Second Quarter
2003 Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
"The Forgiven"
Insights
to Lesson 1: God and Forgiveness
March
29-April 4, 2003
(Produced
by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)
These
"INSIGHT" mini-essays are not to replace the Sabbath School
Lessons (which are very good). Our purpose is to take note of unique
insights into God's forgiveness of sins that are implicit in the 1888
message of Christ's righteousness. Sometimes these truths from what Ellen
White said is "a most precious message" are not included in the
lessons.
As
we begin the new Quarter, we note several that we all need to understand:
- God's forgiveness
of sins is not mere pardon, nor is it just relief from our painful
feelings of guilt. It is more than a psychological lift. God's
forgiveness actually removes the sin from the heart, so that we
never even want to do it again. His true forgiveness imparts a hatred
of the sin itself.
This
is taught in the meaning of the Greek word for forgiveness—aphesis.
The word is composed of two Greek words, "a" meaning away
from, and "phero" or "phesis" which
means to bear or to carry. Says Vine: "Aphesis denotes a
dismissal, release. … Compare the different word paresis, a
"passing over," a remission, of sins committed under the Old
Covenant (Romans 3:25). … This passing over, or by, was neither
forgetting nor forgiving; it was rather a suspension of the just
penalty" (see Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, p.
123). This is important to recognize!
All
too often our common idea of God's forgiveness of sins has been distorted
to just that—a mere "passing over" on the part of God, a
remission of punishment, as though our grandfather kind of God just blinks
His eyes and says, "Sin doesn't matter that much; I pardon you; I
know you can't help doing it, so you can go free now. And next time you
sin, just remember to come back and get pardoned again. Keep your debit
account paid up by continually confessing every night and seeking pardon
before you go to sleep, and then when you die you can go to heaven."
This
is how in practical life many members of one very large church look upon
God's forgiveness. It is "pardon," but not removal of the sin.
Yes, God "pardons" sin, but there's more to it.
- God has given
Seventh-day Adventists a totally different idea of forgiveness. It
means a deliverance from sin itself. It cannot be taking away the
sinful nature we were all born with, for Jesus "took" that
upon Himself and "condemned sin in the flesh" (Romans 9:3).
Not until He comes in the clouds of heaven will God's people
experience an eradication of the sinful nature to have sinless flesh;
but God's forgiveness takes away their giving in to the flesh.
They will "overcome even as [He] overcame" (Revelation
3:21). That means they will "condemn sin in [their] flesh"
even as He condemned sin in the flesh which He took upon Himself
(Romans 8:3).
That
cannot be what many contemptuously refer to as "perfectionism."
The idea of overcoming completely is often derided as impossible
fanaticism. As a result, we slide back into the contemporary
Sunday-keeping Evangelicals' views of forgiveness. What the Lord wants to
accomplish just now is what the next verse describes: "that the
righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit." It's a mistake to view it as
a sophisticated works program based on legalism-fear.
Titus
2:11 describes its practical work: "The grace of God that brings
salvation to all men has appeared, teaching us to say No! to ungodliness
and worldly lusts" (compare the NIV). That is "condemning sin in
the flesh"!
Since
1844, we are living in the great cosmic Day of Atonement. That's what the
word indicates—a time of complete reconciliation, one-ness, with God
through the blood of Christ. Therefore the true doctrine of forgiveness of
sins is a truth which is parallel to and consistent with that great
cleansing of the sanctuary truth—unique to "the third angel's
message in verity."
Such
at-one-ment with Christ is the fruit of a clearer teaching of
righteousness by faith—truth that is built on justification by faith a s
taught by the Reformers in the 16th century but which goes beyond what
they were able to grasp in their day. It is a clearer view of what Paul
and the apostles taught. It is a truth that prepares a people not to
die as have countless believers since the martyrdom of Stephen; it is
a truth that prepares a people for translation without seeing death
(see 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18).
This
is what Heaven intended should be accomplished by the "most precious
message" of 1888, and it would have done so had it not been resisted
and "in a great degree" rejected and "kept away" from
the church and from the world; Selected Messages, Book One, pp.
234, 235). We can be sure that the enemy of God wants to kill that truth,
for it is the grand climax of the great controversy between Christ and
Satan. But truth is stronger than error and will prevail.
The
forgiveness of sins which is "present truth" in this time of the
Day of Atonement leads up to the final "blotting out of sins,"
which our second quarter's Lessons do not make prominent. Sins are
forgiven the moment they are confessed and the gift of repentance is
received from the Holy Spirit. (In truth, in an objective sense, they were
forgiven at the cross when Jesus prayed [for all of us], "Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do." But in a subjective
sense, we experience forgiveness of sins when our hearts receive
the "gift" which only the Holy Spirit can give; Acts 5:31.)
Sins
are "blotted out" in the judgment that precedes the close of
probation; this is a work identical to "the sealing" which
Revelation 7:1-4 describes (see also 14:1-6). It is a settling into
the truth so that those who believe can never be moved. (Sometimes we
receive pardon of sins and then turn right around and go back into them;
when that happens, it proves that the sin was never truly forgiven
in the sense of being taken away from the heart. In the "blotting out
of sins" the sin is forever "condemned in the flesh." This
pre-Advent judgment is necessary before the second coming of Christ, to
determine who shall
- be resurrected from
the dead in the first resurrection, and
- who among the living
is to be translated at the coming of Christ, as Enoch and Elijah were
translated. See Luke 20:35 and 21:36, where Jesus mentions both
categories of redeemed saints).
Especially
helpful material on the blotting our of sins can be found in: The Great
Controversy, pp. 421, 422, 484-486, 614; Patriarchs and Prophets,
pp. 357-358; Ellen White's series of articles in the Review and Herald
from January through April, 1890; A. T. Jones, The Consecrated Way,
pp. 113-125; E. J. Waggoner, Christ and His Righteousness, pp.
65-67. The blotting out of sins has always been such an essential part of
Seventh-day Adventist teaching that it seems strange that it has eluded
our Quarterly.
As
the 13 lessons of this Quarter proceed, we shall from time to look more
deeply into the Day of Atonement forgiveness of sins, and their
"blotting out."
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