Why We Should Face Our Sinful Selves

Our Religious Situation

We can not absolutely comprehend the horror of our religious situation, and our religious situation is the explanation why. Our sin prevents us from seeing the scope and depth of our sin. However as the character of our situation turns into clearer, we’d recoil at what we do see. Consider the prophet Isaiah when he had a imaginative and prescient of the Lord. He noticed the wonderful presence of God, which was hailed by angelic voices. The seraphim cried out,

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
     the entire earth is filled with his glory! (Isa. 6:3)

Within the presence of glory and holiness, Isaiah had a eager sense of his personal sin. “Woe is me!” he declared. “For I’m misplaced; for I’m a person of unclean lips, and I dwell within the midst of a individuals of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isa. 6:5). The prophet’s recognition and confession are refreshing. He doesn’t sound like Adam. Isaiah knew God’s holiness, so he had a greater understanding of his guilt and determined situation. The response of the Lord is seen within the motion of a seraph, who touched Isaiah’s lips with a burning coal and mentioned, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for” (Isa. 6:7).

Loincloths and tree coverings can not atone for sin. We want confession and forgiveness. We provide the previous, and God supplies the latter. A real sense of sin confronts us with our unworthiness to obtain mercy, but the great thing about mercy is that it’s undeserved. To combine metaphors, our loincloths are simply filthy rags (Gen. 3:7; Isa. 64:6). We want our guilt eliminated. We want our sins lined, and solely God can cowl the deeds we now have accomplished in opposition to him. Sin, says Mark Jones, is “the soul’s illness, blinding the thoughts, hardening the center, disordering the desire, stealing energy, and dampening the affections.”¹ We’re helpless earlier than God, and our solely hope is God.

Our admission may sound just like the phrases of Peter. In Luke 5, Jesus performs a miracle from a ship, and the fishermen witness a rare catch of fish (Luke 5:6–7). Within the presence of such energy and marvel, Peter instantly senses his personal unworthiness. They’ve by no means met anybody like Jesus. The holy, holy, holy God is strolling amongst sinners. Peter says, “Depart from me, for I’m a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8).

Peter’s intuition is like Adam’s: within the presence of such greatness and glory, create far. However the sinfulness of Peter will not be new info to Jesus. He is aware of Peter’s situation earlier than entering into the boat! Peter is aware of he’s a sinner, however that doesn’t deliver the scene to an finish; sinners are the individuals Jesus got here for. Peter needs to place up far, however Jesus has already crossed the space to come back to him. Jesus tells Peter phrases that calm the soul of anxious and terrified sinners: “Don’t be afraid” (Luke 5:10). Jesus is aware of the worry in Peter’s coronary heart, so he addresses it. Within the presence of unequalled glory and holiness, worry appears cheap. However Peter’s worry isn’t a motive to distance himself, and his sin isn’t a motive to ship Jesus away.

Jesus has come to name sinners out of the darkness and into the sunshine. He got here—and nonetheless comes—for the hiding and the fearful, the ashamed and the sinful. Don’t be afraid. The rescuing grace of God has stepped into the boat.

This Christian Life

The promise of the brand new covenant is a deep cleaning of the center.

I’ll sprinkle clear water on you, and also you shall be clear from all of your uncleannesses, and from all of your idols I’ll cleanse you. And I provides you with a brand new coronary heart, and a brand new spirit I’ll put inside you. And I’ll take away the center of stone out of your flesh and provide you with a coronary heart of flesh. (Ezek. 36:25–26) Do you see the reality of your defilement? There’s cleaning in Christ.

Do you perceive your hardness of coronary heart? There’s a new coronary heart in Christ. The brand new covenant consists of sinners who are actually united to Jesus by grace via religion. They’ve forsaken the loincloths and tree coverings. They’ve come out of hiding with a purpose to discover a new refuge. The work of Jesus is the burning coal to purify us.

The promise of the brand new covenant is a deep cleaning of the center.

As a result of Christians haven’t skilled the resurrection of the physique and the fullness of God’s sanctifying work, we’re nonetheless wanting glory. Nonetheless, we’re free in him from the penalty and energy of our transgressions. We will stroll in honesty, confessing our sins and rejoicing within the completed work of Christ on our behalf. It might be futile to err within the ways in which John wrote about in his first letter: “If we are saying we now have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the reality will not be in us” (1 John 1:8). Or, “If we are saying we now have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his phrase will not be in us” (1 John 1:10). Let’s not be deceived, and let’s not name God a liar. We now have sinned and have sin.

The believer’s reply to the query “The place are you?” is totally different from the Genesis 3 context. We now reply “The place are you?” by saying, “I’m in Christ.” My protecting comes not from fig leaves however from the outdated rugged cross. Our refuge will not be among the many bushes however underneath the tree. The cross has change into the tree of life for sinners. It’s there that our atonement was completed.

We might really feel tempted to say to Jesus, “Depart from me,” however he’s saying to us, “Come to me.” As the sunshine of God’s phrase reveals our transgressions and we sense better depths of our disgrace, we might really feel overwhelmed. However your sin doesn’t overwhelm Christ. In case you say to him, “I’m afraid, for I can not bear my sin,” he’ll say to you, “Concern not, for I already bore your sin.” Don’t stroll—flee—to the refuge of his mercy tree. The very causes you suppose he ought to depart are the very causes he tells you to come back.

This text is tailored from In need of Glory: A Biblical and Theological Exploration of the Fall by Mitchell L. Chase.

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