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Welcome back to Anam Cara.
When we were together last time, we were discussing our sins and
how that in the new covenant all of our sins are gone.
Everyone of them...past, present, future...they are forgiven.
God says 'I will never remember them against you anymore.'
They are all gone. They are taken care of once and for all, forever.
Then a lot of people scratch their heads and they think,
'Wow, you know I know that sounds good, but, 1 John 1:9.
If we confess He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And we hear that used a lot in revival meetings and things like that about how important it is...
we need to keep short accounts with God and we need to come down and repent and confess
our sins and be forgiven by God of our sins.
All that sounds great, but is it biblical? Is it new covenant?
I contend that according to the scripture, it is NOT new covenant.
John, when he was writing his first letter he was addressing several groups
within that fellowship that he was writing to.
There was a prevalent teaching back at that time known as Gnosticism.
Gnosticism taught several things.
One of the things that they taught was that Jesus Christ was not really God in the flesh.
He was more of an immaterial being. He was a man who had the
God spirit or Messiah spirit come on Him at His baptism, but when He
died, the Messiah left Him, the Christ spirit left Him and He died as a mere mortal man.
He was not physically raised from the dead, He was simply spiritually raised.
They also taught that sin was not a real big issue.
It was immaterial, you could just live any way you wanted to.
And they had such a dualistic view of things, light and darkness,
good and evil, all these things really did not matter.
In fact if you wanted to understand sin you had to really get in there and experience it to its fullest.
And when John writes his letter, the first chapter predominantly
is dealing with some of these false teachings by the Gnostics.
In fact, he begins talking about how that he physically had seen
Jesus, with his eyes, he had handled him with his hands, he had physically touched him.
So he was dispelling the rumor and
the false teaching that Jesus was not actually flesh and blood.
Then he starts talking about God being light and how there is no darkness in Him.
And then he says in verse 6 of 1 John 1,
"If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness,"
we live our lives in darkness or in sin, "we lie and do not practice the truth;"
Then he says "if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light,
we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
cleanses us from all sin."
Then he says in verse 8, "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and
the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Then in verse 10 he says, "If we say that we have not sinned,
we make Him a liar and His word is not in us."
Christians do not do what he says in verses 6, 8 and 10.
A true believer does not say, 'Well, we will life in darkness and not practice the truth."
A true believer does not say "I have no sin"
A true believer does not say "I have not sinned".
In fact in order to become a child of God you have to acknowledge all of those things.
I believe what John is teaching here in the very first chapter has to do with our salvation.
He says 'Listen, if you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us
of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.'
That is what happens at the moment of salvation. We talked about that last time.
God has already forgiven us of all of our sins, why in the world do I need to confess
my sin in order to get something that I have already gotten from God.
He has already forgiven me. So I believe that John is addressing
non-believers that were in the early church at that time, the Gnostics predominantly,
because he starts out chapter 2 saying, "My little children, I am writing these things to you
so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only,
but also for those of the whole world."
Then in verse 12 he says, "I am writing to you, little children, because your sins
have been forgiven you for His name’s sake."
Why in the world would he tell you to confess your sins if your sins have already been forgiven?
So a lot of people think God is like this, He has got a big chalk board up in the sky.
We have committed sin. We come to Jesus and say 'Oh God forgive me for my sins.'
So He takes His big heavenly eraser and He erases all those sins.
But then from that point on, the minute we sin, He puts that down.
And we say 'Oh God forgive me'. He takes the eraser and erases it.
And we believe we live our life that way.
We get a whole bunch of stuff stacked up, have a revival meeting, go down to the front
so God can take the big heavenly eraser and get rid of them all again. That is not new covenant.
New covenant says 'Yep, all of our sins from the beginning of our life to the very
last breath we breathe all on that chalkboard but when we came to Christ because of the cross,
God took that chalkboard, not only did He erase all of those sins,
but He took the chalkboard and He smashed it to pieces and He threw it away forever.
He is not keeping an account of our sin. But you say then 'Well what should we do?'
It is not wrong for me to acknowledge "God, yes I have sinned".
But when I do, I say I am agreeing with God, because that is what confession is.
"God I thank you that I am already forgiven. Yes, that was wrong
and I thank you for the forgiveness that I have."
I do not confess my sin to get forgiveness. I acknowledge the fact that I am already forgiven.
That would be conditional and the new covenant is unconditional.
After I have trusted in Christ as my Lord and Savior, I stand completely and totally forgiven.
So do not live under that cloud of thinking 'Oh I have got to keep short accounts with God.'
Let me ask you a question. Do you remember every sin you have ever committed?
Can you remember everything you have done in a day sometimes?
That you have to sit down and try to remember that? NO! NO!
I do not and neither do you. And how in the world do you think 'Well,
let me sit back and try to remember and get to this point of confessing all these things
that I have done and try to keep short accounts.'
That is not the way the new covenant teaches you to live.
The old covenant teaches to live that way, but the new covenant does not.
My sins are paid for and they are gone.
They are obliterated through the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So do not live old covenant life as a new covenant child of God.
Live in the new covenant reality that your sins are forgiven and they are all gone.
Take some time today beholding Him who is beholding you and smiling.