Do you really believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ?
Every so often we devote some time to responding to questions. They deal with a variety of issues from the simple to the complex, but all are worthwhile.
Do you really believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ?
What does it mean to "be saved?"
How can I know for sure that I am OK with God?
Do you believe in eternal destinies of heaven and hell?
How can you put together the concept of eternal punishment with the idea of God’s love?
If God is holy, why does he forgive sin and if he does, how can I be certain He’s forgiven me?
Here we are two thousand years after the Lord Jesus Christ's first coming, and for some, the time lapse makes it hard to believe that He will come again. However, our contemporaries are not the first to ask this question. It was raised even when the apostles were still around to deal with it.
In Peter’s second letter he talks about scoffers who will come along living only to please themselves and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." (2 Peter 3:3-4)
So the argument that unbelievers put forward is that from time immemorial the routine cycles of day and night, summer and winter, birth and death have gone on. They see this as evidence that the Lord Jesus Christ has not kept the promise of his return. But Peter goes on to respond to them, saying that in making this case, they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which now exist are kept in store by the same word, reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. (vv 5-7) This is a reminder that, in fact, all things do not continue as they were from the beginning of creation. The normal flow of life was interrupted by the flood of God’s judgment in Noah’s time and at a future day God’s judgment will fall again. Hence we must not be too cocky in making assumptions about how things have been and how they will be. In the past, God has intervened and suspended the normal cycles of life for his purposes. This has happened not only widely as in the flood Peter cites, but narrowly as well when He touched specific geographic areas, nations, and ethnic groups.
Lastly, Peter goes on to write some things to believers. It is in a sense a word of explanation, but more a word of encouragement. He wrote But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. (vv 8-10) Peter counters the scoffers with two arguments. First, he reminds his readers that God does not experience time in the same way we mortals do. God is outside of time. What seems like a long time to us is short to Him , and conversely, what seems like a short time to us can be long to Him. Peter basically tells us that we cannot use the argument of time because God’s perception of it is so radically different from ours. Peter’s second rebuttal touches on God’s motives for delaying the return of his Son. The scoffers say that God is slack concerning his promise. That He has forgotten about it or changed his mind. That He will not keep it. Peter says that it is not negligence on God’s part that has kept Jesus from returning to earth. Rather it is God’s enormous love for his creatures. He keeps extending the period of grace in which we live so that more can come to the safety of the cross – putting their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ whose death paid the redemption price to set them free. Peter concludes his arguments against the scoffers by affirming that the world as we know it will one day come to an end.
But once Peter had opened up the subject, he didn’t stop after he had supported the idea that Christ will return and that one day the last chapter of human history will be written. He continued by asking a question. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? (vv 11-12)
Peter’s consuming interest in treating this issue was that the truth of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ would make a difference in the lives of everyone who read his letter. First, he wanted to convince unbelievers of the truth of the fact that Jesus would return to earth and they would have to face Him. Before that happened, they still had the opportunity to repent, that is to turn from their life of sin and receive the free gift of eternal life through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Second, he wanted to remind those who already believed that they should live blameless lives in view of the fact that they to would soon meet their Lord face to face. Christians should become neither lax nor impatient, but understand that the patience of God is salvation to those who believe in these closing moments before the great end-time events are set in motion. For without God’s stretching this period in the divine timetable, many would be forever lost.
There are many other parts of the Bible that address the issue of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to this earth. Yet, even standing on its own, this passage from 2 Peter which we’ve considered together can do a lot to correctly shape our answer to questions about the second coming of Christ and its significance. I would encourage you to respond as Peter hoped you would and live your life in the light of the knowledge that the Lord Jesus Christ is about to return. Maybe today.
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In looking at the return of the Lord Jesus, we touched on another area which our listeners sometimes write about. That is: salvation - what it means to be saved. I confess that it is easy to use terms so frequently that they lose the impact they once had. Here are a few common responses to the statement, “You need to be saved:”
Man On Street:
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I wish you religious people wouldn’t bother me like this. I’m already safe because I have my own church and keep the ten commandments. I don’t need to be saved. I should be able to live my life without you telling me this stuff. |
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Saved? Saved from what? I don’t think I’m in any danger, am I? |
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Well, in fact I don’t need to be saved, because when I was a kid my parents made me go to Sunday School at the big old red brick church on the corner. I remember one day, I was feeling bad because I lied to my mother and my Sunday School teacher told me if I got saved, God would forget all my sins. I told her I’d like that so she prayed for me and saved me that day. I don’t know if it worked though, cause I didn’t feel all that different. |
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I wish you’d tell me what you mean when you say that. My brother-in-law says the same thing and I just don’t get it. I don’t know what I’m in danger of. My conscience sometimes bothers me when I think bad thoughts. Is it about that? |
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You know, I’ve heard people talk about that but I have no idea what it means. You have to get saved to join some churches don’t you? |
First let’s look at the issue of the danger from which we need to be saved. What is threatening us to such a degree that we need salvation? Well let me sneak up on you with this thought. In the last few months, two families I know had their houses broken into and the valuable contents removed. They were sinned against. The sin in the hearts of the burglars was in a practical sense the enemy of these two families. But just as we would like to be free from the sinful acts of others, so others need to be saved from our own sinful inclinations. Looking at the broader implications, the sin in our own hearts is the enemy of each one of us. The fact is the our own sin is a much greater threat to us than the sin of others. Their sin may do us hurt during our lifetime, but cannot harm us beyond the grave. Our own sin may pleasure us in life, but will condemn us to eternal separation from God when this life is over.
Knowing that we need to be saved from our sin, Matthew records that the angel told Joseph to name Mary’s baby Jesus "for He will save His people from their sins." MAT 1:21. Notice the possessive pronoun used. He would save His people from their sins. We all have sin we need to be saved from. But that’s not all we need to be saved from.
As I was preparing this material, I had to help clean up the house of an elderly relative so that it could be sold. This lady had lived well into her 90s and over the years had accumulated all kinds of treasures - at least they were treasures to her. To the rest of us, many things in the home were simply garbage. What’s my point? Simply this, that physical death caught Grannie and swept her away, making all of the material things she valued useless to her. She would loved to have gone on living, enjoying the things with which God had blessed her. Yet an enemy lurked in the shadows and at last, death overtook her. Grannie died physically.
Let me say that for all physical death is abhorrent to us, spiritual death is worse. To die physically is to experience the separation of the soul from the body. To die spiritually is to experience the separation of the self from the source of life, God. The Bible speaks of the need to be saved from death and it is this spiritual death I just mentioned which is at stake. The apostle James wrote: Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. [JAM 5:19-20] When we are turned from the path of sin to we may experience more days of physical life, true, and thus avert physical death. But more importantly, we can be saved from eternal death through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have seen that we need to be saved from sin and its consequence of death, for indeed, the wages of sin is death. But that’s not all. In Romans 5, the apostle Paul talks about the need of salvation from the wrath or anger of God. Listen to these words: ROM 5:7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. You see, those who are justified, or declared righteous by God through the blood of Jesus Christ are saved from the angry judgment of God against sin. God is offended by our sin. We have fallen so far from his standard, that we stand condemned. Through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, God takes care of our sin, washing it away and thus saves us from His anger against sin.
It’s all well and good to say what we need to be saved from. But the question remains, “How are we saved?” I’d like to take our remaining time to deal with this. First of all, we need to understand that we are not saved by the law, but by Christ: GAL 3:11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for "The just shall live by faith." 12 Yet the law is not of faith, but "The man who does them shall live by them." 13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"). Keeping the law is a good thing. Living by God’s standards is important. Doing your best to be holy is honourable. But these things will not save you. Our salvation only comes through the Lord Jesus Christ who has redeemed us, or paid the price to free us, from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us on the cross of Calvary.
We should also note that we are not saved by our own goodness or righteousness, but by grace according to God’s mercy: TIT 3:4 But when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, 7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Our own good intentions and moral uprightness are not enough to save us, because no matter how hard we try, we cannot try hard enough and no matter how good we are we cannot be good enough. We still fall short of God’s standards and so we need Him to forgive us according to His mercy.
Finally, I’ll draw your attention to the fact that we are not saved by works, but by God’s grace through faith: EPH 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. This is very close to what we talked about a moment ago, but there is a difference. Titus 3:5 reminds us that we are not saved by our personal righteousness, our goodness or morality. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us we are not saved by our behaviour - our works - things we do. But we need not lose heart because we still have the answer that we can be saved by God’s grace by faith - by believing that He has forgiven us on the basis of Christ’s sacrifice of himself on the cross.
Finally, let me take you to a passage which indicates simply and positively that we are saved by believing the gospel: 1CO 15:1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. The core of the gospel as presented here by Paul has three aspects - that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins - that he was buried - and that he rose again.
When we believe something we act on it. When a store offers something for sale in an advertisement, we accept it as a genuine offer and go there to purchase it. When a young man proposes marriage and offers his girlfriend an engagement ring, she believes that he means it and begins to make wedding plans. When the company where you applied for work calls you and tells you the job is yours and you should report to the office on Monday morning, you have sufficient faith in the offer to show up.
When God offers us salvation on the basis of the sacrifice of his Son on the cross of Calvary, we believe it and it makes an huge difference in the way we carry on our lives. Of course, not everyone will respond positively, but if God’s Spirit is speaking to you today, stirring up a little flame of faith, we hope you respond positively. Settle your trust on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved as the Bible promises. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved!
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First, I would like to remind you that toward the end of his first letter, the apostle John makes an important statement about this. He wrote: These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. [1John 5:13] From this we understand that it is possible to know you are saved and, in fact, John used a significant amount of ink to explain why. Let’s quickly back up in this passage and look at some of the things John wrote to reassure his readers that they did have eternal life.
At the beginning of chapter 5 he wrote: 1Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. Salvation depends on our believing that Jesus is the Christ. That is that He is the Messiah, the Son of God, the One described in passages like Isaiah 53 of the Old Testament whose suffering and death makes it possible for God to forgive us. Then John mentions the first of several practical tests. He says that those who are born of the Father love everyone else born of the Father. When we find ourselves concerned for and affectionately inclined toward other believers we exhibit evidence of true faith.
In the next verse, John gives us two more practical tests concerning the first. He wrote: 2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. This is a kind of developmental spiral. God saves us and we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. God’s Spirit within us generates love for other believers as He loves them through us. As we act this love out in practical ways, we are obedient to God’s command to love others. God’s love in our own lives becomes visible as we love others.
In verse three, John identifies our love of God with our following his commands – or living his way, we might say. 3For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. The reason that His commandments are not burdensome to us is that as we have come to Him in faith, we have aligned ourselves with his purposes in the world. Humanly speaking, this is naturally not true. Unbelievers find the commandments of God extremely burdensome because they require us to be “others centred.” But the believer has God’s Spirit to motivate and empower him to love others even as God does.
John continues his logic with verse four: 4For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. His argument continues with the statement that whatever is born of God, that is has God’s own Spirit overcomes the world. Earlier in the book he made that famous statement “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” God’s Spirit overcomes the world. Believers have God’s Spirit and hence will have victory over the sinful way of life embraced by the world. Our faith lived out keeping the command to love is what overcomes the world.
In the last verse of the paragraph John sums it all up with this rhetorical question: 5Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? Turned into a statement, John is simply declaring that the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, with all of the ramifications of such faith, overcomes the world and enters into spiritual life with God.
There is much more to be said about this, but no time to say it. I do want to assure you though that the Bible clearly declares that we are saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Take those practical tests that John mentions. Check out your response to God’s revelation that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Check out your response to your spiritual brothers and sisters. Check out your response to the commandments of God. And remember, we are not saved through our own worth or efforts. When we believe what God has revealed about His Son, God gives us His Spirit and seals us as his sons and daughters for ever.
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Of all the aspects of Christian faith, the concept of eternal destinies is hardest for some people to come to terms with. Various religious leaders have come out lately with statements which some find too harsh, others too wishy-washy. I suppose that is why I received a call not long ago challenging me to declare what the Bible says about these issues.
In response to the question “Do you really believe in eternal destinies of heaven and hell?” part of me just wants to answer “Yes.” and move on to something less contentious. But I know that will not satisfy the one who asked the question. For if one confesses that they do believe in eternal states of heaven and hell, they are called upon to defend their faith. What I will not do on this program is attempt to describe what heaven and hell are like. The Bible itself often resorts to figurative language when commenting on the place where the faithful will spend eternity in the presence of God as well as on the place where the faithless will spend eternity outside of the presence of God.
We’ll look at them by turn – starting with hell. It is mentioned 54 times in the authorized version though it translates a number of different words in the original Bible languages. There can be no doubt from reading the Scriptures that it is a real, literal place. It is always represented as a place of grief and torment - unpleasant beyond our most horrific nightmares.
I remember once, when I was having a kidney stone attack. I was in the hospital waiting for the radiologist to come and read my x-ray. The pain made the seconds drag by. But the medical personnel on hand wouldn’t give me anything for it until the doctor confirmed that the problem was, in fact, a kidney stone. As I lay squirming on the x-ray table, experiencing the worst pain I had ever known in my life, I remember thinking that if hell were worse than what I was going through, it must be horrible indeed.
Our understanding of the exact nature of the tortures of hell depend on how literally we take the passages that refer to it. However, it is generally conceded that all verbal descriptions - even divinely inspired ones, fall short of giving us a fully accurate vision of hell as it will be experienced by those who decide in this life to live and die without God.
There can be a lot of self-righteousness connected with speaking about hell. Certain classes of sin, especially moral ones, are seen as particularly deserving of hell, while simple failure to do good is often described as human foible which God will somehow overlook. However there is a passage which speaks eloquently to this issue. In Matthew 25, we read of ultimate judgment. This passage provides a description of how God will speak to those who are condemned, `Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.' "Then they also will answer Him, saying, `Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?' "Then He will answer them, saying, `Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' "And these will go away into everlasting punishment."
This passage should make us all sensitive to the weakness and failures we excuse in ourselves. Those who are condemned here are not merely those who openly rebelled against God and practised flagrant moral sin. Among the condemned here are those who did not do good when there was opportunity. It highlights the demanding standards that God holds. Righteousness is not only about avoiding evil, but also about doing good. However the things that are most disturbing to me personally are the separation and the permanence of the condition of the cursed. With the words “Depart from me.” God sends those who rejected him from his presence forever. They are to suffer eternal loss. What a fearful situation. Separated from God. Forever. How shall we escape if we neglect the great salvation that God has provided through his Son.
Now let’s think for a moment about heaven. The English word Heaven used to translate the original Hebrew and Greek words occurs 503 times in the authorized version - almost 10 to 1 over references to hell. Now, in the verses just prior to the ones we already read in Matthew 25, we find the Lord Jesus addressing those who received his offer of salvation by grace. `Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' "Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, `Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? `When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' "And the King will answer and say to them, `Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'
Notice that those Jesus calls “the righteous” enter a kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. This is a place which God has reserved for the eternal blessing of those who seek Him. Now just as the torments of hell defy description and are accepted to be far worse that the most vivid verbal depiction, so the pleasures of heaven are beyond anything we know and, indeed, can even imagine. So I won’t try to add anything to it. Let me just share some selected verses from Revelation 21 and 22 that speak of the new Jerusalem. The apostle John tells how a mighty angel carried him away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed him a vision of the holy city full of the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. The construction of its wall was of jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones. The twelve gates were twelve pearls: each individual gate was of one pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
There is more, but this gives us a glimpse of heaven. It shows us what awaits those who have accepted the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross as their own. We need to move on, but I want to quickly mention something. What I’ve just read to you may sound like a “pie in the sky bye and bye when we die” kind of proposition, but there is a sense in which Christians enter into a foretaste of heaven even before the experience it fully. You see, heaven is where God is and by his Spirit He is in the life of everyone who believes. Oh! We won’t know the joy of being what we might call geographically or spacially in heaven, but we can begin to know the kind of relationship with God that will flower fully when we are truly in his presence. By faith, you can pass from death unto life. You can begin to know God in whose joy-filled presence you will spend eternity amid unutterable splendour.
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First of all, let’s remember that there really are such things as logical impossibilities. I could make two simple statements 2+2=4 and 2+2=5, but only one of them could be correct. Both statements cannot be true. That is a logical impossibility.
What we have to think about is whether these two statements are logical impossibilities. 1) God loves all human beings enough to send his own Son to die for them. And 2) God will sentence some of his human creatures to eternal destruction in order to punish them for their sins. They certainly sound like they don’t fit together very well. How could God love his creatures enough to take pay for their sin Himself and at the very same time be prepared to send some of them to hell because of their unwillingness to keep his standards?
Yet I am convinced that it is not flawed logic which allows both of these statements to be true at the same time.
I believe most of the problem with this issue could be cleared up by rephrasing the second question to fit the facts a little better. Let me quickly remind you of a few things and then restate the questions. I think you’ll find they fit together perfectly.
1) Let’s keep in mind that actions have consequences. If you throw something up into the air, it will fall down. If you remove a fish from water for an extended period of time, it will die. If you expose silver to acid it will turn black. These are just facts. They are not life-changing truth, but they are truth, none-the less. They should not be confused with threats or warnings. For example, we might say to our kids, if you keep making noise with that toy, I’ll take it away from you. Or don’t play on the street you’ll get hit by a car. Or if you don’t clean up your room, I won’t play ball with you today.
Many people look at what God said to our first parents in the garden of Eden and don’t get what He was expressing. Look at it with me. In Genesis 2:16-17 we read: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." I suppose you could take this as a warning or a threat, but I don’t think it was meant that way. It was a statement of fact in the order of ‘if you through something up into the air, it will fall down.’ God was simply explain the facts of life to Adam and Eve. “In the day that you eat of the fruit you shall surely die.” Not a threat, but a fact. Not a warning, just the truth.
God who is the source of life is perfectly holy. What he was saying was simply, if you sin, if you rebel against me, if you allow evil to enter your hearts and you act on it, you will die. You will be separated from Me, the source of life. The physical environment continued to sustain them physically, but the moment they sinned they were separated from God, the source of their spiritual life. They died.
2) Remember that in one sense, God doesn’t "send people to hell." Humanity was separated from God from the incident in the garden we just talked about. In John 3:18 we read that He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. God isn’t standing by to condemn us to eternal separation from Him. That is already our fate. The fact is that God is on a rescue mission. In verse 17 of John 3 we read: For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. God’s purpose is to save that which was already lost – not to condemn that which was already safe.
3) Salvation comes through faith. For those who sense the danger and desire to get out of harms way, God offers a way of escape. By confessing their sin and accepting the death of Jesus, the Son of God , as a substitute for their own, they can take advantage of God’s offer of spiritual life. At the same time, God does not force this spiritual life on anyone. Just as the sinful state in which we find ourselves came as the result of a choice, so accepting the offer of restored spiritual life must come as the result of a choice. Coercion is not love. And God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Let’s take a moment and look at those supposedly mutually exclusive statements. Let’s rephrase them to fit the facts. 1) God loves all human beings enough to send his own Son to die for them. And 2) God allows some of his human creatures to chose to reject his offer of eternal life. The inevitable result of that is eternal separation from God which the Bible describes in the terms we looked at earlier. Sounds to me like all of this fits together without too much conflict.
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That’s really two questions and we’ll look at the parts separately. First, if God is holy, why does he forgive sin. One must be careful in attributing motives to God, however, there are several things that come to mind which have to do with God’s willingness to forgive sin.
One thing I’d like to mention right away is that God’s holiness is not compromised by his forgiving sin. God is holy and though He forgives sin He remains holy. This is possible because of the basis on which God’s pardon for sin rests. God forgives us because the righteous demands of his holiness are satisfied by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. God does not merely overlook our sin to forgive us, He applies the death of his Son to us and forgives us because the price of our sin has already been paid.
This is the way God’s love and holiness came together at the cross. Love calls for forgiveness. Holiness calls for justice. In the death of the Lord Jesus in our place, justice was satisfied so that his love had a holy basis on which to forgive us. Marvellous, how God is true to his own character yet generous toward sinful creatures all at the same time.
Now let’s look at the second part of the question. “If God really does forgive sin, how can I be certain He’s forgiven me?” Let’s look at a story from the Bible in which Jesus forgave . In Matthew 9, beginning at verse one we read how Jesus came to His own city of Capernaum and some people brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you." And at once some of the scribes said within themselves, "This Man blasphemes!" But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts? "For which is easier, to say, `Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, `Arise and walk'? "But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins" - then He said to the paralytic, "Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house." And he arose and departed to his house. Now when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men.
In this story, we see a case where a man was forgiven his sins by the Lord Jesus. Others, of course, questioned this. They said that only God had the power to forgive sin. So Jesus in one move demonstrated his divinity and confirmed the forgiving of the man’s sins. He asked them which was easier to forgive sins or to make this paralysed man walk and then proceeded to heal his physical body. Naturally the crowds were impressed and worshipped God because Jesus, a man, had exhibited such divine power.
I’ve often thought of how the man who was healed must have been frequently reminded of his forgiveness because it was associated with his physical healing. Every step presented the opportunity to remember that he had been forgiven. It must have made a huge impact on the way he lived his life. Whenever he was tempted to sin again, the very fact that he was mobile enough to respond to the temptation could remind him that his sins had been forgiven. The other thing, was that when any moment of doubt about his forgiveness arose, his strong healthy body would remind him of Jesus power and reassure him that God had indeed forgiven him for he had demonstrated it to the crowd by healing him as well.
What about us today. Can we be sure that we are forgiven our sins. The short answer is yes. The certainty with which I say that, comes from the fact that the Bible makes some strong declarations about the pardoned status of repentant sinners. There are several passages to which I could point, in Romans chapter 4 Paul wrote about the one who does not depend on his own efforts, but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; Blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin." (vv 5-8)
In his letter to the Christians in the city of Colosse, Paul wrote this strongly-worded statement about those who are forgiven: And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. (Col 2:13-15)
Let me mention just one more, for the sake of time. Listen to these words from Romans chapter 8: There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Those are all very strong statements about those who are forgiven their sin on the basis of the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. They are blessed. They are made alive. They are free from any and all condemnation because Jesus who was perfect and holy in every way bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness - by whose stripes you were healed. (2 Peter 2:24)
For some, the fact that the Bible declares the repentant sinner forgiven is enough. You might have wanted to go deeper - to know on what basis the Bible dares make these declarations of forgiveness. Now you do know. It is because in his death on the cross, Jesus the Christ satisfied the justice of God. God declared the Righteous One sin and punished Him accordingly so that sinners might be declared righteous and blessed accordingly. Don’t you love God for how He has worked all of this out for our blessing and His glory?
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