mdemchsak

Fight the good fight of the faith. (I Tim 6:12)

Lord, grant me a greater faith to hold onto your precious promises.

We have been talking about the fact that the Christian life is a fight for holiness. In the last blog I discussed two principles that help us in this fight: 1) Understand that apart from Christ we are sinful and weak. 2) Rest in the work of Christ in us. Today I will focus on a principle that helps us do number 2.

Walk by faith, not by sight (II Cor 5:7). The Christian life is a life of faith. And one of the goals of Satan is to get us to live our lives without faith. That goal is not particularly difficult to achieve, for faith involves realities we can’t see, and distracting us from realities we can’t see is not a complicated task. Just show us something we can see.

God has done a new work in the life of the Christian. In Christ we are dead to sin and alive to God (Rm 6:1-11). In Christ we were washed, we were sanctified, we were justified (I Cor 6:11). These are truths we have already discussed, but the only way we can hold onto them is by faith. We do not exactly see with our eyes that we are clean in Christ. But we are. We see it only by faith. Nor do we see with our eyes that we are forgiven in Christ. But we are. We see it only by faith. Faith is how we hold onto what God has done. Faith sees that we are dead to sin. Faith sees that we were washed, sanctified and justified. Faith sees that we are new creatures. Faith sees that we have been perfected forever (Heb 10:14). Faith sees that we are saints in Christ. Faith sees that we are part of the radiant Bride of Christ. Faith sees that we are adopted children of God. Only by faith do we see our identity in Christ. This is crucial because it is this identity that helps us live in holiness.

So let’s get practical. When Satan deals with a genuine believer, he wants that believer to doubt the realities mentioned above, and in order to do this, he simply shows us realities we can see. And one of the biggest realities he shows us is our own sin. He has to be careful in his game, of course. When we are unaware of our sin, he will often do what he can to keep us blinded, but when we know we have sinned, he will use our knowledge against us. If Satan cannot tip the scales to the extreme of ignorance, he will then try to tip them in the opposite extreme and make us despair and doubt what God has done.   He is the accuser of the brethren.

So here is what Satan does. Let’s say, I get in an argument with my wife and demean her. Or let’s say a genuine believer gets caught up looking at pornography or finds in his heart an arrogant attitude or fails to help a destitute person or compromises her integrity at work or . . . fill in the blank. With a genuine believer who sees his sin, Satan wants to magnify that sin.   He puts it in big bold letters and thrusts it on a billboard in front of our face. That sin is now part of Satan’s marketing strategy for his own agenda. If we then say, “I am washed, I am sanctified, I am justified,” or if we say, “I am clean in Christ” or “I am part of a holy Bride,” Satan immediately puts the billboard before us in neon lights. He then says, “How can you say you are holy in Christ when you just treated your mother that way?” Or “Dead to sin in Christ Jesus? That Scripture must mean something else because you are quite alive to sin.” Or . . . you get the strategy. All he wants to do is make us doubt God’s Word.

It is precisely at this point that the believer has to choose what he or she believes. Do we believe what we seem to see? Or do we believe God’s Word?

We walk by faith, not by sight. If we are God’s people, we must hold onto what God says about our identity, and we must hold onto it even when we sin. Our sin is real. I am not denying it. But what Christ has done in us is also real, and that work has changed us.   A bride is no less a bride when she has a fight with her husband. Her standing in the home does not change.

Therefore, we fight Satan by faith, which means we fight the fight for holiness by faith.

This also means that when we sin, we must handle it a certain way. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins.” (I Jn 1:9) The first thing we must do is acknowledge our sin. We do not walk in holiness by denying sin. That’s what politicians do, and you see how well it works for them. Honest admission of our sin is crucial, but if we are in Christ, honest admission of our sin must never cripple our souls. If we confess, He forgives. We are now clean. If we are now clean, why can’t we be washed, sanctified, justified, perfected forever, a radiant bride, a saint, a child of God, dead to sin? The sin is gone. The sin is real, but the sin is wiped away. We hold onto forgiveness, sanctification, and all the rest only by faith.

When we let Satan make us doubt who we are in Christ, we hurt our ability to fight. The truths of what God has done are great weapons on our side. If we set them aside, it is like a soldier going into battle without a rifle. He will now charge the hill with his fists. That soldier is no threat to Satan. The billboard worked.

I have fought the good fight . . . (II Tim 3:7)

May I fight, O Lord, your fight — the fight for holiness.

Last week I discussed the fact that Christians are holy but mentioned as well that we still sin. Such talk may raise an eyebrow or two, for how exactly can holy people sin? Doesn’t holiness mean we don’t sin? To address this question, I want you to think of a bride at a wedding.   When she says, “I do,” she becomes a wife, and her identity changes for the rest of her life. At the wedding, she may have become a wife at a particular moment, but after the wedding she will spend the rest of her life learning how to live as a wife. Living with a man is not easy, and this new wife will quickly discover that fact.

Something like this is true of the Christian life. I have been discussing the fact that in Christ we have a new identity and that new identity includes the fact that we are holy. We are the Bride of Christ, and Christ gave himself up for his bride “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:26-7). Christ has already cleansed us. He made his bride holy so that she might be his bride, for Christ will not marry into sin. This is our identity. But this new identity does not mean that we live a perfect life. We now enter into the hard part — living out our identity. Just as a wife spends a lifetime learning how to better live out her roles and responsibilities, so do we as Christians spend a lifetime learning how to better live out our identity in Christ. This means struggle. Living in holiness is not easy, and the new Christian will quickly discover that fact.

Therefore, we are holy, but we are becoming holy. The first part of that statement is a fact we must rest in. The second part is the application of that fact. The first part is done. Christ has procured our holiness for us. The second part is yet to be lived. The writer to the Hebrews put it this way: “For by a single offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified” (Heb 10:14). In other words, the people who are becoming holy have already been made holy. Because we have been made holy, God now calls us into a fight. It is fight for holiness.

What then, are some principles for this fight? Here are a couple for this week, and we will discuss others in future blogs.

1. Understand that apart from Christ you are fallen. You are a broken creature, bent toward sin. You are weak, but sin is strong. If you think you can simply overcome sin by being strong, you have already lost the battle. You are like a cocky eight-year-old who thinks he can play in the NBA today. You are an alcoholic who thinks he can overcome alcoholism himself. You will never defeat sin by taking it on yourself. You need Christ. Without Christ, you lose. In Christ, you have already overcome. The fight is too big for you. You will win the fight only by the grace of God.

We cannot wage the battle for holiness in our flesh. This is one of the biggest mistakes Christians make in their fight. They fight in the flesh and with their own strength. “Are you so foolish?” Paul said. “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal 3:2) We understand that salvation is by grace through faith in the work of Christ, but we often then live as if sanctification is by our own good works. It is not. It, too, comes by grace through faith in the work of Christ.

This concept that we are weak doesn’t tell us so much how to fight; rather, it tells us how not to fight. But this lesson in how not to fight is crucial, for virtually everyone at some point tries to be holy in their own strength. In fact, most people have to beat their fists against the wall before they see that their efforts are futile in producing real holiness.

2.  Rest in what God has done. You are not just forgiven from your sin; you are dead to it in Christ (Rom 6:1-11). Hold onto that fact. It may seem strange when you sin to think that you are dead to sin, but if your faith in Christ is real, then you are dead to sin. Period. Even when you may sin. Satan will use your sin against you to make you think that God’s Word is ridiculous. He will say, “How can you consider yourself dead to sin when you are so alive to sin?” He will want you to focus on your behavior and then use your behavior to make you doubt your identity. He wants your behavior to be the foundation for who you are. He does not want Christ or His Word to be the foundation for who you are. Satan wants your behavior to drive your identity. God wants your identity to drive your behavior. If you want to see holy behavior in your life, you must hold on to your identity in Christ. That identity is the work of Christ in you. Christ has made you part of his spotless bride (Eph 5:26-7). He has made you a son or daughter of God Almighty (Rom 8:12-17). In Christ, you are dead to sin but alive to God. In Christ, you are cleansed, holy, sanctified (I Cor 6:9; I Pet 2:9). In Christ you are a new creature (II Cor 5:17). In Christ you are seated in heavenly places (Eph2:6). All of these things are God’s work. If you want to live in holiness, then start believing what God has done. If you doubt these truths, you cripple your ability to walk in holiness, for you are doubting the very Word of God.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (I Cor 6:9-11)

 Lord, you have made me new. Praise to your name. Now, by your grace, may I live new.

The Cross and Resurrection are powerful. They have changed us. We were hyenas. We are now men and women in Christ, a royal bride. This is our new identity, and it is a truth we must hold onto.

Now God is a realist.  He expects that a fish will swim, that a lion will eat meat, and that a bird will fly.  In other words, God expects a creature to live in accordance with its nature.  In this sense, God is no different with humans.  He expects people to live in accordance with who they are. Thus, He expects unconverted people to live like unconverted people, and He does not expect converted people to live like unconverted people. This means that when God converts us, He expects us to live a different way. The business of holiness is God’s business, which means that it must also be the business of everyone who follows Jesus. Salvation without a new life is not salvation. It may be a religious experience; it may make us feel good; but if we still live just as we used to live, or if we still live as the rest of our culture lives, who are we kidding? Holiness is the natural consequence of salvation. It is the common call for all disciples of Jesus. I need to talk some about this issue because people often misunderstand it, and sometimes for different reasons.

Some people, in their desire to emphasize the grace of God, make salvation nothing more than forgiveness. To them, any talk of holiness smells like earning our way to God. To them, holiness is a sort of code word for works righteousness. What they do not understand is that when salvation comes, we receive forgiveness by grace, but we receive a new life also by grace, and these benefits are a package deal. You can’t receive forgiveness without also receiving a new life. This means that holiness is not opposed to grace but is rather the fulfillment of grace. By grace God forgives our sins, and by grace He remakes us into new creatures. Once He remakes us, He expects that the new creature will live like one.

Others think that any talk of holiness somehow minimizes grace for a different reason. They look at the fact that Christians still wrestle with sin and conclude that holiness is not a reasonable expectation. If we talk about the importance of holiness, we might burden someone’s conscience and make him or her feel guilty for failing to measure up. The New Testament writers, however, had no problems mentioning holiness constantly. To them, holiness does not undercut grace or place an excessive burden on the disciple. Indeed, to them, holiness is the most normal and natural thing to talk about. It’s like teaching a boy to be a man. It is what you are called to, what you have been made for, and what you are growing into. It is your new nature. To neglect the teaching of holiness is to call people to an insipid mediocrity. To neglect the teaching of holiness is to deny the very thing we were made for. We are his workmanship, created for good works in Christ (Eph 2:10). To neglect the teaching of holiness is not from God. He has remade us, and He calls us to live out the new life He has made. God actually expects us to live in holiness.

We are to be holy because, in Christ, we are already holy. One of the operative words in the New Testament for a follower of Jesus is “saint.” It is used about 60 times, and means “one who has been sanctified” or “one who has been made holy.” Paul speaks to the Corinthians and says, “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (I Cor 6:11).   To Paul, the washing, sanctification and justification come as a package, and they are the foundation for living a new life.   Paul says that the Corinthian believers were once one type of people, but now they are a new type.  That’s why they are no longer sexually immoral or idolaters or thieves.  The natural consequence of a new identity is a new life.  In other words, holiness has already happened (v 11). In God’s sight, we are holy in Jesus Christ. Right now. The call to holiness, then, is nothing more than a call to be who you are. It’s like telling my son, “You are a Demchsak. Live like one.”

Thus, the man addicted to pornography must change; the woman who is so full of herself must die to self, and the person dominated by anxiety must trust God. These changes in lifestyle must take place because a change in identity has already taken place. We can no longer continue a life in sin because that is not who we are. We are one in Christ.

The idea that we can be in Christ and remain in sin is both inconsistent and treacherous.  To Paul, a lifestyle of sin disqualifies someone from the kingdom of God (I Cor 6:9).  It’s that serious.  Christ and sin do not mix. If we are in Christ, we begin to come out of sin. If, however, we are content to keep living in our sin, then we have good reason to think that we are not in Christ. If nothing changes in our life, then nothing likely ever changed in our salvation, for salvation brings a new life.

Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.  The venom of asps is under their lips.  Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.  Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.  There is no fear of God before their eyes.  (Rm 3:14-18)

Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.  He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.  (Rev 21:3)

Lord, we praise you for the depth of the change which you have wrought inside us. 

Look at the news today. Wars, murders, corporate greed, celebrity scandals, politicians quarreling like alley cats. I could go on. Sometimes it seems as if the human race is nothing more than a pack of hyenas.

Of course, we have a knack for distancing ourselves from all that. After all, the news is out there. It’s about all those other evil people, but it’s certainly not about me. I’m just a normal guy or an average girl, and I don’t make the news.

No.  You and I don’t make the news.  But it is precisely normal guys who look at pornography and average girls who turn their backs on their roommates. It is people who never make the news who slander you before your coworkers, lie to get an estate, or abuse their wives. All these behaviors are people acting like hyenas. It thus seems that the main difference between the news and us is that the news shows our behavior on a macro level. You know. The whining and corruption in Congress is how many of us behave when we don’t get what we want. Or sometimes the news shows our behavior taken to an extreme. The bitterness of a gunman who kills school children is an extreme version of the same bitterness many people have for that person who cheated them. Or sometimes the news merely shows our behavior in someone famous. After all, that scandal between the politician and the other woman? That’s how Bill lost his marriage, and Bill is just a normal guy. There are a million Bills out there flirting with the same thing, but the consequences haven’t stung them yet; and when they do, those men will never make the news. It seems then as if there is a bit of hyena in all of us. In one sense, the news is just a mirror for the heart.

So what are we to do then with the human heart? If you listen to the broader world speak, you would get the impression that the main solution is for people to simply be good. Now I’m all for being good, but the crucial question we must ask is “how do you make people good?” It is precisely here that Christianity and all other religions and philosophies part company, for Christianity insists that the human heart is really, in one sense, subhuman — that is, it is not what God intended the human heart to be. We are much closer to hyenas than we are to the heart of God. This is not an issue of behavior but of essence. Our problem is not what we do but who we are.

Other religions and popular secular moral thought revolve around the idea that people ought to be better and that we ought to do what we can to help them improve. Different systems have different ideas about how to do this, but they agree on the fundamental issue that we ought to make people better.

Jesus, however, has a fundamentally different approach. He is not trying to make people better. He makes people new. Most moral systems try to reform us. From a Christian perspective, this is like reforming a hyena.  No matter how “good” you make a hyena, it is still a hyena, and a “good” hyena sooner or later falls back to being a hyena. And no matter how pretty you dress up the human race — and contemporary culture works overtime to try and dress us up  — underneath it all we are corrupt. Faith in Jesus does not make us a better version of the same species. It creates an entirely new species. In Jesus, the old “you” is dead, and you become a new human — the type of human God originally intended.

One large misunderstanding people have about following Jesus is that they turn it into morality. They think that a Christian is someone who is nice to his neighbor, remains a virgin until marriage, stays off drugs, or is responsible at work. In short, they believe that being a Christian is nothing more than being good. Therefore, to follow Jesus, one must be good, and any person who is good is just as much a follower of Jesus as the next.

A second misunderstanding people have about following Jesus is that they define Christianity purely in terms of doctrine or church affiliation. They think that a Christian is someone who merely adheres to a particular creed or who belongs to a particular organization. People who think that this is what it means to follow Jesus sometimes divorce morality from their definition. To them, a pedophile may be just as much a follower of Jesus as St. Peter was. They have a low standard for their definitions.

The reality is that doctrine, participation in a church community, and morality are all aspects of following Jesus, but none of these things is the real issue. One can have any one or all of them without having any real faith. If Christianity is a marriage to Jesus, faith is the point at which we say, “I do.” Faith is where you stand at the altar and pledge your life. It is also where you entrust yourself daily to the One who has pledged His life to you. By faith, we enter into a union with Christ. By faith we walk daily in that union.

When we enter this union, we change. Christ will not marry a hyena — even a good one. He insists on a completely different kind of being, and He creates that being in us. He does this through death and resurrection — not just His own but ours as well. A Christian is someone who has died with Christ and who has been raised anew to live a new life (Rm 6:1-11; Gal 2:20; Col 3:1-3). In Christ you are a new creature. The old “you” is gone; all things have become new (II Cor 5:17).

It is something like this. If we were a car and Jesus the mechanic, He decides not to tinker with the engine to make it more reliable. He says that the engine is beyond salvage, removes the whole thing, and replaces it with a new one. If we were a house, and Jesus the contractor, He decides not to remodel but to replace. He says that the whole house is condemned, razes it to the ground, replaces the foundation and begins to build a new structure. The Christian word for this is “conversion.” It means much more than “be good” or “accept some teachings.” It means what it says. We have converted. We used to be one type of being; we are now a new type.

Jesus speaks in terms of being born again (Jn 3). A new birth begins a new life that has a new spiritual DNA. We are a new creature (II Cor 5:17).

Therefore, when we enter into this union with Christ, we receive a new identity just as in many cultures a bride receives a new identity when she marries. Our life changes, and we are no longer what we were. Now we belong to Jesus.

This is why a follower of Jesus lives in a new way, but the new life is not a product of the old human straining and striving to achieve a moral end. The new life is a product of a new DNA, a new person, a new identity, a new you. God is more interested in who you are than in what you do. He knows that behavior follows identity. If you change a wolf into a sheep, you change the essence, but when you change the essence, you also change the behavior. The new behavior is the natural result of the new identity.

Thus, Christianity has a different focus from everything else. The woman who follows Jesus is not trying to be good. She is merely trusting in the work of Christ within her.

Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (Jn 8:34-6)

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. (Rm 6:6)

You have freed me, O Lord! Hallelujah! I am free!

Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, and in doing so, he changed the course of history and improved the plight of millions of people, in his own day and in ours. But Scripture says that Christ has done something that far surpasses what Abraham Lincoln did. It says that Christ has freed the slaves. He has freed them from a bondage whose consequences are far worse than those of a nasty plantation owner. He has freed them from chains that they could never run away from, for these chains are in our own hearts. Scripture states that apart from Christ, we are slaves to sin, but the Son has set us free. Hallelujah! Scripture also tells us how this has happened. Christ has destroyed the bondage of sin through the Cross.

The Cross was a multi-faceted event. Christians say, “Jesus died for our sins,” and sometimes we say it so much that it becomes cliché. Many who say the words never allow the words to sink in. We need to see the glory of redemption. In the sight of God all our sins are gone. Praise be to His name.

But the Cross has done much more than redeem us and wipe away our sins. The Cross has actually changed who we are. It is not just that Jesus died for our sins. It is also that we died with Christ (Rm 6, Gal 2:20; Col 3). Our old self — the self that wants its own way — has been crucified. The heart that was steeped in sin has died, and the chains of sin have been broken. The bondage is gone because in Christ our old self has died. We are now free.

This is a transaction of a different sort. In the Cross, God offers not just a payment for sin and forgiveness. He also changes our very essence, for on the Cross, He destroys our old nature.

This transaction is the foundation for a holy life. When people are in bondage to their sinful selves, they are utterly incapable of living in righteousness. But Paul says that our old self was crucified with Christ and that we are dead to sin. Because this is true, he then concludes that we should not let sin reign in our mortal bodies (Rm 6:1-12). In Colossians, he says that we have died and our lives are now hidden with Christ in God. Therefore, we are to put to death all sorts of sins (Col 3:3-10). In both Romans and Colossians, Paul begins by telling us what God has done and concludes by telling us how we ought to live in light of what God has done. The Cross is the power through which God does this work. Thus, a righteous life is just as much a result of the Cross as forgiveness is. If we lean on the Cross for our forgiveness, we ought also lean on the Cross for power to live a right life.

The Cross is the power of God over sin. It is the ultimate Emancipation Proclamation. It frees us from our old master. We were in bondage to sin, enslaved to our own selfish desires, but the Cross destroys the chains by putting to death the old self. Through the Cross, sin is dead. Through the Cross, God says, “You are free from sin. Now live that way.”

This teaching is generally neglected in the church. People hear of Jesus’ substitutionary death and the pardon that comes with it fifty times more often than they hear of this, yet this is just as much a work of the Cross as that is. This part of the Cross prevents cheap salvation. When Paul teaches this doctrine, his purpose is to combat the idea that people in Christ can live in sin (Rm 6:1). God may forgive us, but that doesn’t mean we can live as we please. Paul is saying, in effect, “If you think you can live in sin, you don’t understand what happened on the Cross.”

It is no coincidence, then, when churches that neglect this teaching often breed shallow faith. “Just come to Jesus and His blood will cover your sins and God will forgive you.” That statement is gloriously true, but it is incomplete. Sometimes our message stops in Romans chapter 3, but Paul’s message doesn’t.   The good news is that in Christ, followers of Jesus are made right in the eyes of God AND made right in their very nature. Forgiveness and reconciliation are built upon the Cross. But so is a holy life. We are to live a certain type of life because, through the Cross, God has made us into a certain type of person.   Our slavery to sin is over. The Son has set us free.

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.  (Eph 5:31-2)

Lord Jesus … I do.

When a rich man marries a poor woman, the two become one.   They share one home, one life, one bed, one estate, and one purpose. As far as the law is concerned, everything the husband has belongs to the wife. His riches are hers. She may have come out of the slums, but now she is a duchess.

The Scriptures make the wild claim that the Christian is that poor woman who became a duchess.

Our original poverty is a result of our spiritual state in sin. Our natural home is a spiritual slum. It is a spiritually oppressive place, an ugly, smelly, dirty place, a hopeless place, though some entertain false hopes of earning their way out of it.   People build their little shanties and make things as pleasant as they can, but they were born in the slums, they live in the slums, and if they insist on their own way, they will die there. We are poor spiritually because we sin. Our sin has separated us from our God and has consequently left us only what we can contrive on our own. Our sin has corrupted our bodies and souls. It has brought sickness and death, bitterness and meaninglessness. In sin we lose our purpose, our peace, and our hope, for in sin we lose God, and all good things are tied up in God.

But God calls us out of these slums and into His riches, and the Christian enjoys abundant spiritual wealth, the result of a wondrous marriage we have entered into — the uniting of our souls to Christ. In Him, we share one life, one Spirit, one inheritance, and one purpose. As far as God is concerned, everything Christ has belongs to us. His riches are ours. We have, thus, moved from the spiritual slums to a spiritual palace. Our new identity takes on the name of our Groom. Our new life is a garden of righteousness. Our new home is filled with peace and joy, and hope reigns over our souls.

We do not have any of these riches because we have somehow earned our way out of the slums. The kingdom of God has no “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps” stories. We have these riches because we belong to Jesus and Jesus has these riches.

This marriage of my soul to Jesus — this new identity in Jesus — is the substance of what it means to be a Christian. We are married to Christ. We have died to the law that we might belong to him who was raised from the dead (Rm 7: 4). We may talk of all sorts of wonderful benefits that Scripture promises, but this is the source of them all. Everything we enjoy as Christians, we enjoy because of our union with Christ. We are in Him, and being in Him means that we have His riches. We are united with Christ in his death so that we share in his resurrection (Rm 6:5). In Christ we have received every spiritual blessing in heavenly places (Eph 1:3). In Him, we are chosen to be holy and blameless (Eph 1:4). In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins (Eph 1:7). In Him, we see God’s great and mysterious purpose (Eph 1:9). In Him, we are united together (Eph 1:10). In Him we receive an inheritance unspeakable (Eph 1:11). In Him, we receive God’s Holy Spirit (Eph 1:13). In Him, we do not live under condemnation (Rom 8:1).

The real Gift of God is not forgiveness or peace or love or holiness. The real Gift of God is a union with Christ, or to put it another way, a union with God Himself. All of these other gifts are byproducts. They are certainly glorious, but their glory is itself a reflection of the glory of God. God is the real prize.

God has given us Himself, and He has done so in Jesus Christ. When we marry Jesus, we receive everything that Jesus has. All good gifts are in Christ. “This is the message. God has given us eternal life and that life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (I Jn 5:12-13).

Thus, the key to life is not to pursue life. The key to joy is not to pursue joy. The key to holiness is not to pursue holiness. The key to all these things is to pursue Jesus. If we pursue life for ourselves, we miss Jesus, and when we miss Jesus, we miss life. Life is in Jesus. When we have Jesus we have everything. When we miss Jesus we miss out on everything.

Let’s be clear. Christianity is not primarily about forgiveness, love, joy, or righteousness. It is about Jesus. And in Him, God grants us forgiveness, love, joy, and righteousness. In Christ we are rich.

All these things mean that Jesus is the prize. When a man marries a woman, he desires a true response from her. He would be a fool to marry a woman who was only trying to get at his bank account or his villa in Switzerland. When a woman marries a man, the main prize needs to be the man. Those who marry for money or status or fame or whatever are phony. In the same way, Jesus will have nothing to do with people who prize his riches above him. He must be the prize. He desires us to unite with him, not to unite primarily with forgiveness or freedom. Those things are good, but they are just part of the estate. We receive them when we join ourselves to Christ.

This idea that God is willing to unite with us in marriage would be insane if God had not said it Himself. If I had come up with the idea, you would think I was crazy. Indeed, often those who hear of earthly marriages between a wealthy man and a poor woman think the man to be out of his mind. This marriage, however, exceeds those by an infinite degree, for the separation between God and us is light years beyond the separation between two social classes.  Consequently, the riches we enjoy in Christ far exceed the riches of earth, for I would rather have the peace of Christ than all the money in the world.

Jesus lifts us from the spiritual slums and takes us for himself. He comes to us and proposes. He says, “Would you have me as your Lord?” We say “yes” by faith, for when we have genuine faith, we have given to him our pledge and our all.

Christ died for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God (I Pet 3:18).

For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (II Cor 5:21).

These Scriptures give a picture of the great transaction that lies at the heart of the gospel. Remove the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and there is no gospel. God died for us. The death of Christ paid the penalty for our sins. Now we are free in the eyes of the law.

But not everyone likes this idea. Here are some objections people sometimes raise.

1) This transaction of removing sin through the Cross is not fair. If we are the ones who sinned, then we ought to be the ones who pay. It is not fair to have someone else pay for our sin. After all, we do not allow someone to go to jail in place of the criminal. He must serve his own time.

True enough. But our criminal justice system does take checks. If you violate the law and incur a $500,000 penalty you cannot pay, a wealthy man who loved you could write a $500,000 check and you would be free. Is that fair?

Now if someone put a gun to the wealthy man’s head and said, “Write that check,” that would have been unfair.   But Jesus went to the Cross willingly out of love. No one forced him; He freely laid down his life. And if the wealthy man freely wrote the check out of love, we would not call it unfair either.

But this objection does not see reality either.  You see, if we wish to be strict about it, then I’m afraid we shall not be able to pay for our sin. The price is too great. We are like a two-year-old with a trillion dollar debt. We are, thus, left with this dilemma. We could think ourselves noble and insist we pay what we could never pay. Or we could accept the transaction on our behalf. God has written the check. We are certainly free to say, “No thanks. I’ll pay it myself,” but that would be a bit foolish. Headstrong too. Here is someone lovingly offering to give us a gift and genuinely desiring us to take it, but we turn him down with some high notions that we can do what He did. That is not noble. That is arrogant.

Finally, this objection is built upon the notion of works. We must work our way to God. We must earn what we get. This is why Muslims so often raise this objection, for Islam is based on works. If somehow, however, we were to earn our way to God, then God would actually owe us something. No! A thousand times no! This, too, is arrogance. The gospel of God is based on grace. God gives us what we could never have otherwise. It takes humility to admit this fact and to say, “Thank you.” Sometimes receiving a gift is harder than giving one, especially for prideful people.

2) If God is so great and loving, then why does he need a transaction to forgive? Why all the drama? Why not just forgive and be done with it?

There was once a judge who presided over the court of a small town. He was such a merciful judge that whenever he found a criminal guilty, he simply issued a decree of forgiveness and wiped away the penalty. What do you think of that judge?

The idea that God should just forgive and be done with it asks God to be that judge. It asks God to ignore justice. If God forgives without any payment for sin, God is unjust. In that sense, this objection is naïve.

The real situation of redemption is more like this. There was once a judge who presided over the court of an entire province. Since he was the only judge for the province, he saw every case. One day his teenage son stood before him, accused of stealing. After hearing the case, the judge concluded that his son was guilty. He ordered that his son pay the penalty for his crime — restitution to the offended party up to five times what the son had stolen. The son, of course, had no way to pay the penalty and was facing the prospect of debtor’s prison for a long, long time. That night when the father was home, he filled a bag with gold from his personal treasure, and the next day when he went to court, he paid the court treasurer in full the amount that he had ordered his son to pay.

That is the story of redemption.

The transaction is necessary not only because it is just but also because it shows great love. The Cross demonstrates the love of God far more clearly than a vague “just forgive and be done with it.” In the parable, we see the judge’s love for his son through the transaction. If the judge had merely “forgiven” his son and written off the penalty, we would not view the action as loving. Those who say that God can just forgive and be done with it don’t have much of a god left. Who wants to worship that judge? “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rm 5:8).

3) This idea of a sacrifice for sins is ancient and barbaric. Surely we cannot in today’s sophisticated world believe such nonsense.

In response to this objection, I almost don’t know what to say, for this objection doesn’t attempt to make any arguments. It simply assumes that modern ideas are superior to ancient ones. This is what C.S. Lewis called chronological snobbery. This objection avoids any intelligent discussion by lumping an idea into the category of ancient and barbaric. It is a cultural argument. What if someone said that the idea of a certain black man is absurd because it came from a backward African culture?  You would clearly reject the rationale and rightly so.  OK.  This objection does the same thing.   Ancient cultures are not necessarily inferior to modern ones. To say that they are betrays an arrogant prejudice and says more about the person raising the objection that it does about the actual merits of the Atonement.

. . . and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rm 3:24)

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of his grace. (Eph 1:7)

. . . it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. (Gal 2:20)

Father, I thank you for the Cross, for through it I have riches that this world cannot touch. 

 Sometimes the Bible uses fancy words to describe what God has done. Justification, redemption, reconciliation, and regeneration are some of those words. I want to explain these ideas in common terms and show how all of them are tied together.

Redemption is the work Jesus did on the Cross in which his death paid what you and I justly owe. It is a spiritual transaction. In a sense, God paid a great price to purchase the human race out of her sin. He then issued a contract that reads something like this:

From: God Almighty, Creator of the universe

To: the human race

 Let it be known that your ways are not my ways. You are enslaved to sin and dwell in the slums of sin with no way out. I will have no sin in my presence.

 Let it also be known, however, that I have loved you with an everlasting love and do not desire you to remain where you are. Therefore, I offer you the following proposal:

I have paid the price to purchase you out of your sin. That price consists of the blood of my Son. On the Cross, I have freed you.  I will freely apply this transaction to all who accept it — to all who put their faith in my Son. They shall then belong to me and I to them. Before the law, they shall be clean, and they shall freely enter into my presence as my children. They shall be free from the chains of their sin and enjoy a new life as the Bride of Christ.

Redemption has purchased us out of the slums. This redemptive transaction is the ground for justification (Rm 3:24) and forgiveness. (Eph 1:7). Justification deals with the Law and makes us right before the Law. It is a justice issue. Legally, all who rely on the redemptive transaction of the Cross are clean because their Guilt has been atoned for. Forgiveness deals with reconciliation and restores our relationship with God. It is a relational issue. All who rely on the redemptive transaction of the Cross now belong to God. They are restored legally because Christ has paid their penalty. They are restored relationally because they are now united relationally to Christ.

Regeneration simply means “new life.” Those who enter into the contract with God — those who rely on the gracious transaction of the Cross — receive a new life. The old life in the slums of sin is gone; the new life in Christ has begun. New life is made possible by redemption, for redemption unites us to Christ.

All of these gifts — legal justification, personal forgiveness and reconciliation, a new life, and the redemption through the Cross — are inseparable. Each is a different aspect of our union with Christ, for when we say “yes” to God’s proposal of redemption, we are simultaneously saying “yes” to a union with Christ. We belong to him. “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.” (I Cor 6:19-20)

“… and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” (Rm 3:24-5)

Praise, You, O Lord! My guilt is gone through the blood of the Cross!

This week’s blog continues the last one. If you haven’t read the last one, scroll down.

In the last blog, I mentioned that real Guilt involves relational brokenness and justice. When we sin, we justly deserve punishment and we harm our relationship with God. Therefore, any attempt to deal with Guilt properly, must deal with both those issues. God will not simply wave His hand and forgive our Guilt to restore the relationship, for such hand waving ignores justice, and God is just. But neither will God execute a just punishment in a cold manner devoid of any relational meaning, for such a punishment ignores love, and God is love. When God deals with our Guilt, He does so in a just way and a loving way.

God has released justice through the blood of the Cross (Rm 3:24-6), and He has brought reconciliation through the blood of the Cross (Col 1:20). In Jesus, God has removed your Guilt. He has done so with complete justice, and any payments or debts you may owe because of your Guilt are gone. The Cross took care of those. Justice has been served. Therefore, the barrier that your Guilt brought between you and God is destroyed. In doing this, God offers you reconciliation. He says, “Come. I will forgive your sin.  Abide in my presence.”

This action of God is precisely the thing that we could never do ourselves, and it deals directly with the real issue — our sin. The follower of Jesus experiences this reconciliation, this forgiveness, by faith. Therefore, the Christian way of dealing with Guilt is to acknowledge it and bring it by faith to the Cross, which destroys it. The Christian may sin at times, but before God, all the sin is gone.

We are free from Guilt through Christ, and it is this freedom that allows us to rejoice in a real way. Our joy is not the deceptive comfort of hiding our Guilt. It is the full realization that we are more Guilty than we know but that we have been released from it because Christ has died. Praise Him!

This freedom from Guilt then affects our feelings of guilt. The Cross is the antidote to Aunt Georgina (see previous blog). Christians have no business bashing themselves on the head for a Guilt that is gone. I do not mean Christians should never feel remorse. I mean simply that they should never wallow in it. Their sin is gone. It is not just hidden from their eyes through some rhetorical trick. It is completely obliterated by the love of God. When Aunt Georgina grasps that fact, she is a different woman. She may still wrestle and struggle with her orientation to guilt. We do live, after all, in a fallen world. But she is not the same Georgina. When her heart and mind fully grasp the fact that all her real Guilt is gone, the inappropriate feelings of guilt begin to disappear. “If God has forgiven me for the time I cheated in chemistry and for the sexual relationship I had with Aaron, then why am I worrying about towels?” Aunt Georgina is clean in Jesus Christ, and she ought to think accordingly.

The Christian way of handling feelings of guilt is not to deny real Guilt but to deal with it through the Cross. Because the Christian way actually deals with the real problem, it produces real peace from the inside out and not just a contrived peace built on blindness.

Christians are righteous in God’s eyes because God has made them righteous through the Cross. The theological term for this act is “justification,” and we have been justified not by our good works or by our religious rituals but only by faith in Jesus and the work He did on the Cross. Justification comes in Christ. We “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Rm 3:24) We are made right for the simple fact that we are in Christ. Justification is part of our union with Christ, and when we enter into that union, our relationship with God changes. Sin and Guilt are destroyed. We are clean and right in his sight because we are in Christ, and Christ is clean and right. We are made right by faith because we are united with Christ by faith. Justification and the removal of our Guilt are part of the package of being in Christ. Praise Him! By faith, your Guilt is gone.

… holding faith and a good conscience (I Tim 1:19)

… the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared … (I Tim 4:2)

May I, by your grace, O Lord, have a clean conscience in Christ, for you have taken my guilt and thrown it into the depths of the sea.

I bet you have someone in your family like Aunt Georgina. She feels guilty when she dries her hands on the wrong towel in the bathroom at Uncle Bob’s house. She apologizes when she gives Christmas gifts because she wasn’t sure what you wanted. Her conscience troubles her when her dog innocently scares a neighbor by licking him in the face. Normally, she is pleasant enough, but every now and then her feelings get the best of her and she feels so depressed about something she did that she can’t relate properly to anyone in the family. Her guilt incapacitates her.

Likely, you’ve also seen Charles Jackson. He cheats on his wife, and when discovered says, “Come on! This is the 21^st century!” He constantly berates his children and justifies himself by saying, “I had to teach them what was right.” He defames a coworker to get her job and concludes, “That’s the way the world works.”

Aunt Georgina seems to feel guilty when a gnat lands on her plate, while Charles Jackson doesn’t seem to feel anything when he unjustly divorces his wife. He has a convenient explanation for everything, and remorse never touches his soul.

Aunt Georgina and Charles Jackson are both dealing with guilt, but they are doing it in different ways. Guilt is a human thing. No matter where you go you find it, and you and I all wrestle with it.

Now the first key to dealing with guilt is to understand that we use the word in different ways. The first way we use the word is to refer to real guilt, which I will label “Guilt.” Guilt refers to real moral wrong. Charles Jackson had Guilt when he cheated on his wife. The second way we use the word refers to feelings of guilt, which I will label “guilt.” Aunt Georgina had guilt when she dried her hands on the wrong towels.

Problems occur when Guilt and guilt do not correspond. In other words, if we have no real Guilt but we feel guilty, that is a problem. Or if we have real Guilt but feel nothing, that, too, is a problem. Feelings of guilt are not necessarily unhealthy. What is unhealthy is when the feelings and the reality don’t match. We should feel guilt appropriate to our real Guilt.

Now, feelings of guilt often come with other feelings like shame, embarrassment, depression, and inferiority. Consequently, most people don’t enjoy feeling guilty — even the Aunt Georginas of the world. The human race has, thus, concocted some clever ways to shirk these feelings.   Generally, this involves denying Guilt, a skill which most of us have become adept at. We do this in different ways. Sometimes we simply redefine right and wrong. If we redefine what real Guilt is, then we are free to engage in our behavior without any of those inconvenient feelings. Sometimes we do not redefine Guilt but justify it with excuses a mile long. We agree that one should tell the truth, but that time we called in sick when we weren’t sick was a special situation. And besides, everyone else does it. Our excuses can be quite clever, and we generally believe them, so that we rescue our souls from those monstrous feelings of remorse.

The problem with these efforts is that they are self-centered, arrogant, and dishonest. We do not have the authority to redefine Guilt. That is God’s job, not ours. He sets the standards. We don’t. We can certainly label things right and wrong, and our labels can come close to or be far from reality, but we cannot change the reality. Imagine for a moment a man who cheated on his taxes and tried to get out of it by redefining tax law. He can’t to do that. He doesn’t get to write the law. And neither do we get to decide what real right and wrong are. Second, when we justify our Guilt with excuses, we paint ourselves to be prettier than we are. It is false advertising, and usually the ones we most deceive with our advertising are ourselves.

These sorts of practices will not do. We fool ourselves into feeling good. We hold up Aunt Georgina and say, “We don’t want to be like her,” but in our efforts to flee Aunt Georgina, we turn ourselves into Charles Jackson. Many people have no feelings of guilt because they don’t believe they have any Guilt. They proclaim “Peace, peace” when there is no peace. These sorts of efforts to hide Guilt are dysfunctional, deceptive, and sinful in their own right. They are nothing more than a cover up.

Now the Christian way of dealing with Guilt is quite different from these natural ways. The Christian way begins by acknowledging our Guilt. In one sense, this is just a matter of being truthful about who we are. The moment, however, we acknowledge our Guilt, we can begin to deal with it. People who hide it behind fancy definitions and excuses are never able to deal with it. They don’t even know it is there. And the thing about Guilt is that it doesn’t just go away, and it always involves real life. Guilt is not an idea floating in the sky like a runaway balloon. It is mixed with Earth. It deals with a rebellious attitude we had, some harsh words we spoke, a person we hurt, a defilement of our own body. Guilt insists on being as real as dirt. If we clean it up and pretend there is no dirt, if we treat Guilt as a vague feeling not tethered to reality, we never heal. The Christian way wants to deal with the real issues and not sweep them under the carpet.

Dealing with Guilt in a healthy way involves making things right, and the first place we must do this is with God. After all, when we sin, it is His law we have violated. When we harm another, we have harmed a soul He made. When we defile our own bodies, we defile His creation. Every wrong we do, we do against God. Therefore when we sin, we need to make things right with God just as a child who disobeys his father must deal with his father.  Thus, all sin, no matter who it involves on earth, involves our heavenly Father whom we have disobeyed. Consequently, we must make things right with God.

The Christian way, however, is honest enough to see that you and I cannot truly make amends to God. It is too expensive. God is not Mrs. Johnson next door. He is an eternal and infinite King. He is a consuming fire. Justice surrounds His throne, and Guilt and justice can be an expensive mix. Real Guilt does not just deal with life issues. It is itself a justice issue. Therefore, the Christian way acknowledges not just our own Guilt, but the just judgment of God against it. People who say that hell is a cruel doctrine do not understand their own sin.