Repentance into Christ – Forgiveness

My definition of what Christianity is “Living my life as if Christ died for Me” therefore sin according to that description would be “Living my life as if Christ did not die for Me”. It is to deny the finished works of the Lord Jesus, it is expected that anyone who truly believes that Jesus died and rose from the dead for the forgiveness of our sins should have a very different approach to issues. Their faith has to have works, or better yet the confession has to be walked out according to the parable of the sower.

In so many ways the cross solves the issues of SIN. Believing that we have been forgiven for example means that we should forgive others, it’s that simple or is it?

Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Betrayal

This is a test that anyone called by God has to go through; the bible has a running theme of heart wrenching stories of brother betraying brother. It is actually the central sin that defines the nature of fallen man.  The first betrayal is when man betrayed God in the garden of Eden,  in what was a sort of an attempted coup d’état, e but as  the story goes in Jesus’s death God forgave us. In the article who is Barabbas? I try to explain the nature of the fallen man, unless we grasp just how fallen we are before a perfect God we are not able to understand why our inability to forgive others after we have been forgiven is such an offensive sin to God. The gravity of this sin automatically leads to imprisonment and torment sanctioned by God the father himself according to Matthew 18:21-35

“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’  In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Un-forgiveness and any other Sin is viewed in contrast to what was done for us on Calvary. Un-forgiveness is therefore failing to believe in the finished works of the cross, and is unbelief. When God died on a cross everything and everyone is viewed against one account, how they respond to this message. Paul said

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:2

Identity

The Old Testament is a record of the conflict between man and God. The bitter ending is the exile of Israel to Babylon a shadow of the exile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Exile from the garden was because Adam made a choice to be autonomous i.e. to navigate life through his own understanding using the knowledge of good and evil. The Mosaic Law was the best version of the tree of good and evil and Israel’s failure was God proving a point to humanity i.e. Autonomy does not work. To resolve the stalemate, God steps back and say’s “ok, I will give them another chance to choose the tree of life (Jesus) or the wisdom of this world”. When we accept Jesus we are restored to the condition we were in before the fall of Adam i.e the image of God, by putting on Christ.

..since you have taken off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Colossians 3:10

We become children of light, sinless, stainless, pure love, saints and clean. The Adamic nature “the old man” is put to death as Christ resurrects in our hearts. The implication is that if we become begrudging, unforgiving and hateful we are putting off Christ and empowering the old man. We are corrupting our divine nature and that is why betrayal and un-forgiveness are the devils most effective strategies.

Jesus on the Cross

When Jesus was on the cross he faced a number of tests all designed to try to make Him give up his identity and the promise of God on his life. Most of the tests had an underlying question i.e. are you the Son of God? e.g.  “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” Matthew 27:40

After his baptism in the early days of His ministry, Jesus had been tested about his identity in the wilderness, this time as he faced the cross this test was more covert. I believe the reason he passed this test, apart from the fact that he knew the devil was the architect of both sets of test is that He was grounded in his identity. Therefore the issue of identify is very central to the believer, it is at the heart of every test we undergo. Don’t ever act in contradiction to your identity, the more tests you pass the more you mature to son ship.

NB Every human being is being conformed to something or someone if not Jesus, then the devil there is no neutral ground in this battle

Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.  They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. John 15: 20 -21