Holiness, Sin and Forgiveness (Part 2)

Announcer: Welcome to Sword of the Spirit; Written and presented by Colin Dye, Senior Minister of Kensington Temple and leader of London City Church.  Sword of the Spirit is a dynamic teaching series equipping the believers of today to build the disciples of tomorrow.  We pray that you find these programs inspiring and a catalyst in deepening your knowledge of God, your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and your intimacy with the Holy Spirit.

Colin Dye: Hello and welcome to the Sword of the Spirit, a school of ministry in the Word and the Spirit.  We’re talking about “Salvation by Grace,” and really that’s the heart of the Christian message, that God is rich in grace and mercy and that His mercy is found in Jesus Christ.  A little later on in this series, we’ll be talking about how Jesus offered His life as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world so that we could receive God’s grace personally and individually in our hearts when we put our faith and trust in Jesus.  But right now we’re studying why it is necessary to receive God’s grace.  Without God’s grace we would have no hope, the Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  That means that there isn’t any single person born into this world that is born without sin that does not live without sin that’s why we all need God’s grace and mercy we all need to be forgiven.

So we’ve seen how sin is universal to everybody, in fact there’s only one person who has never sinned and His name is Jesus the Christ.  Even all of the prophets sinned, only Jesus never sinned.  But the rest of us have sinned, that’s why we need God’s grace.  We’ve also been seeing how that sin isn’t just what we do outwardly; it has also to do with our internal attitudes because you see it’s a question of what is going on in the heart.  The prophet Jeremiah said that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.  So sin begins from the inside and then we begin to express it by the things that we do that displease God that’s why we need God’s grace.

Now we’re gonna look at how sin slaves us, enslaves us to the taskmaster, Satan.  Sin is enslavement to Satan, which is God’s enemy.  Sin is a slave master and He created us to be free!  Sin is rebellion against God and He created us to be in holy submission and in relationship with Him.  Sin is alienation from God, He created us for Him and sin destroys that.  Sin is unbelief in God.  Sin is blindness and darkness towards God.  Sin is lawlessness and rejection of God’s standards.  Sin is indebtedness to God its falsehood about God its deviation from God its disobedience to God it merits condemnation by God and it leads to death and eternal separation from God.

No wonder the Bible makes it very clear that sin is against God.  Look at Second Thessalonians chapter one and verse nine, these shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the prescience of the Lord and from the glory of His power.  We often use that verse to show that sin brings eternal punishing.  It, Hell is not some eternal nothingness, something that evaporates eventually, some annihilation, some extinction of the being.  Hell, the Lake of Fire is forever.  But we often teach, use this verse to teach that and to show the horror of it being the exclusion from the presence of the Lord but let’s look at it from God’s angle.  God watches His creation taken away from Him.  The purpose of His creation being foiled forever and lost forever, O yes, sin affects God, it is in fact ultimately and primarily and supremely against God.

Now in our study of sin we find that the Bible teaches, no man or woman has ever with the single exception of Jesus, lived up to that standard, nobody has ever matched God’s ideal standard.  Now, humanity rebelling against God has disobeyed God’s laws and therefore has allowed itself to come into a bondage to sin from which it cannot escape by its own efforts.  Nobody’s lived up to the standard, we all have fallen short, no as a result and these are very key statements here for our understanding of the doctrine of God’s grace, as a result, humanity is blind to its potential and it’s ignorant of God.  It’s most clearly expressed by the human refusal to believe in Christ, who alone can rescue us from sin and reconcile us with God and restore us to our rightful state.

So therefore, we see on the one hand we are trapped in sin, in a prison out of which there is no escape, no self effort, there’s no way whatsoever that we can be free from this.  Now let’s turn around and say, “well I don’t think that adds up because if that were the case how could we be responsible for our actions if we cannot believe in God?”  “If we cannot live a holy life if we cannot believe in Jesus if our minds are ignorant of God, how could we possibly carry any responsibility for our actions?”  But there is no dodging the issue; the Bible teaches very clearly that we are responsible for our actions.  In Genesis chapter three we find how Adam and Eve tried to evade their own responsibility, Adam the husband blamed Eve the wife, she passed the blame onto the snake.  Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent but God held them responsible.

Now since that time humanity has always been trying to blame someone or something else for their sin, genes, I’m not talking about Levi’s now I’m talking about your genetic components, hormones, your upbringing, society, circumstances and so on.  Despite this, every legal system on the earth today had been based on the assumption that we are free to choose and responsible for our choices.  Some argue that we are merely animals and we are at the mercy of our instincts, others maintain that we are genetically programmed and therefore we can’t be expected to respond any differently.

Now the truth is that we do acknowledge in our general understanding, even in human consciousness that there is a free agency about the human personality.  We are free agents with choice and personal responsibility.  All human persuasion, politics, education, advertising, evangelism, all human praise, all-human blame assume the concept of personal choice and responsibility.  Now the Bible recognizes that there is a choice between the pressures, there is a tension rather between the pressures that influence our choices and the responsibility that we have in taking the actions that we do and holding the attitudes that we have.

In teaching that we have inherited a fallen human nature from Adam, the Scripture acknowledges that we are slaves of the sinful nature.  We’re slaves of the world; we’re slaves of its ideas and its demonic forces.  And the Scriptures also show that we, that God understands these pressures that are upon us as human beings.  As a result, He is patient He is gentle with us and doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve.  And He distinguishes between the sins that we sometimes commit in ignorance and those sins, which we commit deliberately, but the Bible does not restrict its understanding of sin to deliberate choices against known external standards no, sin in the Scripture is far more inward than that.

But oh yes, God does remember our frame, He remembers that we are dust and at the same time however He does not negate our responsibility for our actions.  God’s Word makes it plain that we are totally morally responsible beings.  Is stresses of course, we have free choice and urges us to obey God and corrects us when we disobey Him.  We do have the responsibility for our choice, “choose this day whom you are going to serve,” Joshua says.

So the Bible holds in creative tension these two parallel truths, on the one hand God’s sovereignty, on the other hand our human responsibility and in human thinking, human philosophy these two things are like opposite poles or like, like poles in a magnet that they repel, they repel and so you have these two truths shot apart.  On the one hand you are stretched in the direction of hyper developed Calvinism on the other hand you’re stretched in the other direction of rampant armenianism and usually you pull in one direction or the other.  It’s so difficult it takes supernatural strength and wisdom and insight to take these two seemingly opposing forces and in the wisdom, strength and power of God bring them together.

But that’s what we must do that’s what we must do!  We tend to fall too much on the one or on the other, whatever theology I’ve ever seen sketched out either falls too much on the one side or the other side.  It’s so difficult to bring these two truths together and in Heaven we’re going to see them wonderfully together.  Let me show you two verses that the Bible gives us Jesus teaching to show you how these two truths are put side by side like parallel tracks that a train runs on.  John chapter five and verse forty, here we have Jesus teaching He says, “but you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”  On the one hand He clearly acknowledges He’s talking about human nature in general not just a particular group of people, you are not willing to come to Me.  Then in chapter six and verse forty-four He says, “no one can come to Me unless the Father sent Me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day.”  On the one hand He says, “you are not willing,” then on the other hand He says, “you are not able.”  Do you understand the difference?  In other words, you are not willing, you are making a choice against Me that you are not, you are choosing you are exercising your free will and saying, “I don’t want You I don’t want God.”  That’s your choice, that’s your responsibility but then He acknowledges  that there is a human nature that is driving that choice and that human nature lacks the ability to lay hold of God, “you are not willing and you are not able.”

Very, very powerful parallels there so, but we thank God that the will not and the cannot are overcome by God’s willingness to save and His power to save.  And in one of the sections later on we’re going to look at this tension in a little bit more detail.  But we must not minimize the preciousness of the gift of personal responsibility; it’s the gift of God’s sovereign grace.  He’s  given us a gift that makes us uniquely human, He doesn’t say, “I’m gonna save you and just grab you and take you, throw you into Heaven,” He works on your heart to bring you to the point where you exercise your choice in His favor.

It’s that gift that makes us uniquely human, I believe moral freedom and responsibility is the essence of humanity and it’s the essential explanation of the rationale for the day of judgment and God’s justice in His dealings with un in the world.  Ultimately though we are not personally responsible for our actions and attitudes there could be no meaning for judgment.  But this shows us that despite our inherited fallen nature despite the power of Satan despite the pressure of upbringing and social environment, we are personally responsible for every sinful thought we’ve ever had, every sinful deed our disobedience our presumption and for all our choices and decisions we’ve ever made or taken.  That’s human sinfulness.

Now we contrast that with the divine holiness and now we build up then the need for salvation remember sin is that immovable object that meets the irresistible force of the wrath of God because of His holiness?  Now, in some of the earlier studies that we’ve done, knowing the Father and knowing the Spirit we teach and show you that the Bible presents God as the Triune God and He is essentially holy, God the Father is holy God the Son in holy God the Spirit is holy.  And we looked at this concept of holiness to understand that holiness essentially means separation, God in the first instance is infinitely, totally separated from His creation, He is the Transcendent One but also He is holy in as much as He is totally separate from all that is evil and all that is sinful.

So, there’s more teaching on holiness here in this section in the manual but as I’ve covered it in some of the other manuals I’ll treat it, I’ll move on but I want you to make sure that you go back to that and study it in detail.  So sin is therefore essentially incompatible with God’s full nature, holiness is not just one aspect of God’s nature, you can’t say, “that’s the holy bit,” no, all of God is holy.  In fact, holiness is everything that is God that makes Him different from everybody else and everything else including His creation.  He is the eternal uncreated being, so sin therefore is against everything that is God.  God is so holy that sin affects God in every part of His being because there is not one part of His being that is not thoroughly, totally, infinitely holy.  The Bible makes it clear that nobody can set eyes upon God’s face and live and even those who glimpse His glory are unable to endure the sight.  Moses, at the burning bush, God says, “take your shoes off, it’s holy ground,” and Moses was afraid to look upon God, Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter six, “woe is me, I’m undone!”  Peter, in Luke chapter five and verse eight, depart from me Lord I’m a sinful man.  Oh yes, sin cannot survive in the presence of God.

Now here is a very, very significant part of the teaching, this is something that is missing from modern mentality.  Many liberal theologians struggle at this particular point, which is where I’m going to underline it.  We must understand what response sin draws from a holy God and if we don’t understand that we’re not going to understand salvation by grace.  We’re not going to understand we’re the need for salvation we’re not going to understand why the cross was necessary for salvation.

What is God’s holy response to sin; it’s called His wrath, anger, His wrath.  Now, God’s wrath, His anger is nothing like human anger, think of some of the weaknesses of human anger, its unjust, it flares up, its capricious it’s not fair you know.  Somebody that you like you let them get away with murder and somebody you don’t like they can’t drop a pin without you exploding.  But God isn’t like that; God’s wrath isn’t like human wrath selfish, self-centered easily provoked.  No, God’s wrath is nothing like human anger, God’s wrath is His holy inability to coexist with sin.  God’s wrath is the impossibility of God coexisting with sin because His nature is so holy and therefore God’s wrath also is His continuous condemnation of sin, by its nature, God’s holiness always exposes sin and God’s wrath always opposes it.  So God’s holiness exposes sin and God’s wrath opposes.  That’s what it’s like to be in the presence of God sin is exposed and opposed, exposed and opposed by God’s wrath.  So there is no escaping it, sin cannot approach God and God cannot tolerate sin.

Now the Bible uses four pictures four metaphors to underline this truth, for example God is often identified as High or the Most High.  This name expresses His transcendence, God often warns us not to come too close to Him.  He also warns us at times that God is described in terms of unapproachable light and all consuming fire.  God’s rejection of evil is occasionally likened to the human body’s rejection of poison by vomiting.  God cannot tolerate sin and hypocrisy; they are so utterly repulsive to Him that He must expel them from His presence.

And so, here we discover God’s purpose in showing us the depths of the depravity of the nature of sin, look at those four pictures again at your leisure and you will see God says, “keep your distance, I’m a High and Holy One keep your distance.”  He says, “you can’t approach Me I am Light that will dazzle you, you can’t touch Me and if you do I will reject you like I would vomit you out.”  That’s what He’s talking about when He’s talking about sin.

So these metaphors illustrate the complete incompatibility of holiness and sin as a result of the totality of God’s nature His holiness God cannot be in the presence of sin if sin approaches Him too closely its either consumed or repulsed.  So our understanding of God must include this revelation that He hates evil is disgusted by it is angered it and cannot accept it.  And our understanding of salvation must incorporate both the gravity of sin and the brightness of God’s glory as holiness.

We will not appreciate our need of the cross because as you can see, the cross is the answer to all of this.  But we will not appreciate our need of the cross if we minimize sin or think of it in terms of rare excusable lapses.  “Well to err is human I just made a mistake and I’m not so bad really.”  No, no, no, no sin is rather is constant rebellion it’s that settled innate inborn nature which opposes God and we’ll also be puzzled at the meaning of the cross and if we think of God as a kind of indulgent Father rather than an indignant Creator, sin, holiness but thank God for forgiveness.  When we grasp the seriousness of our sin and the full extent of our personal responsibility then we can begin to understand the wonderful grace of forgiveness.  When we understand the awesome magnificence of God’s holiness and the full extent of the wrath against sin we’re beginning to wonder, how can forgiveness really be possible.  When we see God’s absolute resolute hatred of sin and the wrath which must be provoked and come as a result then it’s natural for us to say, “well, you know how can God ever forgive?”

In my notes I write that its sometimes easier for us to think of how God could create the world and even raise Jesus from the dead then it is to think of how He could save the lost sinner when we fully understand the implications of what we’re covering this morning.  Human sin and divine wrath both stand in the way of our salvation.  God must respect us as the responsible beings that He’s made us in His image but He must also act consistently with His own nature, as a perfectly holy God.

Now in the subsequent sessions we’re going to be seeing how this puzzle is resolved and how He has accomplished our salvation in Christ on the cross and by His grace.  But the amazing thing is this that God will forgive every aspect of human nature.  Hamartia, that, that falling short Paraptōma, that stumbling, parabasis, that deliberate crossing the line, that anomia that God rejection of our lives and He also shows us that in forgiving us He remits the punishment due to us because of the presence of sin by removing the barrier He takes away the penalty of sin.

He removes the offense and erases its memory by covering the deeds so that they cannot be remembered again.  He removes the guilt of our sin and also He destroys the life of the sin force on the inside of us through a spiritual operation which removes the moral compulsion to do wrong, this is forgiveness and release from the power of sin, it’s our freedom, hallelujah.

Now in human forgiveness we know that it’s important we must knock down the barrier between us and the other person but just the same, real forgiveness involves a change, which starts in our thoughts and expresses itself in our actions and finally reshapes our feelings and the fault no longer counts as something that matters to us.  The barrier has been taken away.

Now in divine forgiveness it’s not like a kind of human forgiveness multiplied by some factor, no, no, no human forgiveness is not divine forgiveness in miniature.  The Bible shows that God forgives sin and a totally radical way.  And any human forgiveness is but a feeble imitation of divine forgiveness.  But God when He forgives He removes that barrier which is against sin and He does so by expressing the full passion of His wrath.  How can God remove the barrier and at the same time be expressing His wrath?  Now, sometimes we must resist the temptation to focus on either of these truths, the forgiveness that happens and the justice that by which it happens must be brought together.  He will forgive us but He will do it in a just and a loving way.  So we know that God would not be more loving if He did not punish sin in the act of forgiving it and He would not be God if He was not loving.

But despite the sin against which His indignation blazes, God is taking the amazing step of grace and receiving us as sinful people to be His intimate friends.  This could seem to be too good to be true, especially when we know how strongly God condemns sin but we know that God takes the forgiveness by His free full and flowing grace and gives it to us.  Oh yes, salvation is by grace it is in His heart to do it He takes the initiative it cannot come from us.  And oh, when He embraces us like the father in the lost son parable, he embraces the Prodigal Son we find that we are received by a loving God.  And there Jesus speaks of the of the way in which He came to express the Father’s heart not by twisting the Father’s arm to allow us into the back room to be a family servant, no, He didn’t somehow persuade the Father to reluctantly accept us back, He came as an expression of the Father’s Son.

Oh yes, He came as an expression of the Father’s love, the Prodigal Son might have felt very down, very low on the way home but when the father opened His arms and embraced him he knew what grace was all about.  So that’s where we finish and leave this first session, the grace of God touching our lives just as the Father heart of God is expressed.  We’re gonna come back in the next session to take it on from here so God bless you see you next time.

Salvation by grace that’s what we’ve been talking about.  I certainly have been blessed as I’ve given this teaching today and I pray that God will continue to bless you as you grow in the knowledge of His grace.  And so until next time, God bless you.

Recommended reading

Dye, Colin. Salvation by Grace
Kensington Temple, 2008