man is fully forgiven by Cod, he is changed from hatred toward Cod to a position of love and trust. There can be no greater joy in this life than the assurance of the for giveness of sins. The joy which is produced as a result of forgive ness of sins remains in times of sickness, sorrow, pain and pover ty. Such peace is not even possible apart from the forgiveness of sins. While it is blessedly true that our relationship with God can nev er be broken in view of the once- for-all judicial forgiveness be stowed on us by God, we do know how our sins can hinder the mu tual delight in our fellowship. This wrong condition must be dealt with. The sins must be forgiven and dealt with. The sins must be forgiv en and cleansed (I John 1:9). First Cod forgives the confessed sin or sins, and then He restores His for given child to his former position of uprightness. There is no contra diction between I John 1:9 and I John 2:12. The latter deals with the initial act of judicial forgive ness which is necessary before the sinner can be justified and declared a child of God, while the former covers cleansing for later sin neces sary for maintaining harmony and happiness in communion. This is what sanctification is all about. The cleansing of regeneration is once for all while the cleansing of sanc tification is a repeated experience. God's faithfulness is essential to His being. Because of Christ's sac rifice, God's faithfulness is exer cised towards Christians when they confess their sins. God wants to restore us to the fellowship which was broken when we sinned. To confess means, lit erally, to say the same thing. We
can agree with God as to our sins. We are to see sin in the same light as God does. Lay the sin before God and confess it in all honesty. The moment I confess, God in His faithfulness does two things: He forgives and He cleanses. I do not need to ask for it; it is automatic. In this way I am restored to blessed fellowship. This is the perfect pat tern for life which He has estab lished for us. One of the primary reasons for the writing of the important epistle of I John was to protect God's chil dren from the evil influences of this world system (I John 2:26). How easy it is to be led astray wan dering from God's path. The refer ence here is to false teachers and those who would proclaim some thing other than verified scriptural truth. This danger is ever present. There are dangers besetting the Christian on every hand. None is more damaging than those which are presented to us in disguise. Subtle seduction caused the fall of our first parents as recorded in Genesis 3:1-2. This has always been the strategy of the devil. Christ warned His disciples that increased deception by false prophets would characterize the end of the age (Matthew 24:4-5). Paul sounded a similar warning (II Corinthians 11: 13-15). We need to be on the alert. Actually, the seducers are evil spirits. They are expert in the un holy alliance of leading men and women away from the truth of God. Through intellectual doubt they insinuate that God's reality is false. These impious imposters have a way of deceiving. It was in the 16th century that John Calvin wrote in his exposition of II Timothy 3:13, "They will succeed in injuring and Page 25
Made with FlippingBook HTML5