Sin and Guilt

Josiah Tilton

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

A while back I got a ticket. I deserved it. It was Sunday morning and I was on my way to assemble with the brethren. I was on By Pass road, almost to Main. There was no traffic, and I wasn’t paying attention to my speed. A sheriff’s deputy turned off Main and must have had his radar on. I saw him, as I zoomed by, pull into a driveway, turn around and flip his lights on. There is a traffic law that if you are doing more than 20 MPH over the posted speed limit, you have to appear in court. So, off to court I went. Not that morning, but soon after.

There were probably seventy or eighty people in the courtroom, all waiting for their case to be called, which they do alphabetically. My last name starts with T, so I spent a lot of time in court that day. Finally, after several hours, my name was called, my crime was read by the prosecutor, and, just as was the case in every other traffic offense violators moments before the judge, he was looking down, staring at the paper before him and never looked up. He never even saw me. He asked me how I pled. When I said guilty, without emotion of any kind and still not looking up, he said, “If you do not get another ticket for the next six months the court will not inform your insurance company about this ticket. See the bailiff.” She was sitting off to the side, and as I walked up to her, she handed me a form where the two blanks had been filled in with my name and the amount of my fine. She told me I needed to “run” down the hall to get to the cashier’s window because they were going to close within a couple of minutes. I got there in time, paid in cash, because they do not take checks, (I wonder why? Hmmm.), was given a receipt and I left the court house, still carrying part of the weight of the ticket, because it wouldn’t be completely over until the end of the next six months.

This is an example of “Law.” It is written in black and white and is impersonal. The judge doesn’t have to look at you. Law doesn’t need to know your name, your weight, your age, your color. The sign saying the speed limit is 30 miles per hour doesn’t care if you drive a brand new Mercedes or a beat-up, rusted 2001 Ford Escort.

I bring these things up because we tend to define sin in law terms. To speak of sin as “a crime” or “a trespass” or “lawlessness” (anomia) makes use of law court metaphors, which while they can add depth to our understanding of sin can also lead us to miss its essence—personal, relational infidelity.

The sign says, “Speed Limit 30”. Sin, however, isn’t written on a sign, it is written in the heart. And what’s terribly important for us to realize is that the judge of our sins is not the impersonal judge who asks, “how do you plead?” No. The judge of our sins is also our Father. It is not the law He is interested in, it’s us. God the Father doesn’t look at us and say something like, “I gave you a law. I love that law. You broke my law!” and then demand restitution. There is NO restitution for sin. Let me repeat that; There is NO restitution for sin. What did Paul tell us was the payment for sin? “For the wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23. How long is that death to be? It is eternal, meaning the debt can never be paid. 

So, this being true, something other than payment had to happen. Jesus did not come to PAY for our sins. Reread Romans 6:23. If He paid He would still be paying. His death would have to be an eternal death, because that is the wages of sin. What, then, was it that Jesus did, because He certainly died on the cross for something? What did He give to the Father that was essential to our being forgiven?

From those first moments in the garden when sin approached Eve and enticed her, sin has been in control. Sin told us to do this and we did it. Sin told us to do that and we did it. Sin sat on the throne of our hearts and we could not or would not drive him away. Sin had all power. We gave it to him. Then Jesus came.

Before He was formed in the womb, Jesus did not exist. The eternal Word existed as part of the Godhead, but Jesus did not. God, the eternal creator, was His Father and Mary, that fifteen or sixteen-year-old human, virgin, was His mother. The human Jesus came to be, was created in Mary’s womb. In her womb all that is, everything eternal and everything created, came together. The human and the divine were joined in the person of Jesus. When the shepherds saw the great vision of angels and heard the message and the song, they rushed to see. And what did they find? A superhero? No. They found a baby, wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. They found one of us.

The one they named Jesus reached out His hand and held onto the hand of His eternal Father, and with He other hand he held on to His earthly mother and from the moment of His birth the Divine and the earthly were forever joined together. The wall of separation (Isaiah 59:1) was being dismantled and taken out of the way, as that man, that first truly human man, gave to His Father what the Father had always wanted – not for Himself, but for us. The Father always wanted FOR US what Jesus was giving Him. And what was it that He was giving? 

Remember David’s mournful Psalm 51? “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” David’s mother did not get pregnant through some sinful means. There was no adultery or fornication. David is speaking of the world he was conceived in. The world full of iniquity. The sinful, broken world. It’s like smog in Los Angeles, no matter where you go the smog is all around you and you are affected by it, even if you are not the one producing it.

So, what was David to do? He had committed adultery with Bathsheba and even had her husband killed. Should he offer a sacrifice? Would that take care of things? Wasn’t that what the Law required? He even tells God, “if I thought you wanted a sacrifice I would give you a sacrifice.” But no. That wasn’t it at all. Read Psalm 32 and see what was happening to David as the sin ate away at him. His palms were sweaty, his stomach ached, he felt pain in all his joints. Why? What was causing this? Was it the adultery with Bathsheba? I would have thought that was a pleasurable thing. Was it the murder of Uriah? Wasn’t that just one of the consequences of war? No. It wasn’t these things. It wasn’t even actually the terrible sins. It was his heart.

David felt in his heart the loss, the emptiness, the overwhelming sadness of separation from the God he loved. He had written psalm after psalm after psalm expressing his great love for his heavenly Father, and now? The reality of the great wall of separation was so powerful within his heart that it was causing physical pain.

When Nathan approached David with his story, and gave the confession, “Thou art the man!” David wasn’t angry or arrogant, he was relieved. His heart burst open with joy. It wasn’t over between him and God. God was looking for David. That’s why He sent Nathan. Of course, the Father was angry about David’s sin, but sin wasn’t the end of the story. David was sick about his sin but overpowered by what he had done to his relationship to the Father. 

Look at 51:3-4. It wasn’t Bathsheba or Uriah, it wasn’t even the nation he had sinned against. It was God. He had hurt his Father and caused there to be a separation between them. “Against you and you only have I sinned…” David confesses.

OK. So, we look at this episode in David’s life and what are we seeing that tells us what Jesus gave to the Father? If we look carefully at Psalm 51 we see it there. It’s clear that David understood what it was that the Father truly wanted. I think it’s also clear that He wanted it for us and not for Himself. Here’s the focal point of the whole Psalm, as far as I’m concerned:

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
    you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

16-17 ESV

God wasn’t looking for sacrificial animals offered on the altar. He was looking for hearts offered in love. If mankind had never sinned but had always given the Father the love and respect He deserved, we would not be cheating, stealing from, raping, lying about, even murdering each other. There would be no such thing as sex slaves, no marital unfaithfulness, no mistrust and no fear. After eating, Adam and Eve hid in the garden because they were afraid. Without sin there would have been no fear. We would be perfectly content in every way…if only.

What then did Jesus do to bring man and God together? He gave the Father what the Father always wanted. He gave Him the love, respect and obedience He deserved and we, mankind, needed. He did not allow sin to rule over Him. In doing that He was telling sin that it was not the one in charge. Sin had no right to rule. Paul, Romans 8:3, tells us that:

“God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh”

Jesus took away sins’ rule; He destroyed sins’ kingdom. Proof of that was given when Jesus was obedient, obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He didn’t go to the cross to pay for sin. If He had He would still be dead, for the wages of sin is death and that’s not talking just about physical death. The wages are not just a three-day death but an eternal death. We see this in the sermon (Acts 2:24) Peter gave on Pentecost. “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” Why? Because He overcame sin, He wasn’t ruled by it. Death had no right to hold on to Him.

From the moment Jesus was born and during His lifelong battle with the rule of sin in the lives of men, Jesus was beginning the restoration process (2 Corinthians 5:17). Now we believe and know (1 John 5:11-13) that we have eternal life because we are “IN” the one who condemned sin in the flesh. We are in the light. We are in the kingdom. Sin is continuously being washed away. 

When is sin being washed away? Continuously. Continuously. Continuously! As we are sinning it is being washed away. We dare not trust our sin to wait on us to confess something before it is washed from our hearts. (Our daily walk in Christ Jesus is our continuous confession that we are sinners and we need Him desperately.) We will fail. We will continuously fail. If there is a lapse of time between our committing sin and it being washed away, we are lost during that time. It doesn’t matter if it is moments, hours or days. From the moment the sin enters until it is washed away we are lost. So, we must understand that sin is CONTINUOUSLY being washed away. How and why can this be true?

John gives us the answer in 1 John chapter 1:

We often look at verses 7-10 to find the answer to these questions, but the answer is really found in the first few verses.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— ² the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— ³ that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. ⁴ And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” 1-4 ESV

Verse three in particular is telling that all of what he, John, is writing and sharing with them is relational. It’s all about fellowship. Our lives on this planet were given so that the Father might have a relationship with us and that relationship is found in and through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We sin. We will continue to sin. Our relationship with the Father and not our sin is what is important to us and to Him. Of course, He hates our sin. We do too. We don’t want to sin. We want to please the Father. Yet we do sin, and the Father tells us He knows we are going to sin. If we say we don’t and won’t we are calling Him a liar. BUT if we walk in the light – if we remain in Christ Jesus – as He is in the light, we HAVE fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ CLEANSES US from all sin. That word “cleanses” is a continuous action verb. It means it is constantly cleaning us up and will, as long as we walk in the light. Remember, even as we walk in the light we will still sin. John is not giving us a license saying it’s ok to sin. He makes that plain in 2:1, “I’m writing these things that you don’t sin”. What he is telling us is that Jesus is always going to be with us and He will take His blood and continuously wash us clean. He does this so He can present us to His Father without spot, wrinkle or any other blemish. 

It is only right, therefore, for Paul to tell us (Romans 8:1), “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

So, what should we do with guilt? I know this is easier said than done, but guilt must be pushed out of our lives. We are penitent, yes. We are not, however, guilty. The sin is washed away. We are sad that we have, as David said, sinned against the Father, but He plainly tells us that He is using the blood of Jesus to wash that sin away. How often do we hear in prayers, “please forgive us of our sins”? Nearly every public prayer offered. What we should be saying is “Father, thank you for forgiving us of our sins!”