The other day I went to the local grocery store to by some food. After unpacking my trolley, I paid for all my goods. On the way to the car I realized I forgot to buy milk. I quickly ran back inside, grabbed a bottle of milk and on may way out I just shouted to the cashier that I have already paid for all my groceries, I just forgot to grab some milk. As I wanted to leave the store, milk in hand, the cashier came after me and stopped me, demanding that I pay for the milk. I tried explaining again that I already paid for my groceries 5 minutes ago; I just forgot to take some milk. It proved to be of no use. She said I either had to pay for my milk or else she would call security. So I was forced to go back and pay again for my milk.

This story is just an illustration. I am not really that dumb. But some people think forgiveness works like this. They believe Jesus paid for all their sin, but only up and until the moment they got saved. After that point, forgiveness is based on I don’t know, their ability to repent, ask forgiveness, live morally and all sorts of other religious behaviour. The problem with this is that Jesus has already paid and He is not going to pay again. (Heb 10:12, Rom 6:10) If He forgot about your post-salvation sin, then you have a ginormous problem. Just like the milk episode above, there would need to be another payment made if something was not included in the original price.

Partial forgiveness is therefore not good news. Especially since Jesus isn’t going to die again. What is going to be your sacrifice for your post salvation sins if Jesus isn’t going to die again? A couple of lambs? Maybe a goat? Your works? Your ability to remember, confess, cry and wail about it? Or does God go into panic mode, quickly turns back time every time somebody confesses, adds that sin in and then lets Jesus die all over again, and then fast-forwards time back to the present so we can all go on again? I highly doubt it. Jesus died 2000 years ago. Your forgiveness was fully provided at the same time. You were forgiven at the cross, not at the point of salvation. At the point of salvation you merely realized you have been forgiven already and then through faith you received His free gift of righteousness which gave you right standing before the Father. For more on this, click here.

Complete forgiveness is therefore good, or rather great, or even better, THE BEST news. One sacrifice for ALL SIN for ALL TIME. How is it that people don’t understand ALL means ALL. Even in Hebrew and Greek all means all. Check it out yourself if you don’t believe me!

Now please read the following passage at least 5 times. Read it slowly, read it out loud. THIS IS GOOD NEWS! Partial forgives is not!

Hbr 10:12-18 But this Man, after He had offered ONE sacrifice for sins FOREVER, sat down at the right hand of God, 13 from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. 14 For by ONE OFFERING He has perfected FOREVER those who are being sanctified. 15 But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” 17 then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” 18 Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin. (NKJV)

So, what then happens to my forgiveness if I sin after being saved? Click here to find out. If you already know, go say thank you to Jesus!

Peace!

Cornel

Face it, we have all been there. We mess up so badly and think God is utterly disappointed with us. We entertain thoughts of condemnation and guilt over our actions and feel totally unworthy of God’s grace. Whenever I have felt like this, these 8 verses have always helped me get over myself and run to Dad! They will help you too I know it!

Isa 43:25            “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins.

 God blotted out your transgression FOR HIS SAKE, not yours. Sure it’s great for you too, but God did it for his own sake, because if He didn’t, He would have had no other choice but to kill you. So rest assured, God made the choice to not kill you.

Jer 31:34            “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

We will know the Lord? How? Because we will come to realize He is utterly good because He forgave us when we didn’t deserve it.

Jer 33:8     ‘I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against Me.

ALL means ALL! All iniquity, all transgression, all sin pardoned and cleansed by Him

Rom 4:7-8            “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; 8 Blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin.”

You are blessed! Why? Because your lawless deeds are forgiven, your sins are covered and sin is not imputed to you! What a Saviour!

Hbr 8:12            “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

God has already chosen to have mercy on your unrighteousness by forgiving you and not remembering your sin or lawless deeds. Then on top of that He graciously offered you the free gift of Christ’s Righteousness!

Hbr 10:17            then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

Then He adds, for the 6th time now, “I am not remembering your lawless deeds or sins.”

2Cr 5:17-19            Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

The way God reconciled you to Himself was to NOT count your sins against you. If He were counting your sins against you, you would not have been able to be  reconciled!

Psa 103:10            He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities.

And lastly my personal favorite! God HAS NOT done to any of us what our sins deserved. He has not thrown the book at us, He is not holding the law over our heads, He is not condemning or finding fault with us. He is shouting it all throughout His Word: “I have removed the record of your sin from My mind for all time! I love you with an everlasting love!”

How great, oh how great is our Dad!

Cornel

If you haven’t already read PART 1 or PART 2, please do so before you jump into this one. I have expounded on the topic of confession a few times in the past, as have others. So instead of re-arguing the same thing again, I have linked all the different teachings into one post so you can access those articles easier and read them for yourself.

Confession is a hotly debated topic and I am sure will stay that way for a while. The problem is that those who are for confession and those who are against it both use the same verse to argue their case since there is only one single solitary verse in the entire New Testament that speaks about the specific topic. Can you guess which one? If you guessed 1 John 1:9 you are right! Every bible scholar will tell you it is not a good idea to form doctrine around a single scripture, yet this is what is happening in regards to 1 John 1:9. Paul, who wrote three-quarters of the New Testament, never once wrote about believers needing to confess their sins to maintain forgiveness, neither did Peter, Luke or James. If this is such a hot topic, why did none of these guys write about it? Especially Peter?

Peter denied Jesus 3 times. Today we would classify that as almost an unforgivable sin by a believer. Yet when Jesus rose, one of the first things He did was go find Peter. What did He tell Peter? “Peter, confess that you denied me, ask for forgiveness and then I will restore our fellowship.” Nope, nothing of the sort. In fact, Jesus was fellowshipping with Peter. Jesus came and cooked him dinner, and while they were fellowshipping and eating Jesus only asked whether Peter loved him. Upon Peter’s reply that he does, Jesus merely said ‘Then go feed my sheep.” Jesus never even brings up the topic of sin. Why not? Because He just dealt with it 3 days ago on the cross!

In many churches today you will hear that if you sin, you fall out of fellowship with God and in order to restore that fellowship you have to beg, grovel, confess and ask forgiveness. Jesus did exactly the opposite. He came looking for Peter. Their fellowship was not broken. Peter thought it was and withdrew, but Jesus came and showed him it wasn’t. “Peter, you love me. That is all I want. Get over yourself, come eat with me and then go feed my people.” So if you are hiding away somewhere because you think your sin has broken the fellowship between you and Jesus, look over your shoulder. You will see Jesus sitting on the beach, cooking you diner, waiting for you.

The concept of confessing your sins continually to remain forgiven to me, is absurd, and I know many will not agree with me. If it were up to me and my confession, it would mean salvation is not a free gift and it has to be earned and maintained through human effort. The very reason why Jesus came was to put an end to attaining righteousness through human effort! I have already written more than I planned on, so I will stop. Click the links below for a more in-depth look this topic.

Much love,

Cornel

Do you have to confess a sin for it to be forgiven? – Cornel Marais

Confession: Here we go again! – Cornel Marais

12 Reason why Christians don’t need to confess to be forgiven. – Paul Ellis

Son or Sinner? What are you confessing? – Paul Ellis

Confession, Conviction,  Confusion. – Paul Ellis

The axe of forgiveness. – Paul Ellis

What keeps Christians weak and unproductive? – Paul Ellis

Completely forgiven? When confession is bad for you! – Paul Ellis

Do Christians need to confess their sin? Part 1. – Andre vd Merwe

Do Christians need to confess their sin? Part 2. – Andre vd Merwe

What about 1 John 1:9? Understanding the power of complete forgiveness. – Joseph Prince (Audio teaching)

Looks like the writing bug has finally bit Simon! This his first article and I hope to see many more from him!

Enjoy!

Cornel

___________________________

Here are five spiritual time and money wasters that will help shift your thinking into a New Covenant way of life faster!

1.            Giving Money To Receive Blessings

Stop wasting your money by trying to receive blessings through giving. In this tradition you are not only trying to manipulate God but you are literally using money to receive something you already have. You have been blessed already. No matter which blessing you are trying to receive, it has been obtain through the cross. “Why haven’t I received, the blessings that you say i already have? I don’t feel blessed!” The reason you don’t “feel” blessed or haven’t received in the natural, is because you are always trying to obtain the blessing through your own efforts, when it’s always been yours through Christ’s efforts. You need to believe and receive instead of trying to earn. Start living out of what you already have! Instead of wasting your money to earn something you have already received, give out of the love of giving, Give Because you have received, not in order to receive.

(See Eph 1:3, Eph 2:7, 2 Cor 8:9, Gal 3:14, Acts 8:20)

2.            Running After Different Anointings/Powers/Mantles

Why would people run after Elijah’s anointing, John G Lake’s anointing, David’s anointing or anybody else’s for that matter when they already have Christ’s anointing, baffles my mind. Stop seeking and just look in the mirror. Yes, as a believer you are already anointed with Christ’s anointing and that anointing will never leave you! You may not “feel” anointed but you are anointed 24hrs a day 365 days a year. It’s not an existential mystical thing that comes upon you when you do things just right; it’s been in you since you were placed in Christ Jesus. What greater anointing is there then Jesus’ anointing? Stop wasting your time trying to get other peoples’ anointing when you could live out the source of all anointings: Christ in you!

(See 2 Cor 1:20-23, Eph 1:13, Rom 8:11, Gal 3:26-27, Heb 1:9, 1 John 2:20, 1 John 2:27)

3.            Digging Up Your Past Looking For Generational Curses

The next time someone tells you that in order to be set free you have to go in to your past and dig up old family sins, you can say, “No thank you, I don’t need to waste my time, I was set free by Jesus on the Cross and my generation goes back to God the Father and you can’t curse what He has blessed.

Num 23:20 Behold, I received a command to bless: He (God) has blessed, and I cannot revoke it.

Since we are blessed, and anointed Children of God seated with Christ on the right hand of the throne, how can we be cursed? The only way you can become cursed is if Jesus becomes cursed. And if the devil is trying to curse you, tell him to get lost!

(See Gal 3:12-14, 2 Cor 5:17, 1 Tim 1:4, Ez 18, Deut 24:16, Tit 3:9)

4.            Trying To Constantly Defeat The Devil

Are you spending time in prayer trying to defeat the devil? How much time have you spent trying to ‘bombard the heavenlies’ to defeat the devil and the principalities? The devil is already defeated! Jesus has done it all, “Wait what about Eph 6:12” I hear you say. “Don’t we wrestle against principalities and powers?” I tell you, you cannot interpret Ephesians 6 without reading Ephesians 1:17-23 or Colossians 2:13-15! You don’t have to waste time trying to defeat him, Jesus defeated the Devil like David defeated Goliath. Now you can spend a lot more of your time praising God and setting people free from a defeated enemy!

(See Acts 10:38, Phl 2:10, Col 2:10, Rom 8:37-39, Matt 16:18-19, Luke 9:1-2, Mark 16:17-20)

5.            Spending Time At The Cross, Repenting For The Forgiveness Of Sins

You don’t have to spend your time seeking forgiveness for every little sin that you have done. Jesus forgave you on the cross. You are not forgiven because you ask for it; you are forgiven because of what Jesus did on the Cross. If forgiveness were based on you asking for it every night, you better hope you didn’t forget one somewhere incase you kick it before you get the chance to confess. All your sins have been completely forgiven, removed as far as the east is from the west. They are gone. Before you were saved your sins were already forgiven, when you were saved you entered into that forgiveness. Repentance, when you were unsaved is entering in from law into His grace. Repentance after you are saved is simply to change your thinking regarding how God relates to you. As you change your think your mind becomes renewed and your life is transformed. You are in a NEW Covenant! Ours sins never even made us sinners in the first place. We were sinners because we were born of Adam. Now we are righteous not by our actions but because we are born of Jesus! Just read Rom 5:12-20!

(See 1 Cor 15:22, Col 2:13-15, Heb 8:12, 1 John 2:12, Rom 3:23-24, Jer 31:34, Isa 43:25, Psa 103:3, Heb 10:17, Psa 103:10)

Blessings

Simon Wilson

This is Part 2, Read Part 1 here…

Well, very touchy question I know and this is how I see it. Think back to the time of bulls and goats. Animals were brought to the altar so they could be sacrificed for the sins the person committed since the last time they sacrificed an animal. Think carefully about that for a while. If a person commits a sin, they had to bring an animal. The animal was sacrificed and their sin, up to that point, was forgiven. If they sinned again after this present animal was sacrificed, a new sacrifice was required. In other words, once the animal was slain, killed, sacrificed, NO NEW SIN could be added to it. Hence the reason why the sacrifices had to continue day after day, year after year (Heb 10:1, Heb 10:11, Ex 29:36-41).

Jesus was appointed once to die. His sacrifice was not like the bulls and goats rituals. He took upon Himself all the sin of the entire world, past present and future. Some say the Bible does not explicitly say this. I beg to differ.

Hbr 10:12            But this Man, after He had offered ONE sacrifice for sins FOREVER, sat down at the right hand of God. (NKJV)

The Greek interpretation of ‘forever’ is the word diekenes, which means ‘to carry through perpetually and continually’. (See Strong’s G1336). So yes, your future sins were also included in this ONCE FOR ALL sacrifice and then Jesus was slain, killed and sacrificed. (See also Rom 6:10, Heb 7:27, Heb 9:12, Heb 10:10-12) According to the same principle, NO NEW SIN can be added to this completed sacrifice. Since you sinned thousands of years after this sacrifice, logically your sins had to have been included when Jesus died. If they weren’t included, you would not be able to even claim His death as the basis of your forgiveness in the first place.

Hbr 9:12            Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. (NKJV)

Eternal redemption! Let me Greek that for those who don’t believe the English. Eternal, aionios, means everlasting, without beginning or end, never ceasing, that which has always been and will always be. (See Strong’s G166.) Redemption, lytrosis, means ‘deliverance from the penalty of sin.’ (See Strong’s G3085.)

Now ask yourself this: Did God look ahead into the future at the sins you were going to commit up until the second you would make the choice to believe in Jesus and only included those sins in Jesus’ sacrifice, or did He look beyond the point of your salvation to the sins you would also commit after you got saved till the day you die? The verses above make it very clear it included the sins of all time. Why do you think Jesus was able to sit down and rest? Because He finished atoning for all sin for all time! If not, He would not be in rest because new sin would require a new sacrifice, which means He would continually have to be killed day after day because believers mess up day after day because NO NEW SINS can be added to a finished sacrifice.

But let’s imagine that were not the case and see how that plays out. Assume your sins were only forgiven up and until the moment you believed and got saved. If Jesus’ sacrifice only included those sins, then unfortunately for you, any sins you commit after the moment you got saved could not be added to the finished sacrifice because NO NEW SIN can be added to a finished sacrifice. No matter how much you beg, plead, fast or pray, a finished sacrifice is a finished sacrifice and as you should have picked up by now, NO NEW SINS can be added to a finished sacrifice. That means the latter option, pre-salvation sins, present point of salvation sins, and post-salvation sins were included in Jesus’ ONCE FOR ALL sacrifice. What a Saviour!

1 Jo 2:1-2            My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. (NKJV)

Bottom line, being saved and having all your sins forgiven past, present and future does not mean you get a free ticket to go and do whatever you want. But if you should sin, YOU HAVE AN ADVOCATE WITH THE FATHER, JESUS CHRIST THE RIGHTEOUS. Jesus would not be able to be your advocate for the post-salvation sin in question, were it not already forgiven at the cross. All the prosecution would have to say is, ‘Sorry, Jesus, no new sin can be added to a finished sacrifice’ and Jesus would lose your case and you would be lost again forever since after Jesus there remains no longer any sacrifice for sins. For this very reason you will not find one verse in the entire New Covenant that instructs a believer to continually beg for new forgiveness.

I am going to stop it here now, but some of you are already shouting “What about 1 John 1:9!?” so I will once again address that in the next post. So to answer the original question, nothing happens to your forgiveness. You are as forgiven now as you were the day you got saved. Your forgiveness can not fluctuate because the sacrifice that secured it does not fluctuate.

Grace to you all!

Cornel

A few years ago some people hurt me pretty badly. I cried myself to sleep that night and woke up still crying the next morning. Then I decided to forgive them. The choice to forgive them was my own. I forgave them before they apologized. I forgave them before they ‘repented’ and before they ‘confessed.’ Before they even knew I forgave them. The moment I chose to forgive them, that was it. In my mind they were forgiven, as if they had never even wronged me in the first place. They had absolutely no say over my choice to forgive them.

Now think of what Jesus did. Did He wait for you to confess and repent before He forgave you, or did He forgive you on the cross? If your answer is on the cross, then that means you were forgiven because God in Christ made the choice to forgive you despite the fact that you didn’t repent or confess. Even the Bible says it!

Rom 5:8  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (NKJV)

God demonstrated HIS love towards us while we were sinners. He died for you before you ever repented or confessed anything. The choice was His to forgive you. That means, in God’s mind, you are forgiven. Whether you are a believer or not, you are forgiven because God chose to forgive you. (Isa 43:25, Jer 31:34, Heb 8:12, Heb 10:17, Rom 3:24-26) Does that mean every single person is saved? Of course not. Forgiveness is not the be all and end all of salvation. Faith in Christ reveals in you the FREE GIFT of HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS. It is His righteousness that gives you right-standing before God, not forgiveness.

Imagine you have credit card debt. Debt places you on the left of zero, in the negative. If I came and forgave your debt, out of my own decided to pay off all your credit card debt, where on the line would that place you? It would only put you at zero, because all I did was forgive your debt. Even though you don’t have any debt, you don’t have anything else either because now you are only at zero. The debt of sin is to the left of zero and righteousness to the right, and as such forgiveness doesn’t give you an ounce of righteousness. To move past zero to the right hand side requires the free gift of His righteousness. That is revealed and received by faith alone.

Rom 1:16-17            For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” (NKJV)

For in it, ‘it’ meaning the Gospel, THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD is revealed FROM FAITH to Faith. Forgiveness is the thing that placed you in a position where you were able to receive the free gift. It is this free gift revealed and received by faith that completes salvation, not mere forgiveness alone. Forgiveness is what placed you in a position where His ETERNAL PURPOSE (which is not salvation) in and through man could be realized once again. (I will write on this more in a later post since it goes beyond the scope of this article and because I am sure it is going to upset a few people very much.)

To recap, Jesus forgave you on the cross. You can’t do anything to change that. It was His choice, and He made it without you apologizing, asking, confessing, or repenting. It was His demonstration of love toward you. When you come to Him and confess your inability to achieve right-standing before God yourself (sin) and when you cease trying to achieve it for yourself (repentance) you receive His free gift and you then become a reborn son of God, CREATED IN RIGHTEOUSNESS and TRUE HOLINESS (Eph 4:24).

Why true holiness? Because only Jesus is truly holy. Your actions or inactions do not make you more or less holy. Jesus in you makes you holy. You are either holy or you’re not. Something or somebody is holy because God set him, her or it apart for Himself. He did it, not you. You can’t be partially holy and you can’t make yourself holy either. Jesus is holy and because you are in Him you are holy, set apart by God, for God, through God and to God.

If that doesn’t make you happy, I don’t know what will! Now if you are wondering what happens in regards to forgiveness when a believer sins, you will need to wait a little while for the next installment…

Grace, grace, grace and more grace to you all!

Cornel

I recently had a few discussions with people because I said I believe every person, saved or unsaved has already had their sins forgiven. For some reason this seems to be a tender nerve. So I want expound on my views a little more. Imagine a scale going from -100 all the way to +100.

-100 <————————- 0 ————————-> +100

Before you got saved, where on the scale would you find yourself? Your sins would place you in the negative part of the scale. Like with a credit card. If you owe money, you are in the red. Then Jesus came and this was His message:

Jer 33:8 ‘I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against Me.

Now if Jesus came to pardon your debt, where on the scale would that put you? At 0 or at +100? If I pay off my debt on my credit card, it means I owe nothing but I also don’t have extra because my balance is 0. Forgiveness also just places you at 0 on the scale. The debt of sin of the entire world was forgiven in Christ. The entire world sits at 0. Does that mean the entire world is saved? NO! Why not? Because 0 is not the requirement to enter a relationship with the Father.

Mat 5:20 “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

To enter into relationship with the Father you need to be at +100 on the scale. You only get to +100 by grace through faith. All your debts have been cleared, but without faith you don’t receive the gift of righteousness that puts you at +100. See Rom 1:16-17. Sin was the thing that stopped you from being able to have a relationship with the Father. Jesus came and dealt with sin, removing the obstacle to relationship. But just because there is no hindrance left doesn’t mean you automatically have a relationship now. That requires faith.

So what happens when an unbeliever dies with the forgiveness of their sins totally provided for? Well, they die at 0. They die without relationship with the Father.

Mat 7:23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Eternal life is not found at 0 on the scale. If my bank balance says 0 I cannot rest. I can only rest when my balance shows I have enough. Eternal life is to know God! (John 17:3). That is found way over on the opposite side of the scale in the positive end. Forgiveness, which was mercifully provided for thousands of years before I even sinned once, brought me to 0. Now through faith the gift of righteousness has brought me to +100 and a relationship with the Father. Is that not good news? Being on 0 is good news, but 0 is not the entire gospel. It’s only the invitation to it! +100 however, is really good news!

Realize you are not just at 0 on the scale, you are at +100! You are the righteousness of God in Christ! 0 doesn’t sit at the right-hand of God in Christ (Eph 2:5-6). 0 doesn’t have every spiritual blessings in heavenly places (Eph 1:3). 0 has not been provided with everything pertaining to life and godliness (2 Pet 1:3). 0 is not a  heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ (Rom 8:17). +100 on the other hand, HAS!

It’s time you realize where on the scale you really are…

Grace and peace be multiplied to you all!

Cornel

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If you have to confess every sin in order for it to be forgiven, as some people interpret 1 Jhn 1:9 , how will you know what sin is so you can go confess it?

Rom 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. (NKJV)

Since the law provides the knowledge of sin, you have to go to the law to find out what is considered sin by God so you can go confess it to Him. Which parts of the law do you use to define right and wrong for yourself? Do you use only the 10 Commandments, or do you use the entire law? Well, Jesus considered Leviticus 19:18 , love your neighbour as yourself, to be the second greatest commandment and that specific law wasn’t even part of the 10 Commandments. Has God granted you permission to judge which of His laws are applicable to you and which are not? Did Jesus ever mention that He is only going to fulfill certain parts of the law and that those parts are now no longer applicable? No! In fact, quite the opposite actually.

Luke 16:17 “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.” (NKJV)

The law can’t be divided into applicable and not applicable sections for today. The law in its entirety will always remain intact. Heaven is more likely to pass away before even one law will fall away. That is why Paul wrote the following:

Gal 3:10 “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’” (NKJV)

All things, meaning you can’t pick and choose. So, before you go confess next time, just make sure you go through the entire law to see what God considers sin and confess all those too. Don’t forget to also confess every good thing you didn’t do, because that is sin too (James 4:17). And while you are going through the entire law on this quest for knowledge of right and wrong in order to confess and repent, just think for a moment what got Adam & Eve into trouble in the first place? Eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What did God say would happen if they ate of that tree? They would die, right? So while you are busy eating from the same tree by trying to get more knowledge about good and evil, don’t be surprised if the very ministry of death you are placing yourself under ends up killing you.

Or, look at the Greek of the only single verse in the entire New Covenant that instructs anybody to confess sins and you will see something very interesting:

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins (G266), He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (G266) and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (G93).

G266: Hamartia: (Noun) To miss the mark, to transgress the law, collectively the complex or aggregate of sins committed either by a single person or by many.

The sin that needs to be confessed is not every single sin you commit because the word is a noun, not a verb. You are to confess that you have fallen short, that you have transgressed, that collectively you are as sinful as can be. You confess your state of sinfulness, not the action of every sin you commit. What happens then? God is faithful to forgive us our sins, same word same meaning, and cleanse you of all unrighteousness.

G93: Adikia: (Noun) Deeds of transgression, acts of unrighteousness.

Basically, confess your sinful state before God and He will forgive you of all your acts of unrighteousness. Now, the real whopper is that you have already done this. When? The day you got saved. You confessed your sinfulness, and the forgiveness God provided 2000 years before you even committed one act of sin was credited to you by grace. Now you either believe that and enter into rest from works of trying to earn forgiveness, or you keep asking God to forgive you over and over never really believing that He has already forgiven you. If you choose option 2, you better make sure you confess everything God considers sin, not just what you consider sin.

Does this mean we just forget about our sins, don’t deal with what we are struggling with and just live in any way we want? I will discuss this more in the next post. Stay tuned…

Grace to you!

Cornel

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Matt 18:23-35 is one of those passages that has been used for years to beat believers over the head to get them back under performance based legalism. I have been asked about this passage quite a lot, as many people have used it when they try to argue that you can lose your salvation and be thrown out of the kingdom if you don’t do certain things. Lets look at the passage and then just ask 3 simple questions…

Matthew 18:23-35 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” (ESV)

Whenever this story is read, people identify God as the king and themselves as the servant. God forgave you your sins just like the king cleared the servant’s debt. Then they say that if we don’t forgive, God won’t forgive us and deliver us to the ‘jailers’ or tormentors in another translation. Whenever we study a piece of scripture, it should always be looked at through what happened on the cross. The cross changed everything. It especially changed the way God relates to us, which is important in understanding this parable.  I said I would ask 3 simple questions, so here goes:

• Are you saved by mercy or grace?

There is a difference between mercy and grace. We are saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8), not mercy. The king in the parable showed mercy by forgiving the servant’s debt out of pity. God didn’t save you out of pity, He saved you out of love. Big difference. If the king had shown the servant grace, he would have not only cleared the debt, he would have given the servant enough money to never be in debt again.

• Are you a servant or a king?

Surprisingly enough many believers would rather identify with being a servant instead of being a king. The scripture is clear that Jesus no longer considers us servants; we are friends, brothers, kings and priests. As He is, so are we in this world (1 John 4:17). So in this story it would be more accurate if you identified yourself with the king. You are in a position to be merciful, to see the debts people have and to clear it.

• Does God relate to you based on your works or His Son’s works?

Since we are now the righteousness of God in Christ by faith, God relates to us based on Jesus’ righteousness, or the degree to which Jesus can do right. He no longer looks at our unworthiness, because through the atoning blood of Jesus, we have been made forever worthy. Whenever we think God would ignore the blood of His Son and again look at our own righteous efforts, we are saying Jesus’ blood was not enough.

So please don’t buy into this legalistic manipulation trap that God is going to hand you over to tormentors if you don’t forgive others because if He did, He would be guilty of murdering Jesus. “But Cornel, this Jesus talking about the Kingdom?” Yes, I know. And he told this story before He went to the cross. God’s kingdom didn’t start at the cross. His kingdom has always been there. Before the cross the relationship we had to the kingdom was based on the old covenant performance based laws. Do good, get good. Do bad, get bad. After the cross the relationship we have to the kingdom is based on the finished works of Christ. If you relate to God based on the law, then you are on your own, you have no mediator and He would have to keep His word and punish sin. But if you are saved, you relate to God through Christ, your Mediator, and God again would keep His word that He would not treat you according to your sins because He has punished His Son in your stead.

So the choice is yours: Do you want God to relate to you based on your righteous ability (Old Covenant), or Christ’s righteous ability (New Covenant)? You can’t have both because old and new don’t mix.

Grace to you all!

Cornel

Read more about Cornel’s book “So You Think Your Mind Is Renewed?” here!

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I know there are many verses that specifically say our sins have been forgiven. Please note that I am not trying to disprove scripture. I just want to let you see forgiveness from a different perspective in order to see the extent of God’s grace that is lavished on us. The way I personally understand what happened at the cross, has made me come to believe that our sins weren’t forgiven. Let me go through my deductions with you:

Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death (NKJV)

The wages of sin is death. We all know this well. Now read this verse together with the following one:

Rom 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (NKJV)

One of the root meanings of the word forgive in the original Greek means to disregards. So if God were to forgive our sins, it would mean He had to disregard them. If it were true that He could just disregard or forgive them, then why did Jesus have to die? If the penalty for sin is death and Jesus died to pay that penalty, it tells me that God didn’t disregard or forgive our sins. But why do all those verses say our sins were forgiven? The answer lies in the word sin. The confusion lies in the English language. Whenever we hear the word “sin”, we immediately think about some action or deed that transgresses the laws of God. Our minds are somehow trained to think of sin as a verb. In English, we only have on word for both sin, the noun, and sin, the verb. The verb refers to the action of committing a sin and the noun refers to a person’s state of guilt because of the trespass, their collective sinfulness, or their universal inability to “hit the mark”. In light of this common confusion, let’s look a little closer at a few of those well known verses:

Acts 5:31 Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins [noun]. (NKJV)

Acts 13:38 Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins [noun]. (NKJV)

Acts 26:18 to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins [noun] and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me. (NKJV)

Rom 4:7-8 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds [noun] are forgiven, And whose sins [noun] are covered; 8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin [noun].” (NKJV)

Col 1:14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins [noun]. (NKJV)

Eph 1:7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins [noun], according to the riches of His grace (NKJV)

All the words ‘sin, sins and lawless deeds’ in these verses are not all the same Greek word, but they are all nouns. Not one of them refers to the action of committing a sin technically. Now I know some of you will say that is merely semantics, what am I really on about? This is what I mean: Your sins were NOT forgiven, YOU WERE! You received forgiveness, not your sins. People are forgiven, people are set free, and people are redeemed. Their every sin gets punished unto death in Christ Jesus. The wages of sin is death and Jesus died to pay them. His death secured forgiveness for you. When you believe, you become forgiven. That means God will ‘disregard’ you when He has to enforce final judgment on His great day. When you stand before Him, He can disregard you because the wages for your sins have already been paid, you don’t owe anything for them.

So instead of thinking that every act of committing a sin needs to be forgiven, rather realize that all sins have to be punished unto death. If your sins are punished in Christ, you are forgiven, regardless of the action and also regardless of when the act is, was or will be committed. The noun-sin, the sinfulness that resulted because of the actions, the guilt and the inability to hit the mark are disregarded in Christ. You might need to say this to yourself a few times to let it sink in. Say it out loud too: “I am forgiven.” Why do you need to realize this? Because as long as you think actions are forgiven, actions won’t bother you. As long as you think sin gets forgiven, sinning won’t bother you. You will just commit them over and over because they can just be forgiven, right? Once you realize people get forgiven, but that somebody had to die in order for you to be forgiven, you might want to honour the person who died for you by thinking twice about what you are about to do. If it wasn’t for Jesus, you would have had to go through what He went through. You’re only free if you choose to live free. Grace gives you the choice, now make it.

Glory, Honour and Praise to Jesus!

Cornel

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