When Jesus died for sins, we believe that his work was effectual.
His Father was completely satisfied. When Jesus said "it is finished",
"there remaineth therefore no sacrifice for sins" since "Jesus was
offered once for all" for he "..needeth not.. offer up sacrifice.. for
this he did once" "..to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." "Now
where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin." No
repentance, no confession, no sinners prayer, nothing can be added to
this work. God is done with sin. For this sacrifice to benefit the
believer it has to avail for the unbeliever in part as well, since we
were once all dead in trespasses and sins. Since even the faith to
believe is a gift from God all souls stand on level ground at the cross,
apart from works or forgiveness. In the end, at the judgment, the books
of men’s deeds and the book of life are opened. Our destiny is
determined by enrollment in the Lamb’s book of life which only contains
our name or not. Whether forgiveness was obtained or not for our deeds
must appear in the book of deeds if at all. It seems clear from these
scriptures that deeds and destiny are entirely separate issues with God.
If the question of sin and sins is settled with God, why is it
still an issue on earth? "...this is the condemnation, that light is
come into the world, and men loved darkness (sins) rather than light
(Jesus), because their deeds were evil. For every one that does evil
hates the light (hates and rejects Jesus), neither comes to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved." We see here the effect of sin upon
the unregenerate: Sins keep men from seeking God. Even those souls who
seem to have a genuine measure of light at some point in their lives must
persevere in faith to be the saved ones, "Now the just shall live by
faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."
Only the walk of faith (daily obedience) is offered by God as a test of
perseverance. "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of
faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our
bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of out
faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us
consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works..." "There
is now no condemnation to them... who walk not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit." Only those "which are in Christ Jesus" are expected to live
holy lives. As long as we live in these mortal bodies, God’s glory is
manifest in the quickening of our dead bodies, not to lead sinless lives,
but to manifest the life of Jesus on earth. It is not avoiding sins that
is at stake here but making the glory of Jesus known. Jesus is only seen
where holiness is manifest in fallen flesh.
What about sins in the believers life? To answer this we must
first agree as to what God counts as a believer. "Now if any man have
not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." To God, believers are the
only ones in whom he dwells. "My sheep hear my voice and they follow
me...If a man love me he will keep my commandments, and I shall love him"
Certain qualities characterize those indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
Are the believers that God counts the same as those who count
themselves believers? "Then shall the righteous answer him, saying,
Lord, when saw we thee hungry, and fed thee...?" Others are surprised
to learn that their "good works", they said were done in Jesus name, were
actually done in vain. The razor of truth God uses at the coming
judgment pictured in Mtt 25 does not seem to revolve around a profession
of faith or doing good works, but rather on hearing God’s voice and
obeying Him. "Not every one that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
unto the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father..."
Children of heaven honor Him on earth with obedience. Only souls
possessing the Spirit of God obey or please God. They alone are children
of the heavenly kingdom.
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians we find out that some of them
had been fornicators meaning that they had been practicing sins of
fornication. Being washed certainly means that the Cor. had stopped
fornicating rather than that they continued fornicating saying that since
they now "believed" it was OK to fornicate. When Jesus spoke to the
woman taken in adultery, he said, "go and sin no more." He did not say
"go and anything you do from now on will be forgiven." These examples
serve, if anything, to prove that unbelievers quit their sins when they
get saved rather than that God renames these same sins, works of
righteousness, when they get saved.
Another definition which we need to agree upon is repentance.
The most common NT word metamellomia is literally to care afterward. It
can also mean regret, reconsider, or reversal (of a decision.) The other
word ametameletos, used only twice, means irrevocable. The church of our
generation has taken the unanimous position that individual repentance
means to regret or be sorry for sins (the weakest of the three meanings
of metamellomia.) (This is sad because even the ungodly regret their
behavior after they are caught.) Partly because this definition is
inexpensive or perhaps because most believers don’t read their Bibles or
believe the OT if they do read, the OT definition of repent is not
examined. (I know for a fact that the classic theological texts that I
have consulted do not consider the OT repentance words.)
Curiously, there are two words with the same two definitions for repent
in the OT. Nacham, literally to sigh, means to regret. This word and
it’s cognate is used a total of 36 times. The other word, shusb, lit. to
turn back, means to return or to start over. It is translated repent 3
times. The obvious interpretation, and the one adopted universally by
the church, is that repent means to be sorry for sinning, seems
vindicated by this simple Bible word study. The fact, overlooked by most
superficial studies of this subject, is that the word shusb is most often
translated return (240 times) or turn (145) times. Even a superficial
examination of the usage of this word yields a picture of the
overwhelming cry of the heart of God for his people to turn from their
sins and return to Him.
When these OT definitions are overlaid on the NT words, an entirely
different interpretation is obtained. The primary meaning for
metamellomia is reversal, like turn or return rather than regret. An
example is seen in comparing "Repent, and turn… from your idols"
(Eze14:6) with "Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Mtt3:2) or "but now commandeth all men
everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30.) Both Paul and Jesus are speaking of
change, not sorrow.
Ametameletos in the NT, on the other hand, is used like nacham in the OT
as can be seen by comparing "lest the people repent when they see war"
(Ex13:17) with "the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance"
(Ro11:29.) Ametameletos and nacham mean to change the mind. (If this
isn’t confusing enough already, I once heard a famous preacher proclaim
that these words should be the definition for repentance; God wants us to
change our minds about (the definition) of sin.)
The conflict between the true gospel and "another gospel" is obvious.
The devil would have us believe that God wants us to be content with
feeling sorry for sinning. The only thing that God ever said about
feeling sorry is that that there are two kinds of sorrow, godly and
worldly. Godly sorrow works repentance and worldly sorrow works death.
To use the devil’s definition of repentance, what God said then means
"godly sorrow works sorrow," an obvious piece of circular nonsense.
Using God’s definition for repentance, we have "godly sorrow works a
turning from sin and a return to God," in harmony with 240 + 145 + 3 OT
references. To repent from sin means to stop sinning and to surrender to
God. If it takes sorrow to get there, fine, if not, then fine too.
Sorrow is beneficial if, and only if, it works a turn in behavior (i.e.
to stop sinning and return to God).
As long as we do not have any denomination or theological school to
defend, we should have little trouble in abandoning the world’s
definition for repentance and going with what is revealed in the
scripture as a whole. To repent means to stop sinning and return to God.
Either God really is finished counting sins against us or he is
not. If he is counting sins, then believers and the lost are alike and
there is no benefit to salvation. If God is not counting sins, then the
only remaining effect of sin (apart from death ) upon humanity is the
deceit of sin blinding men from seeing the glory of Jesus and keeping
them from coming to him.
What this issue seems to boil down to is not "are there sins in
the believers life?" but rather "is there saving faith in the sinners
life?" For this, Jesus instruction to his disciples was that just as we
judge trees by their fruit, the heart is exposed before men by deeds. He
instructed his disciples to be discerning but not condemning. Jesus said
"A good tree produces good fruit" meaning that a believer produces fruit
of the spirit; and "a bad tree produces bad fruit" meaning that an
unbeliever produces only works of the flesh. Also the tree is not made
good by the fruit, it is only known by the fruit. The rule is, the
sinner sins and the righteous shine. To be sure, until our bodies are
redeemed, both believers and unbelievers alike can and do sin. The
difference between them is whether or not the spirit of God is within
them to be grieved and produce the fruit of repentance. Professing
right doctrine or doing good things does not make a believer but rather a
true believer produces fruit after its kind.
The Bible word believe comes from the root word faithful. To be a Bible
believer means to be faithful (to Jesus.) Even though faithfulness is a
heart issue, it’s behavior is easily distinguished from unfaithfulness.
Unbelievers seem to be able to tell the true believer from the false.
Why do the "believers " then have such a difficult time telling the
difference? I propose that the answer is that in the church we have
obliterated the Bible doctrine of good works created before the
foundation of the earth to bring glory to Jesus and have substituted the
false notion of men that Jesus can be exalted by words alone(rightly
dividing words in some cases). If we don’t have to obey Jesus to give
him pleasure, then how could what we "believe" or say or think about
possibly ever matter to Him? Can you imagine what you would think if
your children told you how they loved you while they were being
disobedient to their mother? A good father would promptly correct this
misconception. "If a man love me, he will keep my words… If ye keep my
commandments, ye shall abide in my love."
If anyone’s eyes could be blinded to the Truth by persisting sin,
then Paul’s enthusiastic response to continuing in sin, "God forbid",
seems justified. If, on the other hand, Paul believed that Jesus work
made sins harmless to mankind, or even just to believers, then the
intensity of his response seems overdone. His repeated references to
there being no condemnation to those who walk (not believe) after the
Spirit seems pointless if no sin or sinner is in jeopardy of being
condemned. If anyone can be truly lost by persisting in sin, and if sin
is deceitful, then sin in the (so called) believer’s life is a life
threatening condition. The one who sees himself as a believer is not in
a good position to judge his own works if he is living in deceit. The
whole value of Church ministering to itself lies in just this discernment
and discipline. We see here too, why there is still a need to call men
to repentance. Sins blind men’s eyes from seeing Jesus. They cannot
turn or return if they cannot see Him. There is no fellowship between
light and darkness. No matter how good the doctrine, the teaching, the
miracles, or whatever, if there is no God like (read Father like
discipline) love in the church, there is no living Jesus involved.
We have all seen what happens when a father does not say no and
make it stick. "(W)e have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us,
and we gave them reverence.. but he (chastens us) for our profit, that we
might be partakers of his holiness.. Wherefore lift up.. make straight
paths.. follow peace.. and holiness, without which no man shall see the
Lord." Children left without bounds grow into dangerous criminals.
"Believers" left without bounds grow into unbelievers. What we claim to
believe seems to have very little to do with the outcome. When it comes
right down to it what seems to matter to God is hearing His voice and
obeying (in much the same way it is at home with our children and our
voice.) In the family of God, if we see those continuing to practice the
sins once enjoyed in unfaithfulness, we MUST ask what exactly is the
nature of this "grace or gift" that they have received which turns
liberty into license. God does NOT now pleasure in unrighteousness
himself nor in his people just because Jesus has now removed the penalty
for sins. The Holy Spirit in John’s mouth says,
"...in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with
him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk
in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin....I write
unto you that ye sin not...hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep
his commandments. He that says, I know him, and keep not his
commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keeps
his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that
we are in him. He that says he abides in him ought himself also so to
walk, even as he walked...he that does the will of God abides
forever...If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that
does righteousness is born of him...Whosoever commits sin transgresses
also the law...Whosoever abides in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth
has not seen him, neither know him. Little children, let no man deceive
you: he that does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.
He that commits sin is of the devil...Whosoever is born of God does not
commit sin...he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the
children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever
does not righteousness is not of God...we receive of him, because we keep
his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight...he
that keeps his commandments dwells in him, and he in him..."
Here, God has set forth our behavior as a practical test of
faith. The true believer is to be rich in good works (work of the holy
spirit.) To allow ourselves or a fellow "believer" to go on living in
sin without challenging the behavior is irresponsible. To suggest that a
person can believe something that will save him and violate the
scriptures above is blaspheme. Yes, it is possible for the true believer
to sin, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.." but to
continue in sin requires unholy spirit unction, for God’s spirit is holy
and will not compromise the glory of the real Jesus.
This test is universal. It is the test God uses. It is the test
the world uses. It is the test that we that profess faith should be
using. The practice of sinning negates the gospel. Sins in the
"believer’s" life make Jesus out to be unholy and his atonement to be
powerless and ineffectual against sin. The test is simply this: the
regular appearance and continued practice of sins in one’s life point to
unbelief, whereas the regular and periodic appearance of holiness,
indicates faith.
I suspect, sadly, that the real reason sins are not challenged in
the church is that we expose our own lives to scrutiny by drawing
attention to behavior. It has nothing to do with the doctrine of works
or grace or any other doctrine, but is rooted in fear of our own exposure
and the fear of personal rejection. The razor of truth is double edged.
"Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?..." If we
really believed that we were "accepted in the beloved" then our rejection
would never be the issue but rather His glory, and the holiness of His
bride would compel us to go to any expense to honor and vindicate His
holiness (possibly even to the extent of changing our own behavior.)
Once past the fear of personal rejection, believers might even find true
joy in repentance. The prevailing attitude of tolerance in the
"church": "Judge not that ye be not judged" is, in reality, very thinly
disguised rebellion against God’s command to be holy.
Since I began this, I have had a very interesting experience
which illustrates what I am trying to get across. I work with an
outspoken anti-Christian woman. Recently, one of the sophisticated
computers was repaired in our lab. It had been used by the two men who
previously worked there. One of the fellows was an outspoken atheist and
one a professing believer. The believer was of a strict sect who only
count true believers by their adherence to right doctrine. The
technician who repaired the computer examined the log of their use of the
internet. Both had in their files extensive use of pornographic
materials. The "believer" had a baser sort than the atheist. I have
been exercised some in answering the questions of the woman I work with
as a result of these findings. I am tempted to give her a copy of this
letter as an answer to some of her questions. She can see plainly that
this man’s religion was of NO value in escaping the temptations of the
flesh. I cannot attempt to explain to her that this sin was an
aberration in an otherwise holy life (as you suggested in your letter)
for the behavior was at the end of the list of those sins in Ro. Chapter
1 spoken about those who refuse to have God in their knowledge! I simply
cannot pacify her with any cheap patronage which pass as truth among
believers. Holiness befits pilgrims.
To put it another way, for any true believer to point to an
unbeliever (who may claim to be a believer) and say that this is a child
of God doing the works of God is to say that the Holy Spirit is working
unrighteousness! It is simply blasphemy! "Those who walk after the
flesh cannot please God." To the degree we fail to call all men to
personal holiness, we oppose the gospel (Be ye holy as I am holy.) If we
in the church cannot discern between righteousness and sin (as the priest
was to discern between the clean and the unclean) then something is
dangerously wrong and we should get far away for this is not the work of
God.
Nowhere in this is it ever suggested that a person can be saved
by work or works or deeds of any kind. The scriptures affirm that anyone
who is born of the spirit of God will begin and grow in holiness. No
holiness will be seen in their life prior to that event but evidence of
the fruit of the spirit will be seen subsequently and will grow as time
progresses. These are the truly good works created in eternity past to
honor Jesus. Although they do not save the believer, they do glorify the
Lord Jesus (an even more important consideration.) However, if these
works (not words) are absent, then there was NEVER any birth by the Holy
spirit. We are NOT speaking here of losing anything: not salvation,
sanctification, atonement, justification, etc. We are speaking of NEVER
having surrendered to the LORD of all.
We all know friends, pastors, seminary professors, Christian workers,
missionaries, etc. working a lifetime in "Christian service" who were
NEVER saved, even though they may have known more than enough to get
others saved. God spoke truth through an animal at least once, but this
did not "save" the animal. True believers are to be rich in good deeds,
honoring Him who was obedient unto death. To honor him who "did always
the will of my Father," the true believer must also (at least sometimes)
do his will. The unbeliever NEVER does the will of the Father. This
MUST be as clear as night and day to the believer as it is already to the
world or else the believer is worse off than the world, whose
condemnation is just.
The common understanding of forgiveness can be abbreviated: If a
saved person sins (he should not, but) he is OK because he can be
forgiven "if we confesses our sins," but if an unsaved person sins then
he is not OK, and because he doesn’t confess, he doesn’t get forgiveness
and is condemned. This is a doctrine of works. Confession is the work
and forgiveness is the reward. The "finished" work of Christ here is
completed by the believer’s confession. If forgiveness is in the
atonement at all, it was obtained at the cross. Faith, on the other
hand, is a work of God conferred at the time of believing. Confession is
only the outworking of a heart already seeking to please God. "If we
walk in the light…his blood (already) cleanses us." There is a godly
grief that works repentance and there is a sorrow for sins that works
death. If sins don’t stop, there is death (if ye live after the flesh,
ye shall die.) If godly repentance occurs, then sins stop. We may
sometimes even have a part in precipitating that repentance, "if a
brother be overtaken in a fault…) The difference between eternal life
and eternal death is an important responsibility toward our fellow man.
Let us stand together here, holy living only comes from KNOWING
the MOST HOLY ONE. If we can come to agreement on this important point,
then we can come to agreement on what is sin and what is not and go onto
greater things.
E-Mail Michael Mauck