Grace for Sinners

 

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  Ephesians 2:8 – 9

 

God is holy. I am sinful.

In Jerry Bridge’s book, “The Transforming Power of the Gospel, he lays out the gospel in the first couple of chapters.  He describes the holiness of God and the sinful nature of man.  Then, he details the forgiveness of sin in the sacrifice of Christ.  It is very clear that our sin was placed on Jesus and died with Him.  In exchange for that we receive His righteousness.  When God, in all His holiness, looks at the believer in Jesus Christ, He sees the righteousness of Christ.  All sin; past, present, and future has been removed as far as the East is from the West.  These are basic truths of the Christian faith.

1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Most Christians understand sin and would say we believe that God forgives us.  What we fail to see is that when we are  “cleansed from all unrighteousness” it was once for all time in the eyes of the Lord.  The faithful believer does not have to continue to atone for sin.  Confess and turn from – yes.  Atone for – already done by Christ.

But, when we know what sin looks like, we feel “icky” when we commit it.  We take on more ministry, and we won’t say “no” to anyone because we think that God will like us more and look past our sin if we “make it up to Him.”

A man on the street I was witnessing to some years ago explained it like this: “Life is a straight line with a ladder that goes up and down across it.  Every time I do something ‘good’ I go up a couple of steps.  Every time I do something ‘bad’, I go down a couple of steps.  When I die, if I am closer to heaven, that’s where I’ll go and if I am closer to Hell, that’s where I will go.”

This is lousy theology but I guess it was good he was thinking about it.

We will all do good things and we will all sin.   Even the Apostle Paul expressed how he did the things he didn’t want to do and failed to do the things he wanted to do.  When that happens we should confess the sin to our Holy God who will then cleanse us from our unrighteousness.  We cannot atone for our sin with works..  When we try that we diminish the glory of the Lord in His forgiveness of our sin….He said that we will not earn our way to heaven by works – but by His grace….

First in our salvation, and then, in His ongoing grace in continuing to see us through the righteousness of Christ.

Have you and I been trying to work our way into God’s good graces – when He has already made the way and provided the grace?