Are We Forgiven?
Friends:
I sit down to write this morning after having a conversation yesterday with a good friend of mine about sin. I remember someone telling me once about a well intentioned minister he heard - who used a piece of tinfoil to convey the "truth about sin." He opened by saying that in the beginning, we are all like this piece of tinfoil. "A clean slate." Over time though, as our affections and angelic associations change - we can fall away from our beginnings, and the sins we perpetrate create an indelible mark on our spiritual life. (Then the tinfoil was crinkled and "straightened" back out as best as possible to illustrate the point).
While I'm sure this example was given with the best of intentions, the fact is it illustrates a very damaging concept of sin - and one most of us Christians (of whatever our denomination) are prone to. Theologically, the math doesn't add up, does it? If we believe in a God of love, how can this be? From the earliest beginnings of the Christian church, the concept of sin has been wrestled with. Here you had all these people who were baptized, and they were sinning? How could this be?
I believe the full expression of God's love for us, the true theological reality about how He works with us and for us is summed up in this passage from the Heavenly Doctrine (www.heavenlydoctrines.org):
"Being able to be maintained by the Lord in the good of love and the truths of faith and to be withheld from evils and falsities constitutes the forgiveness of sins; and at the same time keeping well away from evil and falsity and detesting them constitutes repentance. But all this is so only with those who have received new life from the Lord through regeneration, for those things belong to the new life." (AC 9448)
So when we say that a person is forgiven sin, released from sin, purified from sin, pardoned from sin, delivered from sin, or that his sins are remitted, it means that the Lord Jesus Christ had the freedom to withhold us from them, to keep them back from our conscious life. What God does in forgiving us our sins is remove their activity further and further away from the center of what we think about, what we love, and so how we live – until they’re powerless to affect us. In fact, if we sincerely approach Him in repentance, and open ourselves to His to work inside us this way, its like they are put to sleep forever. (Example: Simon Peter’s complete denial, the Lord’s complete forgiveness).
What Jesus wants more than anything is for us to live a simple life. A worshipful life. One free from the chaos that the hells are constantly nagging at us, trying to create. Its His whole desire and effort to work within our hearts to help us reprioritize, reorder what’s most important to us. Help us reach the highest reaches of our spiritual purpose where we choose God over us, where we’ve been repatterned to follow His will. This quality of Divine love is what the Psalmist called out: “For You Lord are good, and ready to forgive; and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.” (Psalm 86:5) The Lord wills to forgive all people their sins. In fact, we’re told He does not “impute a single sin to any person, for He says: ‘They know not what they do.’” (TCR 539) What that means is, since every choice has a series of consequences that extend into eternity, it would be impossible for us, unless we were God, to really “get” the effect of sin in our life. And yet what He says is: “I forgive you.” I will each act of it forgiven. Jesus Christ instructed Simon Peter to forgive others their sins not once or twice, but “seventy times seven.” (Matt. 18:21-22) And the Heavenly Doctrine points out that if this can be the quality of forgiveness with us folks, “What then will not the Lord do?” (TCR 539)
A lot of the misunderstanding of forgiveness has been a faulty idea of what our responsibility it in it. When the Scriptures talk about people “calling” on the Lord for help, they’re not just talking about the emotions behind it, the feeling of desperation when we’ve fallen down, succumbed to evil in some aspect of our life, and from being overwhelmed with a sense of our own guilt – we cry out to God to forgive us. That’s gonna be there. It’s the forgiveness the natural part of us looks for in temporary states of remorse, or under mental pressure or sickness of the body, or anything else like it. A call to God like this is a beginning, but not the end in view.
We have a job to do to engage with the love of God in the process of forgiveness. And unless we do it, we don’t provide the means for the Lord to complete the forgiveness. Remember, the principle always is that His love is always there, its a question of whether we are making ourselves receptive of it. The Lord can’t enter the areas of our lives where evil and falsity are still tolerated. And He can’t remove it unless and until we’re ready for Him to do it; we can’t just say we need help, its got to be written on our heart and life. What the Writings say is that God can’t take away sins unless He does it according to the laws of His Divine Providence. (DP 280)
The work we people have to do in seeking the forgiveness of the Lord God Jesus Christ is to perform repentance. This was why, in preparation for the coming of Jesus, John the Baptist’s message was so strong, so in your face. As the literal Word, he was there with the hands and face reminder that before God can enter your life, you’ve got to get out of the way – repent where you’ve done wrong, and allow His message of what it takes to live a spiritually proactive life in. In the True Christian Religion it says: “In the same measure as a person performs repentance, sins are removed, and as they are removed they are forgiven.” (TCR 510) Self examination is crucial, but then we’ve got to do something with what we’ve seen. It has to motivate you to change your life. Because remember, the whole point of religion is that you life a changed life for the Lord. Unless our self examination is a prelude to the effort to resist more sins, its nothing but self imagination. But when we do something with it, we’ve opened the door to Jesus to come in and move it from “doing the math” to “changing the heart.”
The power and spiritual influence of a our sins can only be moderated and removed over time (it’s a process) as we perform repentance. This means that the evil desires have to be shunned, together with the thought and act they inspire in us. But think about this (and this is where the community aspect comes in): if you’re doing repentance effectively, you have to carry the thought and effort of your repenting into your relationships. You have to because relationships – your relationship to Him and your relationship to each other is what He values more than anything else. If you’re going to shun evils as sins against God you also have to shun evil thought and behavior with your neighbor. Right? More than that, you’ve got to make the effort to do what is good and just in their place. More than any other message, the New Testament says that if we’re seeking forgiveness from God we first have to forgive our fellow man. In fact, this principle is so important, its part of the Lord’s prayer we need to repeat every day: “forgive us our debts and we forgive our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12, Luke 11:4) Many other times Jesus taught things like, “if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matt. 6:14) “Forgive and you will be forgiven.” (Luke 6:37)
God wants nothing more than to forgive us of everything. The fact is, He already has if we’re open to it. But He won’t force it on us. He can’t force us to change our nature against our will. Our freedom to choose is too important. It’s the person who’s unwilling to give us his evil desires, and who makes himself the arbiter of truth, believing there’s nothing true that doesn’t usher from him – that can’t be forgiven. Because he takes every saving truth and torques it for his own purposes. Since the Lord can’t lead a person in freedom unless he can use his understanding to see and acknowledge the truth, the destruction of the understanding is called the “unforgivable sin.” This is what Jesus referred to when He said: “All manner of sin and blasphemy will be forgiven unto men: but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.” (Matt. 12:31-32; AC 8882)
The Lord Jesus while on earth taught and healed people as the Word made flesh, as the Son of Man. He was the Divine Truth incarnate, now revealed to people in His Divine Humanity. He taught that “The Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.” (Mark 2:10) As the Son of Man He said to many, “your sins are forgiven you.” (Matt. 9:2) In all these places the Lord was teaching that people can only be released from sin as they respond to the truth. There’s no other way for people to find forgiveness, no other mysterious exclusion to this law of God’s wisdom. This truth is so important, the Lord brings it to mind regularly in the Holy Supper – “This is My blood (My truth), of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission (the forgiveness) of sins.” (Matt. 26:28)
While its hard for us to know just where we are in our regeneration (new spiritual life or birth) the Writings do give us some signs that can comfort us that our sins are forgiven, as well as signs that encourage us that we’ve begun what is a life long journey to align our will with God’s. We can know we are forgiven when we feel a delight in worshiping the Lord for His own sake; serving the neighbor for his own sake; doing good for the sake of good, and believing true ideas simply because they’re true – for the sake of truth. And do these things ascribing all the credit to God.
We need to know we are not alone on this journey toward forgiveness. Its what the Lord is constantly pulling us to. Even as we’re on the road to victory, as our loves are being reset for heaven, we are on the threshold of true spiritual rebirth, we are going to go through times of temptation – states of sadness, despair, at the horror of evil and the destructive power of falsity that we’re still facing. They are temptations where, if we’re open, the love of God and neighbor is working to bring our whole mind and character into co-respondence with itself. The evil and falsity driven to the outer reaches of our mind, heart, and life.
This new person we’ve become is the story of King Solomon – who prepared a permant, a beautiful new home for God. Its an analogy for our life. His prayer for forgiveness, while at the same time asking the Lord to live in him, is the prayer that He, Jesus Christ the Lord will lead him to new priorities; that He will remove the war, the famine, the pestilance, the captivity, and all the hosts of hell trying to define us by our sins. That God will redefine us by His mercy. Its not a prayer of passing emotion, or fear. It’s a prayer from the living knowledge that the Word of God will change your life if you let it, that you can worship God from the inside out, that if we are willing and determined to do what if just and good in the eyes of the Lord – He will lead us to the kingdom of heaven.
“O Lord my God, listen to the cry and to the prayer, which Your servant prays before You this day: that Your eyes may be open toward this house night and day… And listen Lord to the supplication of Your servant, and of Your people Israel, when they will pray toward this place: and hear Lord in heaven Your dwelling place: and when You hear, forgive.” (1 Kings 8:30)
