationship with God. A young boy who sins against his father is not cast out of the family. A godly father will forgive his children unconditionally. At the same time, a good relationship between father and son cannot be achieved until the relationship is restored. This can only occur when a child confesses his mistakes to his father and apologizes. That is why we confess our sins to God,not to maintain our salvation, but to bring ourselves back into close fellowship with the God who loves us and has already forgiven us.
  God has already forgiven a true believer at the day of salvation. His promise to preserve you He will keep, His promise to finish what He started in you He will keep, for God is not a lair.







References: Mathew Henry Commentary, Smith's Dictionary, MacArthur Topical studies, "Understanding Forgiveness" a sermon by Pastor Jeff Arthur
By: Clint Baker

9 comments:

  1. I have just recently found your blog and today's post was so helpful to me. I have wrestled with the sin issue for a long time, now thanks to your explaination, I finally understand it! Praise God for His forgiveness. Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this to me!

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    1. Thank you Anonymous! I give God all the glory! We all wrestle with sin daily, Paul even talks about it throughout his letters. The thing people doesn't understand is that our salvation doesn't give us the right to continue living in sin. But Jesus gives us the strength to overcome sin. We all will stumble but Jesus is there to lift us up. Whatever the sin may be, it is a good thing that the Holy Spirit has helped you recognize it, that show His work of sanctification in your life. We have to be responsive to that conviction, He places on us.We will be praying for your struggles! And keep following!

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    2. You may also be encouraged by the post "What God promises us after...". May God Bless you!

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  2. Thank you, I needed this today.

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    1. I give God the Glory! Thank you for stopping by. Keep following more to come!

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  3. Thank you for explaining this to me. I often find the Bible passages difficult to understand. Your post has made it much clearer.

    God bless. ♥

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    1. I give all the glory to God! Thank you for the kind words. I have found that we need to ask the Holy Spirit to teach us read and we need to look at scripture through a child's eyes. Sometimes I think we try to make it say more then God actually attended it for! Please stop back!

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  4. Beautifully put. I'm reading ACTS right now and can't put the Bible down. Gotta love those collection of books!!!

    Lana

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    1. I just got done studying Acts myself! I have jumped over to the book of Hebrews now. As a matter of fact I am doing a study that I hope to post on here, Lord Willing! Thanks for stopping by, I hope we can all learn to sow together!

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