Sin in tke Believer God’s Provisions Whereby Christians Are Enabled to Stand in Grace. Our Advocate Above R., LEWIS S. CHAFER The ¡su blet o f the ; relation saved by confessing, and the saved are never restored by believing. That there is no greater demand im posed upon the unsaved than that he believe, and no greater demand imposed upon the saved than that he ,confess, is due to that which Christ accomplish ed on the cross. He wrought in behalf of sinner and saint in bearing the sin of the world, and every requirement of infinite justice is met for all in the fin ished work of Christ. In the one case, there is nothing left to be done but to believe; while in the other case, there is nothing left to be done but to confess. The revealed attitude of God toward all men is that of grace alone. There fore He does not need to be. coaxed or persuaded. With His hand outstretched to bestow all that His grace can offer, it is highly inconsistent to plead with Him to be gracious, or to coax Him to be good. By the unvarying teaching of God’s Word, and by the inexorable logic of the accomplished value of the cross, the forgiveness and blessing of God to the unsaved is conditioned upon believ ing, and to the saved it is conditioned upon confessing. 1 John 1:1 to SI 2 is the central passage in the Bible wherein the divine method of dealing with the sins of Christians is stated. A portion of this most important passage is as follows; “ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness . . My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not (be not sin ning). And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ liever to s-in was dealt with exhaustively by Dr. Chafer at the Institute Summer Conference. The following- from his book “ Grace” summarizes the teachings which he gave. jll'K divine dealings with the sins of the saved are similar to the divine dealings with the sins of the unsaved in one par ticular, namely, what God does in either case is done on the ground of the cross of Christ. By that cross all sin, whether it be that of saint or sinner, has been righteously judged, and the ransom price, which satisfies every demand of infinite holiness, has been paid. By His death, Christ provided the sufficient ground for both the salvation of the un saved, and the restoration of the saved. It is because of what has already been accomplished in the cross concerning the sin of the world, that the unregen erate are freely forgiven and justified. This is a part of God’s saving grace, and is wrought on the sole condition that they believe; while the regenerate are forgiven and cleansed on the sole con dition that they confess. These two requirements indicated by these two words, it will be noted, are wholly dif ferent. The human obligation as repre sented by each word is exactly adapted in each case to the precise relationships which, on the one hand, exist between God'and the unsaved, and, on the other hand, exist between God and the saved. The salvation of the sinner is unto union with God; the restoration of the saint is unto communion with God. Be lieving and confessing are two widely differing human conditions, or obliga tions, and should never be confused or interchanged. The lost are never
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