2010-02-01

The Old Gray Dog Ponders . . . Forgiveness

 

 And forgive us our debts,
      As we forgive our debtors. 
       "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matt. 6: 12, 14-15

 

One of the hardest things in this world is to admit you are wrong.

And nothing is more helpful in resolving a situation than a frank admission.

Benjamin Disraeli

 

    Before we can honestly pray for forgiveness, we must believe that we need to be forgiven.  We cannot experience forgiveness and maintain an opinion that we are basically good people.  The starting point for every Christian is an acceptance of our total depravity.  Before we can fully appreciate God's grace, we must understand our unworthiness.  Before we can understand Christ's sacrifice, we need to understand our sinfulness.

  

 

    Before we can experience forgiveness, we must have a sense of sin.

 

    The New Testament uses five different words for sin, each one shedding a little more light on our total depravity.

 

    Opheilema is the word Jesus used in the Lord's Prayer.  It means debt. Sin is a failure to pay a debt which is due.

 

 No matter what accomplishments you achieve, somebody helps you.

Althea Gibson

 

    Is there any one of us who is not indebted to another in some way?

 

 

    Hamaritia is the most common word for sin. Originally, this was an archery term; it meant missing the mark. Sin is a failure to be what we might have been.

 

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know

how enormously much he is capable of doing.

Soren Kierkegaard

 

    Is there any one of us who can say he is living up to his full potential?

 

    Parabasis literally means stepping across. Sin is stepping across the line between right and wrong.

 

  

    We can pretend we have never stepped across the line, but we would only be deceiving ourselves.

 

 

    Paraptoma means slipping across.  Not all our slips are deliberate.  We can, and do, sin inadvertently.  This is the sin of impulse and emotion.  This is the sin of lost control.

 

 

 

    The best of us can, and does, sin the moment we let our guard down. It is a function of our totally depraved human nature.

 

    Anomia means lawlessness. This is the sin of a person who knows what is right, and yet does the wrong.  It is a sign of our total depravity that we do what we like.  The speed limit is 40, but we would like to get to where we are going more quickly, so we go 50. Even if we were able to say we had never broken any of the Ten Commandments, is there any one who can honestly say he hadn't thought about breaking one?

 

Our first parents, begin seduced by the subtlety and temptations of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.

 

 By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.

 

They being the root of mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by original generation.

 

From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.

 

 This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.

 

 

  Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal, and eternal.

Westminster Confession

 

 And forgive us our debts

 

    Sin is a condition which affects everyone of us. We may be outwardly respectable; but inwardly we are debtors, deserving of God's wrath.  Until we come to grips with our total depravity, we will never experience forgiveness.

 

 

  

 

Gracious Father, help and prosper us in our daily walk.

Defend us from inward evil and outward harm so that when this day is ended,

it may not leave us in sorrow, strife, or shame.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen

 

 

Blessed are the saints who are equipped with the sound doctrines of TULIP!


The Old Gray Dog
Jim Tuckett

PS  This Ponder can also be found on the Dog's Blog on the Westminster Fellowship web site.  The whole Sermon on the Mount Study -- Christ's "officer training" course -- is on the Resources page.

The Westminster Fellowship
Clearly and Unequivocally Proclaiming What It Means To Be Reformed Christians http://www.westminsterfellowship.org

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