The Gospel in Ten Words by Paul Ellis Read Free Book Online Page A

sinning
before he forgave your sin. He has already forgiven you. He forgave you before
you confessed, before you repented, before you were even born.
    To forgive literally means to send
forth or send away. Your sin hasn’t merely
been overlooked or covered up; it has been removed from you as far as the east
is from the west. If you were to go looking for your sins, you wouldn’t find
them. They’re gone.
     
    But now
he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the
sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26b)
     
    At the cross, the sins of the world were sent away. This is why
the risen Lord said we are to proclaim forgiveness as a done deal, rather than
a favor to be earned.
    No
doubt the disciples were blown away when they heard this. First of all, there’s
Jesus standing among them when he’s supposed to be dead. Second, he’s preaching
something that seems completely at odds with what he had said earlier in the
Sermon on the Mount.
    With
the old covenant fulfilled and the new just getting underway, Jesus had to get
his disciples up to speed quickly. He did this by opening their minds so they
could understand scripture (Luke 24:44–45). He explained how the Law of Moses,
the Prophets, and the Psalms all reached their fulfillment in him.
    After
their encounter with the risen Lord, the disciples began to see the old
covenant with fresh eyes. Animal sacrifices and law-keeping, they now realized,
could never take away sins. Those things only had value in that they pointed to
Jesus. They also began to understand how the prophetic longings of Isaiah and
Jeremiah, along with the radical, grace-based psalms of David, Asaph, and the
Sons of Korah, heralded a day that had now dawned, namely, the new era of
grace. [14]
    On
the cross the law was fulfilled, grace was revealed, and verbs became nouns.
Forgiveness was no longer conditional on you doing A, B, and C. Forgiveness
became a free gift paid for by the blood of the Lamb. How fitting, then, that
the first people to hear this new message of unconditional forgiveness were the
men of the Sanhedrin, the same men who had condemned Jesus to shed the very
blood that paid for that forgiveness:
     
    God
exalted him [Jesus] to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. (Act 5:31)
     
    In
other words, Repentance is a gift! Forgiveness is a gift!
    When
they heard these words, the old men of the Sanhedrin were furious.
Unconditional forgiveness and risen Saviors had no place in their theology.
Their religion was based on doing things for God not on God doing things for
them. To the religious mind, grace is scandalous. Grace sounds like blasphemy. [15]
    The
old men had the apostles flogged and ordered them not to preach Jesus. Of
course the apostles ignored this and years later, when Paul joined their ranks,
he too began to preach the new message of unconditional forgiveness:
     
    I want
you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
(Acts 13:38)
     
    No hooks, no qualifications, no “turn from sin you brood of
vipers.” Just good news, delivered pure and straight.
     

What about John?
     
    All this
brings us to John who said:
     
    If we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9, KJV)
     
    This sounds like conditional forgiveness, like we have to review
and take responsibility for our sins in order to be forgiven — and yet
this comes after the cross. It’s like a piece of the Old Testament accidentally
got pasted into the New. What was John thinking? Was he napping when the risen
Lord proclaimed forgiveness as an accomplished fact ? How do we
reconcile John with Jesus?
    The usual way to read John is to attach a tiny price tag
to the priceless gift of grace. “If you just do this small thing (acknowledge
your sins), a good and gracious God will do this great thing (forgive your
sins).” It