January 30, 2018

I AM PERSUADED THAT HE IS ABLE:

TO FORGIVE (part 1)

I John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Let me introduce the Biblical principle of “if and then”. We will be mentioning this principle many times over the next year. We see it all through the Bible. Let me explain. Often we will find a promise given by God, that is preceded with a phrase that begins with the conjunction “if”. This two letter conjunction does what a conjunction does. It connects the phrase with the promise. If an individual, family, people, or nation do the following; then God will do what He promised. It is a conditional promise.

In this verse, God has first promised to forgive our sins. We will never be able to fully comprehend all that God the Father and God the Son had to go through to make that one promise possible. We will never fully comprehend it because in order to be able to do so, we would have to understand how horrible our sin is and how Holy God is. We see sin through sinful eyes, but God sees sin through Holy, pure, sinless eyes. As bad as we are, and as good as He is, God has promised to forgive. We will discuss this more in the future.

Secondly, God promised to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The Greek word used for “cleanse” in this verse is where we get our word “catheter”. It means to purify. In the medical field, people are sometimes catheterized to try to help impurities exit the body. As some of you through experience might know, it is worse than I have made it sound. (Smiley face) This simply means that God will not just forgive our sin, He will take it away. If we are saved, the blood of Christ will “catheterize” the impurities out. What does that mean?

Wait for it!

Through the Holy eyes of God, our sins are not just forgiven, it is as if they were never there.

Mic drop!

HE IS ABLE TO FORGIVE!