This lesson deals with the matter of forgiveness, sometimes referred to as “remission.” As we have said in previous lessons, the great evangelical doctrines of salvation that appear in the New Testament are never connected with the Book of Acts. They are found rather in the theological sections of the New Testament, which are Romans and Galatians.
The great evangelical doctrines of salvation are found in Romans and Galatians, and they have nothing to do with letting Christ “come into your life.” There is not ONE CASE in the New Testament where Christ is said to “come into anybody’s life.” The expression is foreign to the writers of Scripture. So, in the many peculiar births we have today that pass off as “new” births—which might be stillbirths or aborted births—we have this peculiar theology that comes from New York, Hollywood, and Chicago that has nothing to do with Biblical salvation. The terms used for Biblical salvation, in a theological setting (and of course, this is a Theological Study), are words such as expiation, propitiation, sanctification, justification, adoption, imputation, regeneration, redemption, salvation, and remission. These great Biblical words, which describe the transaction of the new birth, end in “ion.”
The keynote for getting to Heaven is forgiveness. If God forgives our sins and doesn’t impute them to us (imputation), then no one will be able to keep us from entering Heaven. The sinful man’s forgiveness becomes the most important problem in his life. When we say this, we mean that the psychiatrists’ offices and shrinks’ couches (and the zoos today) are filled with people who have mental problems because they lack forgiveness or think they don’t have forgiveness or have refused to forgive somebody else. Outside of problems that are strictly pathological—problems that deal with physical lesions or damage to the nervous system or the brain cells (that is, outside of problems that are of a medical, physiological, or a chemical nature)—the mental problems and neuroses of our time and most of the psychoses are due to four simple problems:
1. The person has a guilt complex (that he should have) and has not been forgiven by God. He knows it, and it bothers him.
2. He thinks God has not forgiven him when God has forgiven him on the basis of the finished work of His Son.
3. He has refused to forgive somebody else.
4. Somebody has refused to forgive him, and it bothers him.
Now, those four things will cage about 85 percent of the people who pay money to the psychiatrist for any reason other than a chemical, physiological, pathological, physical lesion or obstruction, or damage to the physical part of the body: needing forgiveness from God and not having it; needing forgiveness from God and having it but not realizing it, needing forgiveness and not getting it from somebody else, or needing to forgive somebody and not forgiving them. Those four problems, my dear friend, are basic. They are not merely theological. They are psychological and psychiatric.
In the Old Testament there is more than one word for forgiveness. One means “to cover,” in the sense of covering up a wrong-doing or transgression. Another means to “lift away,” in the sense of picking a thing up where you won’t have to fool with it. Another means to “send away” or “drive off” the bad thing so it won’t bother you any more.
In the New Testament, forgiveness is the separation of the sinner from his sins through the sacrifice of Christ upon the ground of pure grace. Forgiveness is granted to the sinner on the grounds that Jesus Christ’s righteousness is imputed to him, and he is charged with Christ’s righteousness, whereas Christ is charged with his sins.
The Author of forgiveness, of course, is God alone. Since the sinner has broken the law of God, only God can forgive him that sin. If you steal a hammer from me and I forgive you for it (which I can), then you are forgiven, but if you break one of the laws of the Philippines or one of the laws of the Spanish government or the German people, I can’t forgive you for that. If you break a law in Germany, the Germans will have to do the forgiving, or you will pay the penalty of the law. Let’s get the principle clear. If you violate a law in Red China, my forgiveness will get you absolutely nothing. You are going to have to clear the thing up with the Chinese authorities. I say that because when you break the law of God, no man upon the earth can forgive you anything. God will have to forgive you. When Christ began to forgive sins, the Pharisees said, and rightly so, “Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?” (Mark 2:7). The Jews were correct, and some of your friends are incorrect, for only God can forgive sin.
Never go to a human being for forgiveness when you have broken God’s law, because you are going to have to deal with God. Go directly to God. The only mediator between you and God is Jesus Christ, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). Never go to a human mediator for forgiveness. Go directly to the One that you have sinned against.
For the born-again child of God who is already saved, 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” That is, the Lord God, the holy One, the Giver of the law, is willing to forgive the saved person on the ground of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, exactly as He is willing to forgive the unsaved man if he will trust the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Because the Lord Jesus Christ is both God and the Son of God, as well as the Son of man, God has appointed Him to forgive sins. This is apparent from Acts 5:31 where we read in reference to Jesus Christ, “Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.” The channel of forgiveness, then, is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul is very clear to tell you in Acts 13:38, “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.” That is a wonderful message of salvation for the sin-burdened soul. In Luke 7:48, the Saviour personally forgave the woman and said, “Thy sins are forgiven.” In Mark 2:9, Jesus said to the palsied man, “Thy sins be forgiven thee.”
Although the Lord Jesus Christ is not here bodily today, He is ready in the person of the Holy Spirit to forgive each one of us when we sin as children of God, and He is ready to accept the sinner who turns from his sins and receives Christ as his blood atonement. You can close your eyes right now and tell the Lord Jesus Christ about your sins if you are a child of God, and they will be forgiven. And if you are unsaved, you can close your eyes right now and accept Christ as your Saviour, and your sins will be forgiven for His name’s sake. Forgiveness is never found in any church sacrament, ordinance, or religion but is found alone in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The foundation of forgiveness is simple. Forgiveness is bestowed on the ground of the Lord’s compassion. For example, in Psalm 78:38 we read, “But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not.“ Forgiveness is bestowed on the ground of divine justice. In 1 John 1:9 we read, “he is faithful and just to forgive.”
God can forgive sin on the basis of the blood atonement of Christ and yet remain holy and just. Forgiveness is bestowed on the basis of the blood of Christ. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Eph. 1:7). And, of course, since the crucifixion there is no remission or forgiveness of sins apart from the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Through his blood” means the propitiatory work on the cross of Christ. On the cross He shed His blood as a ransom, a complete payment for your eternal redemption. God has declared, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezek. 18:4). Sin brought death. Because man sinned, as a consequence, he must die physically, and he is already dead spiritually, and someday he will go into the Lake of Fire.
God has required blood, symbolical of death, as payment for sin. This is apparent by the fact that when God covered the nakedness of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:21, He covered them with coats of skin, which means some animal died. Abel’s offering in Genesis chapter 4 was accepted because it contained blood. Cain’s offering was rejected because it did not have blood, for “the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Lev. 17:11).
When Jesus forgives sin, He forgives all of sin; not a quarter or half, but all. In Luke 7:47, He said, “Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven.” David said the Lord “forgiveth all thine iniquities” (Ps. 103:3). The Lord forgave the transgression, sin, and iniquity— everything, all forgiven in Psalm 32:1–2. In Colossians 2:13 we read, “having forgiven you all trespasses.” In Matthew 12:31 we read, “Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.”
The only sin they were told they would be in danger of not getting forgiveness for was the sin of saying that Christ “hath an unclean spirit,” when Christ was on this earth preaching to Israel. You never read about any “unpardonable sin” committed after the cross. Christ told those people when He was there in the flesh, “If you say that I have an unclean spirit, then you have committed an unpardonable sin and you are in danger of eternal judgment.” Why, these Charismatics worry about the unpardonable sin all the time. They get as fouled up as a Chinese fire drill trying to make you think that attributing to the Devil the work of God (and vice versa) is the unpardonable sin. He told you what the unpardonable sin was in Mark 3:30. Did you ever read it?
Now, this is the most important point. If one sin remains unforgiven, that individual cannot go to Heaven but will be forced to spend eternity in Hell, because Revelation 21:27 says, “there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth.” One sin could contaminate you and Heaven forever. One sin brought death on all men.
The only sinless, perfect righteousness this world has ever seen was the sinless, perfect, spotless righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He said of the best people of His day, “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven” (Matt. 5:20). You are not going to get into New Jerusalem unless you are sinless. Let’s get that. “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16). “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48), the Bible says. You are not going to get into Heaven unless you have got the righteousness of God Himself.
As the Lord said through Paul to the poor, self-righteous people of his day who were trying to get saved by baptism and the Golden Rule and repentance and all this foolishness, “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Rom. 10:3–4). “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:5).
I realize you can misquote James and misapply Matthew and take the context out of the book of Acts and pull a verse out of Hebrews to prove that you have a right to go to Hell, but quoting Scripture won’t do you any good after you have been in Hell for twenty million years. I mean, quoting Scripture in Hell isn’t going to do you any good whether you quote it right or wrong. You are going to have to have God’s righteousness, and God’s righteousness is Jesus Christ. Many expect to wait until death to know whether or not they’ve been forgiven and are “righteous,” but the Gospel brings the glad news that forgiveness is a present possession. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:14). John said, “I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake” (1 John 2:12).
The conditions of forgiveness are clear. First of all, you are told to repent: to turn from your sins. Then you are told to exercise faith in the Gospel, not faith in baptism or faith in Acts 2:38. Faith in Acts 2:38 couldn’t save a dead horse. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8–9). “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17).
“The obedience of faith” (Rom. 16:26) is to trust Christ, not your water baptism. To “obey the Gospel” (Rom. 1:5) is never to get baptized in water. That is never it. To obey the Gospel is to exercise faith in it. Now understand, this is from Romans chapters 1, 10, and 16. Beware of any man that takes you to Hell with him quoting Acts chapter 2, when he should be in Romans chapters 10 and 16, where you are told that to obey the Gospel is to exercise faith in it and obey it from the heart. It has nothing to do with outward acts given to Jewish believers at Pentecost, a Jewish feast day.
The conditions for forgiveness: receiving Christ as Saviour, and if a man has already received Christ as his Saviour, then confession of sins. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9–10). The unconfessed sin in the life of a child of God cannot be overlooked, even though it was placed away at Calvary and you have forgiveness of sins at Calvary. The unconfessed sin is a barrier in the fellowship between the believer and his Lord. David said when he got into trouble, “I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid” (Ps. 32:5). This was David’s experience from the Old Testament, but it is also the experience of the born again believer in the New Testament who is never completely free from sin until he is dead.
At this point, we should get something completely clear in regard to forgiveness of sins. When the born again child of God has received Christ as his Saviour and is washed in the blood and has God’s completed redemption, his sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, and they are all forgiven. Past, present, and future, they are nailed to the cross. How does this take place? Because he is identified with the death of Christ, nailed to the cross, crucified with Christ. As Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20) therefore, his entire life, past, present, and future, is now one with eternal life with the Lord who died on the cross. This settles, once and for all, the philosophical, theological problem about the believer’s future sins. You don’t have any future outside of Jesus Christ. If you are saved, you are in Christ, and He is in you. You have eternal life, and eternal life is in you, and you are in eternal life, and your whole life is past, present, and future identified with Jesus Christ. Therefore from a judicial and legal standpoint, your sins are forgiven, remitted, expiated, propitiated, redeemed, taken care of, done away with, and put away forever.
When we talk about sin in the life of a believer, we have to deal with another factor. When the believer sins, although his sins have been put away at Calvary and are taken care of, he still reaps the effects of that sin in this life. Notice, to the Christian, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in welldoing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Gal. 6:7–9).
Furthermore, sin in the life of a Christian, although it is taken care of at Calvary, can cause a Christian to lose his joy. “The joy of the LORD is your strength” (Neh. 8:10). Sin can cause a Christian to lose his fellowship with God and be chastened. “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world” (1 Cor. 11:30–32).
The child of God with sin in his life loses a number of things. Even though they are forgiven at Calvary “for His name’s sake,” sins cause him to lose fellowship with God, lose his joy, lose his testimony, lose his inheritance, lose his rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ, and many times lose his health and sometimes his life. And for this reason, the Christian should confess his sins and, “if we confess our sins,” John says, “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Forgiveness should be as easy for a Christian as pictured in Matthew 18:21–35. Of course, along these lines we should forgive others. In Matthew 6:15, we read, “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” And from the New Testament standpoint this side of Calvary under grace, Paul says, “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32). Now, the Christian should always keep his heart in such a condition that at any time, under any condition, he could forgive his worst enemy at a moment’s notice.
Forgiveness has to come from the heart, and if you are a born again child of God, down in your heart you cannot hold a grudge against somebody interminably. If they come to you and ask you for forgiveness, you can grant that forgiveness in two seconds without a second thought. And you don’t have to pray about anything. You can forgive on the spot. If you have experienced the forgiveness of Jesus Christ in the redemption and remission of sins and know how good Christ has been to you, you should not have any trouble forgiving other people for their meanness to you.
Now, as often as a child of God sins and confesses his sins, the blood of Jesus Christ is available to cleanse. Repentance involves forsaking sin and promising, by God’s strength, not to repeat it; claiming God’s grace and God’s help in getting rid of it. Of course, to understand that and undertake that tremendous job, we have to avail ourselves of the material in Romans chapter 6, which should be read very carefully. The question is propounded in Romans 6:1, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” Paul answers in Romans 6:2, “God forbid.”
How often should we forgive someone who sins against us? The Saviour said, “Seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:22). Four hundred and ninety times. Have you ever forgiven anybody that much? Well, that is what is laid down to the child of God who knows the Lord and is asking the Lord for advice on forgiving. He is told to forgive another “as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you,” and if God has forgiven you, then you certainly can forgive others.
Source: Theological Studies Vol II by Dr. Peter Ruckman
How to go to Heaven? Find out in the short video below
GOD's Simple Plan of Salvation
If you were to die today for any reason, are you 100% sure you will go to heaven?
This video explains the SIMPLE TRUTH according to the Scriptures. The only way to go to heaven is by:
(1) Admitting that you are a sinner
(2) Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal Savior and Lord
(3) Repenting (meaning you are willing to turn away from your sins) of your sins then confessing your sins to God
Jesus Christ willingly sacrificed Himself and shed His precious blood on the cross as a substitute for you, so that you don't have to burn in hell for all eternity because of your sins, and have eternal life in heaven instead.
Watch the video to learn what Scripture says of God's great plan of salvation for you and how to receive His free gift. This is wonderful news. We pray you surrender to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and to know 100% for sure you will go to heaven when you die!
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