The Gospel in Ten Words (7 page)

John
is not preaching an old law (confess to be forgiven), he is using old and
familiar language to describe something that would have been new and strange to
his first-century readers. In this regard he is like Paul who quotes the same
psalm in Romans 4:7–8. Paul quotes Psalm 32 to show we are blessed through
faith and not works; John quotes Psalm 32 to show we won’t be blessed except
through faith. For this is what John means when he says we must confess. The
Greek word for “confess” does not mean review your sins in the old covenant
fashion, it means to agree with or say the same thing as another.
[16]
It means agreeing with what God has said, which is the essence of faith.

God has dealt with your sins whether you believe it or
not but if you don’t believe it then his forgiveness will be of no benefit to
you. And you won’t believe it if you are hearing sermons week after week about
how sinful you are and how your sins are piling up to high heaven. If you are
constantly being told to examine your heart for sin, bitterness, and
unforgiveness, then you are going to have trouble trusting that you have been
fully forgiven in Jesus’ name. You’re going to be susceptible to the sort of
works-based, navel-gazing preaching that says you must acknowledge your faults
and forgive to be forgiven.

From God’s side, forgiveness
is
a done deal.
There are no more sacrifices for sin. But from our side sin
may be a serious problem indeed. So why do you need to receive the
gift of forgiveness if you are already forgiven? For the
same reason you need to receive the grace of God that has appeared to all men—it
will change you. It will free you from guilt and condemnation and liberate you
from captivity to sin.

An illustration may help: Let’s say I do something truly wicked to
you. Maybe I run over your cat or spread malicious lies about you. However, out
of the goodness of your heart you decide to forgive me.
Such grace!
I
don’t deserve this. Your act of forgiveness is entirely based on your gracious
character. Now if I continue to act wickedly toward you, then your forgiveness
of me has had no effect in my life. From your side there may be no offense
—
all is
forgiven
—
but from
my side I am the same cat-killing, gossip-spreading sinner I always was.

Or perhaps I feel bad about what I did but I can’t forgive myself
for doing it.
I did such awful things!
What is the solution? It is not
asking you to forgive me
—
you did
that already. It is receiving the grace you have already put on the table. From
your side I am forgiven, but as far as I’m concerned I either don’t want your
forgiveness or I don’t know I have it. Your forgiveness leaves me unchanged
because I have not received it.

Do you see? The grace of God has to be received to be effective in
our lives. If you don’t believe Jesus has saved you, then you’re going to be
short one Savior. If you don’t believe the sins of the world were fully dealt
with at the cross, then you’re going to have trouble experiencing his
forgiveness here and now.

The words of John
—
agree
with God and you’ll be forgiven
—
make perfect sense from our perspective. The moment you put your
trust in Christ and his finished work, his forgiveness, which was there all the
time, becomes real to you. In him we have the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians
1:7). You cannot be in Christ and be unforgiven any more than you can be in the
ocean and be unwet.

There are
two ways to get this wrong: One, tell people that they must do something before
God will forgive them
—
that’s
called law and it’s a grace killer. Or two, tell sinners that because they are
forgiven they are also saved
—
that’s called universalism and it’s a faith killer. Sadly, some
have come racing out of one error only to dive headlong into the other. Let’s
be clear; forgiveness does not equal salvation. Although Christ carried the
sins of the world on the cross, not everyone is saved.

Forgiveness is a manifestation of grace and grace has been given.
Grace is on the table. But not everyone receives it. Salvation is not the
absence of sin; salvation is the
acceptance of God’s grace.
[17]

Some have asked me, “If we preach forgiveness as part of
the finished work, isn’t there a danger of promoting apathy and indifference
among the lost?” There is, but there is a far greater danger if we don’t preach
forgiveness.

The opposite of forgiveness or remission is
sin retention (John 20:23). Although the sins of the world were taken away at
the cross, many people remain chained to sin through hurt and unforgiveness.
They can’t let go of the sins of those who have wounded them. Others can’t let
go of their own sins. They can’t forgive themselves. They have camped at the
places where they have blown it and the photo albums of their minds are full of
past hurts. Those who have been wounded by sin may turn to religion for comfort,
but religion without grace only makes things worse.

Just this morning I heard from a young man
whose friend killed himself because he could not cope with the guilt religion
had put on him. This is an awful tragedy but it should not surprise us. The
Bible shows us again and again that any religion of rules ultimately ministers
death to those who would live by them.
[18]
Grace-less religion kills people.

The only thing that can free people from the
grip of sin is a revelation of God’s grace. This is why it is essential that we
heed Jesus and follow the apostles’ example and proclaim the free gift of
forgiveness. For some people it is literally a matter of life and death. They
are dying for lack of forgiveness. The good news is that forgiveness is
powerful. It heals, it restores, it liberates and brings reconciliation.
Forgiveness saves lives.

The last thing this world needs is another
guilt-shoveler behind a pulpit. What people desperately need to hear is the
good news. They
need
to be told their sins have been forgiven and it is our responsibility to tell
them. Indeed, this is the privilege of proclaiming the gospel.

The ministry of reconciliation is not telling people that a huffy
God waits for them to sooth his offended ego with a bunch of repentance flowers
and a box of confession chocolates. It is the thrill of proclaiming the glad,
happy news that God loves them, his face is turned towards them, and he holds
nothing against them.

There are two stumbling
blocks in 1 John 1:9. The first stems from a misunderstanding of the word
“confess” and the other stems from John’s profligate use of the word “we.” John
says
we
need to confess and
we
need to be cleansed from all
unrighteousness, but who are
we
? Us? Them? All of us?
Who?

Read
1 John 1:9 in context and you will see that John is addressing people who do
not have the truth in them, who are walking in darkness, and who need to be
purified from all sin.
Since a child of God is, by
definition, someone who has the truth in them, walks in the light, and has been
purified from all sin, John can only be referring to unbelievers. We can be
doubly sure John is not addressing believers in this passage because he says
his motivation for writing is so “
you
may have fellowship with
us
and the Father.”
You
are not
us
.
You
need to get connected
to the life of God found in Jesus and shared by
us
, the body of Christ.
[19]

But
there’s a problem with these particular unbelievers: They don’t see their need
for grace. They are of the opinion that they are without sin. In other words,
they have a terminal case of self-righteousness and do not see themselves as
sinners in need of a Savior. What John says to these people can best be
understood if we first hear a little story.

Brennan Manning tells
a tale about a new patient at an alcoholic rehabilitation centre. The patient,
Max, appeared to the group to be a healthy and respectable citizen. When
grilled by the counselor over his drinking habits, Max described his behavior
in a way that indicated he had no problem with alcohol. The counselor was not convinced.
“You’re a liar!” he shouted. “You drink like a pig.” Max smiled, refusing to be
drawn. He knew that his drinking was modest. He had nothing to be ashamed of.

The
counselor picked up the phone and rang Max’s bartender. It turns out Max was
drinking considerably more than he let on. Max exploded with rage. He swore at
the bartender and spat on the rug before regaining his composure. His outburst
was justifiable, said Max. Even Jesus lost his temper.

The
counselor pressed further. “Have you ever been unkind to your kids?” Max did
remember some unpleasantness involving his nine-year-old daughter but he
couldn’t recall the details. The counselor rang Max’s wife and got the whole
story.

Max
had taken his little girl shopping for a Christmas present and on the way home
he had stopped at a tavern for a drink. He locked his daughter in the car
promising her he would be right out. It was an extremely cold day so he left
the motor running. At midnight Max staggered out, drunk. The motor had stopped
running and the car windows had frozen shut. His daughter was so badly
frostbitten the doctors had to amputate two of her fingers. They said she would
be deaf for the rest of her life.

Confronted
by the horror of his sin, Max’s mask of self-made respectability shattered and
he collapsed on the floor sobbing hysterically. The counselor put his boot into
Max’s side and rolled him onto his back. “You are unspeakable slime!” the
counselor roared. “Get out before I throw up. I am not running a rehab for
liars!”
[20]

Manning’s point is
that tough love is essential when you’re dealing with lying alcoholics. “In
order to free the captive, one must name the captivity.” Before he can be
helped, Max has to recognize his need for help.

The
same is true of sinners. If you don’t think sin is a serious business, then you
won’t value the grace of God. You will be blasé about his forgiveness, and you
will treat grace as a license to sin.

It’s
not hard to find respectable sinners in church. They come in, like Max, with
their masks of pretentious piety and put on a good show. They lead home groups
and volunteer for the working bee. They tell a good story and make a good
impression. But inside they are full of dead men’s bones.

Counselor
John was not fooled by outward appearances. Knowing his letter would be widely
read, he speaks plainly to all the Maxes of the world:

If we
claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around
in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth … If we claim that we’re
free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves
. (1 John 1:6,8,
The Message)

In
other words, “You sinners who think you’re hot stuff, who don’t believe you’re
sinners in need of saving, you are unspeakable slime! Get out before I throw
up. I am not running a church for liars!”
[21]

To
reiterate, John is not speaking to the children of God. His tone completely
changes when he addresses “my little children” at the beginning of the next
chapter. In this passage John is confronting religious wingnuts who have
infiltrated the church with grace-less and cross-less heresies.
What message does John have for these frauds and phonies?

Stop
calling God a liar and agree with him
—
confess!
—
that you
are a sinner in need of forgiveness. Do that and God will be faithful and just
to forgive not just the sins you did today, but the sins you did yesterday and
the sins you are going to do tomorrow. Indeed, he will cleanse you from all
unrighteousness.

How can John be so sure about this? Because in a manner of
speaking, God has already done it.

Maybe you are struggling with sin and carrying truckloads of
guilt. Perhaps you wear shame like a cloak. T
he
solution
to your problem is standing on a hill 2,000 years in the past. On the cross
Jesus became the
propitiation for the sins of the whole
world
(1 John 2:2). Propitiation
is a big word
but it simply means Jesus turned God’s wrath away from the sin that was in you
and me by taking our sin to the cross.

Sin is like a lightning rod; it attracts
wrath. Throughout Old Testament history flashes of judgment would occasionally
vaporize some poor soul or race whose sin grew too big to be ignored. But on
the cross Jesus took the sin of the world and obliterated it in one mighty
blast of judgment. He paid the ultimate price so that we could live totally
forgiven and free.

Your sins have been done away with. They have
been blotted out, abolished, canceled, and dismissed. They have been fried as
if by lightning. This is supposed to make you happy:

Happy
are those whose wrongs are forgiven, whose sins are pardoned! Happy is the
person whose sins the Lord will not keep account of! (Romans 4:7–8, GNB)

Yet many are not happy. They are
racked with guilt, unable to forgive
themselves or others because
they have not seen the
lightning rod of the cross. They have not heard the stunning news that Jesus’
sacrifice is
the once and final solution for
their sin. Instead they have been led to believe that God is angry with them,
that he is keeping accounts, and building a case against them. They have been
sold a counterfeit brand of forgiveness that comes straight from Sinai instead
of the real forgiveness that comes from Calvary.

If God’s love is unconditional, then his forgiveness must
be unconditional too. And it is!
His forgiveness is
not doled out in proportion to our acts of repentance or confession. It is
lavished upon us according to the riches of his grace (Ephesians 1:7). You only
need to look at Jesus to know this is true.

During his time on earth, Jesus went around
forgiving people who neither confessed nor repented, and while he hung on the
cross he forgave those who put him there. The Son of God did all this to give
us a picture of what true forgiveness looks like; it looks like love.

You need to treat God’s forgiveness the same
way you treat his love
—
as a gift
received by faith from start to finish. You don’t need to beat yourself up to
get it; you just need to look to the cross and say, “Thank you, Jesus.”

“But won’t I lose his forgiveness if I
continue to sin? What about the sin I
did just this morning?” Like all your sins
this one was dealt with at the cross. It was not recorded as a black mark next
to your name because God is not in the business of imputing sin.
[22]
It is human nature
to keep score but it is not God’s nature. God is love and love keeps no record
of wrongs. If you were to ask him about this morning’s sin, he
would say, “What sin? I have no record of that sin. Stop
looking for it and look to Jesus.”

If you
are battling
with
guilt and condemnation, heed
the words of Jesus and proclaim his
forgiveness over yourself. Look at yourself in the mirror and confess what the
Bible says is true about you:

I have been redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb. I have been saved from sin and I know I am. All my
sins are taken away. Praise the Lord!
[23]

Then take those guilty and condemning thoughts
and make them bow to the One who carried your sins away
and who bled to purchas
e your eternal forgiveness.