Forgive us as

Forgiveness is something we all stand in need of. We’ve all missed it and we’re all messed up.

No matter how hard modern man or woman tries, guilt still runs deep. We still stand in need of redemption.

Down through the centuries humanity has sought to deal with it and it’s consequences, above all the need for absolution, to be freed from guilt and blame, and released from the consequences, obligations or penalties.

Yes we all need it, we still need it. The modern world may well want to excise us of it, but we cannot run from the reality of it or excise ourselves of it, and the Lord’s prayer reminds us that as much as we need our daily bread we also stand in need of the daily mercy and grace of God.

As someone once said, “forgiveness for man is the plainest of duties but for God it’s the profoundest of problems.” We should forgive as we are all on the same level, but for God to forgive is another matter.

In the heart of the triune fellowship of the Trinity the Son volunteered to come and deal with the guilt and blame, to release us from the consequences, obligations and penalties of our sin.

In time Jesus came and lived the life we should have lived, and then died the death we should have died, the Just for the unjust that we might be reconciled to God.

Today, from the death and resurrection flows the gospel proclamation, calling all to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. It was and still is the emancipation proclamation!

All sin, every sin is covered, past, present future, the word stands true – there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ, none, period. Hallelujah!

But because we still fall short, we still mess up, there needs to be the daily appropriation of it to our lives.

We’re not perfect and we need to admit it; own up to the fact that we haven’t arrived, that we still fail, sometimes bigtime – yes, confession is good for the soul.

“As we forgive….” It shocks us to hear those words, it sounds like a condition, but no it’s the kingdom, as we pray it in ourselves experiencing the massive mercy and extreme grace of God the natural outcome is to forgive. There is a wonderful cycle going on here, the two are tied together. The person who can’t forgive hasn’t understood the forgiveness they receive. For the kingdom to come as we pray, we need to be both forgiven and forgiving.

Yes, God’s grace is that big, it truly is hyper-grace! It covers all our sin, at the same time it extends it through us to others also!

The Cross Has Said It All

In a world that likes to exalt man and speak of his advances and goodness, the cross doesn’t make sense.

In a world that likes to say we are all victims but no one’s guilty, the cross is a foreign and alien concept.

For many it belongs to a bygone era when humanity didn’t understand itself and needed the idea of a God and religion to help it on it’s way, but today we supposedly know better, we’ve advanced beyond these things.

Not only are there those in the world who struggle to understand the message of the cross,  there are those in the church too.

The idea of penal substitution (that Christ was crucified for our sins, in our place, bearing ourpunishment) is sadly falling out of favour. At one time it would have been liberals, but now some evangelicals are raising their doubts more it would seem from an emotional point of view than a scriptural one.

It troubles our personal sensitivities that someone should have to die for us, and in such an awful way, and as a result it’s becoming increasingly popular to speak in terms of ‘identification with our suffering and pain,’ a ‘moral influence upon us,’ or/and a ‘victory over sin and satan’ – a death you’ll note that has no reference to God.

The pride of man likes the idea that he’s pretty good and can pull himself up by his own efforts, that he can improve on his situation, each of which the aforementioned offer. But the Bible just wont have it – all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and totally unable to save himself or herself.

Memory Loss

The problem is we have memory loss. We have forgotten how grievous our sin is, we have forgotten how far we have fallen and it’s consequences and power in and over our lives, and how it separates us from God. Sin has caused a huge rupture in humanities relationship to God and completely messed up his own psyche, and it’s evidence is seen all over the place no matter the amount of education or social welfare etc..

An identification with our suffering and pain though comforting is insufficient, a moral influence is good but completely inadequate to get me, you, out of this mess, and a victory over sin and satan is great but how will that moment in history help me if that is all that there is to it? I need a cross that speaks a bigger and stronger word than that, a cross that radically goes to the root of the problem and gets me out of it.

The Cross Speaks

The cross speaks of God coming and taking human flesh not simply to identify with us, or provide us with a good example, or tell us that sin and satan have been defeated, but of God’s great power to go to the heart of the issue and provide a substitute who would take our very sin and bear the judgement of a Triune God on it.

I put it that way deliberately – it was a Trinitarian affair, it was the business of Father, Son and Holy Spirit – not one over and against an unwilling other. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. This plan had it’s origin in the heart of the Trinity, a truly staggering plan in which the ‘chastisement or punishment of our peace was upon him’ as Isaiah says prophetically by the Spirit.

As Paul says, ‘Christ died for our sins.’

A cross that is not penal carries no great salvific message, it simply gives me a form of moralism – I nearly wrote a moralistic gospel, but such would not be good news!

Isaiah says:

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed himstricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soulmakes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.” (Isaiah 53:4-6, 10)

The cross has to do with God and man.

He bore and was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

He bore our chastisement/punishment.

He was wounded for our healing.

He paid the price for all our sin.

He was stricken, smitten by God – it was God who put God in flesh to grief.

It was God in Flesh who made an offering for all our guilt.#

The Cross has Said it All

The cross has said it all. It is a full word, complete and sufficient in every way.

This truly is a saving gospel. It is this gospel that has been the good news to many a soul down through history, thousands upon thousands, indeed millions of them. Yes, as this gospel is preached he shall continue to see his offspring (those who believe) and be satisfied!

Essential Goodness or Total Depravity?

Sin, not a word or a subject we are comfortable with – we’d rather talk about love and grace. We’d rather be affirmed than convicted. Patted on the backed rather than challenged and corrected.

Following my last post re Steve Chalke’s article in Christianity calling for a new understanding among Christians with regard to homosexual relationships – an article that received widespread attention from the press – I’ve found myself thinking more about the doctrine of sin.

The world has never liked it (that includes you and me).

Evolution has no place for it.

Psychology frequently has no place for it, or what follows – guilt (a religious idea).

And frequently there have been those in the church who have wanted to downplay it, or reclassify it in order to be accepted by those around them, and with the hope of reaching others – albeit mistaken.

It’s a doctrine that confronts and levels us all, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, advantaged or disadvantaged, the haves and the have-nots, etc.. The Bible doesn’t play with words, or feelings, it tells us ‘we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory,’ and that we sin because we are fallen – that there is a ‘natural’ leaning in all of us to do what is wrong, something that is evidenced in one of the first words a child utters: ‘No!’ and said with emphasis! Something that I’ve observed you never have to teach a child to say, in fact parents spend their lives attempting to teach their children what is right and providing discipline and correction when the line is crossed – you never have to teach them to do wrong, they do it!

One of the problems with the current debate is the focussing on one particular sin as if it has a category all of its own, to the neglect of other sins and the thing ‘sin’ in particular.

Some Christians talk of it in terms of Total Depravity, a strange couple of words perhaps to modern ears, words which seemingly imply that someone has ‘lost it’, and capable of no good at all. In reaction to this, some theologians and preachers have attempted to rework things and talk of the ‘essential goodness’ of humanity – having observed that we are not all that bad, that some people who are not Christians have done some very good things.

The problem is that isn’t where the Bible goes, quite the opposite. Yes we are capable of some good things, but the Bible makes it clear that even the good that we are capable of is no more than filthy rags in God’s sight – they may benefit others, but they have no merit with him. Sin is ingrained, and contaminates everything in such a way as to condemn us all.

If we undermine the doctrine of sin, we undermine the very Gospel itself, and the existence of the church and it’s mission is at stake – such liberal theology has a history of emptying churches, not filling them.

Perhaps we all need to go back to the Bible and rediscover exactly what it has to say.

Free in Christ - Romans 8

For many Romans 8 is something they aim at, but rarely get there. To often their experience is Romans 7, the wretched man, but that is to fall short of the gospel. Romans 8 is meant to be the normal Christian life. Some years ago after living as a Romans 7 Christian I studied Romans afresh, and realised I had missed something.

Frequently the realm of Flesh and Spirit is seen as interior, and so an inner conflict is set up (and I had many of them), but Romans reveals it to be two realms, and we are either in one or the other. Here is a paraphrase I wrote of Romans 8 that seeks to bring it out.

8:1,2. So, the conclusion of it all is this: that there is now absolutely no condemnation whatsoever (and neither can there ever be), for those who are in union with Christ Jesus. For, the law of the Spirit of life which is in and through Christ Jesus has liberated you from the law of sin that always leads to failure, defeat and death.

3,4. For what the law could never do (enable us to be right with God, and live righteously because of our sinful flesh) God did Himself, and He did this by sending His own Son in flesh just like ours under the domain of sin, and for sin itself. He then past judgment on sin in the realm of the Flesh, and condemned it once and for all, thereby destroying it’s power, so that now, the righteous requirements of the law might be accomplished in us who walk no longer in the realm of the Flesh (lives lived without reference to God); but now walk in the realm of the Spirit (lives lived in reference to God).

5, 6. For, those who live their lives according to the realm of the Flesh, their thoughts and affections, in fact their whole perspective is shaped by and set on the things of ‘the Flesh,’ but those who live their lives according to the realm of the Spirit, their thoughts and affections indeed their whole perspective is shaped by and set on the things of ‘the Spirit.’ For, the whole inclination and outlook of the realm of the Flesh, is death, but, the whole inclination and outlook of the realm of the Spirit, is life and peace.

7 – 9. The reason is this: the inclination and outlook of the realm of the Flesh is hostile to God, for it is not subject to the law of God, and never can be. So then, those who live in the realm of the Flesh can never please God. But, as for you, you are no longer in the realm of the Flesh and under its power, but in the realm of the Spirit, managed and energised by Him, since the Spirit of God inhabits you. Now if someone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they cannot possibly belong to Him.

10, 11. Now since Christ does reside in you, that means the body is dead because of sin, and yet you have life by the Spirit because of righteousness. Moreover since the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead resides in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to these mortal bodies because of His Spirit who dwells in you.

12 – 16. So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors and have an obligation – but it is certainly not to the realm of the Flesh, to live in keeping with the Flesh. For if you live in keeping with the realm of the Flesh, you are obviously still in the realm of the Flesh, unchanged, fleshly, and you will die; but, if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body by saying no to sin and not giving in to it, you will live. For those who so live are being led by the Spirit of God and show themselves to be true sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of slavery that leads again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of full sonship that enables you to call out with confidence “Abba, Father.” For the Spirit Himself testifies to our spirit that we are children of God.

© R. Burgess 2001 revised 2012