You Are Forgiven

0:37 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. I am Corey J. Mahler. And I'm still woe. On today's Stone Choir we're going to be discussing the subject of forgiveness. Last week we spent a couple hours talking about the state of young men in the world today and the state of the world as it relates to their future lives. We had a ton of feedback on that episode. And I wanted to do this episode, Corey, and I wanted to specifically address forgiveness because people reached some logical conclusions, some some right conclusions from listening that weren't necessarily the ones that we had in mind. And so we wanted to talk briefly about why that happened, how that works, and more fundamentally how forgiveness plays out in the Christian

1:23 life with each other. One of the things that we talked about last week was the blow-up a few years ago in the Christian space around debt-free virgins without tattoos. And as we discussed some of the implications of that, at no point did Corey or I ever explicitly say that unless a girl is debt-free without tattoos and without a body count, she is unfit. Because we don't believe that. That's as we did say that's that's a test that's virtually impossible for anyone today, simply because so much of the world, including frankly, within the church, is oriented around papering over or actually condoning things that can be harmful. And so as we were specifically addressing young men, we wanted to

2:15 make the point that given a set of 10 girls, if you have a choice of one who potentially has made fewer mistakes, she all the things being equal, it's probably a get better choice. On the other hand, things are never always equal. You know, there are a lot of different reasons why someone might go into debt, how much debt they go into, what kind of tattoos they get, where they get them. I have an ex who had a tattoo on the side of one of her feet that said walk by faith because it was a tribute to her father who had died. And at one point she was working in a company where there was a Japanese visitor who noticed the tattoo 'cause she was wearing sandals that day and he commented on it and it wasn't really

2:57 a very favorable comment. He was a little offended by the fact that she would have a visible tattoo in the workplace. Um one of the lovely things about the Japanese is that they're for very forthright about things. You know, if if you have a an East Asian coworker and you gain five pounds and you're showing in the face, they'll come to you and say, you know, you're looking a little fat. And I think that's great. It's not there's absolutely no malice to it. There's no nothing except for of a brotherly fraternal concern that, you know, some something might be wrong. I just wanna let you know that I I want to see you be the best you can be. And so it wasn't a mean thing for a Japanese person to

3:34 say something it was, you know, kind of what a most Americans would take as offensive about you know your own body. And she very adroitly responded and said, Well this is a tribute to my ancestors, this is a tribute to my my deceased father. And he was impressed by that and it shut him out. He's like, okay. So even when we say that things like tattoos are not necessarily a great idea, there are also different types of tattoos, there are different reasons for people to get them. It's not about okay, you did a sin at some point in the past or something you're like if you're ten thousand dollars in debt, is that a sin? I don't think so. Is it stupid? Yeah. You know, did you make a mistake and do something stupid

4:15 and now you have to dig out of it? Yes. So today we're talking about forgiveness because there's the aspect of how much of that is for us to forgive in another person and then just how do we treat each other in general. As we said that I said there were a number of people who felt the other consciences were burdened by some some of the things that we said, which was not our intent. So we wanted to begin by talking briefly about uh what's commonly called the three uses of the law. As I looked this up yesterday, didn't make sure I was that in getting things right, I realized that as usual, the uh reformed and Lutherans don't number these things the same way. So we're going to be using the Lutheran numbering, which is curb,

4:55 mirror, and rule for the three uses of the law. The curb is the civic law, the you know, the law that you have on the books that says if you do this, you go to prison. If you do this, you owe a fine. The curb is there to prevent evil. You know, on a theology podcast we're not talking about curbing evil with the civic law, although you know, in future episodes when we're talking about governments that will be a part of it, but it's always ultimately still top down. It doesn't have anything to do with how we relate to each other. And then the second use in the the Lutheran ordering is the mirror, which is to show our sin. You read what God has said, you listen to what God has revealed, and you realize, wow, I sinned against God and I didn't

5:41 even know it. And that's something that we find in scripture where we God is omniscient, He knows everything. He knows the the inner workings of our hearts in ways that we never will. And so He knows more about how bad we are than we do. And so when we come to the realization through contrasting our lives with the law as revealed in scripture, it causes us to repent. That is a godly ordered response to realizing I did something wrong. And as I said in the in the group chat after we dropped that episode, that you know, Corey and I threw e ourselves under the bus in that episode more than most. You know, we're not gonna we're not going to make these shows a tell all about you know our personal sins, in part because

6:26 a lot of them involve others and we have no business involving others in in you know, any sort of personal confession because that's that's performative and disgusting. I I I would never impugn someone else's privacy in in such a way. But But I will happily share things that are bad about me when it doesn't affect anyone else. Not to not to make myself anything, but just as an example, like I can I can tell you I did something bad and here is how it interacts with God's word. So scripture reveals when we have erred, reveals when we have sinned against God. And part of the reason for the fear of the Lord episode was to talk about a rightly ordered response to that. You know, if I have sinned against God, you know, as David

7:10 said in Psalm fifty-one, against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. The way that we see ourselves in contrast to God's perfect will is brutal. it's standing in front of a near mirror naked, and you realize you're worse than you thought. And so we wanted to talk today about the fact that if someone has that response as a Christian, that's only possible with the gift of faith. I think one of the greatest blessings of the Christian life is that when we're confronted with our own sin, you have if you're not a Christian, if you know someone it particularly happens in in people who have alcohol or substance abuse, where it's described as them

7:58 hitting rock bottom. They realize that the next step for them is death. They've made so many mistakes, they've hurt so many people, they've hurt themselves so much, they realize that they're at the bottom of a well. And the blessing of the Christian understanding of life is that we understand that we're not down there alone, that God is down there with us and that He can lift us out of that because He Because he forgives us for everything that we've done to take us to that point. And it's a blessing in the Christian life because if you don't know Christ and you realize how terrible you are, for some people the next step is self-murder, is suicide. If if someone despairs of their sin and they don't see any

8:42 way out, that's just utter hopelessness. And so when a Christian realizes the same thing, I'm absolutely terrible, as is Paul wrote when he described his inability to strive successfully in all cases against his own flesh. Christians know better than most that we're awful. And the difference is that we know that the solution is Christ's forgiveness first to us from Him and then the forgiveness of God that we extend to others. And so the third use of the law is the rule, the rule and norm of the Christian life, where we focus most of our time on stone choir. You know, Corey refers to last week and it's something we f say frequently. We're talking about the and then of Christian life. You're Christian and then what?

9:33 You know what God wants and then what do you do with that? And so when we describe what scripture says about what God wants all of us to be doing in our lives, some people in their own personal circumstances will look at their current circumstances, their distant past or recent past, and realize, I did something that I shouldn't have done. And so we want to talk today about forgiveness precisely because if that was you, when you heard something last week, you're like, man, I I feel crushed by this. I I should not have done those things, and I just I feel terrible. We want to d spend today's episode talking about the forgiveness that God has already delivered to you on the cross and it is received by your faith.

10:16 And that repentance that you have when you realize your sin Is a demonstration of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit because you repent without despair. Repenting with despair isn't really repentance because you can't you know that you can't turn away from your wickedness because you know it's inherent and it's only with the Holy Spirit inside us giving us faith and revealing to us that God sanctifies us, God makes our lives holy, He lets us have the ability to choose to do the very good that we cannot choose on our own. Someone without God cannot choose to be good in a way that's going to have any effect. It's only through the gift of faith that that's possible. So as we go through this today, I just want to I

11:05 wanna reassure folks who felt bad after last week's episode. We don't want you to feel bad. We don't want you to feel beaten down or punched. If you do, briefly, that's that's a good thing. That's a blessing from God because there was something in God's word that that pricked your heart. You're like, ouch, I that that was an injury that I didn't know that I had. That was a sin that I didn't realize. On the other hand, we don't want to trigger the sort of scrupulosity that that is particularly common in more immature faith. I don't say that with any insult. It's just that when you're new and you're you're trying to figure things out, you wanna try to get everything right. You know, whether it's it's a new marriage or it's a new

11:51 faith, it's a new job. You show up, you want to get everything right. And when you fail, it really, really hurts. We don't want people to feel like, okay, here's this list of things that we should all be doing. If you fail on eight out of ten, that shouldn't beat you down. That should give you an indication that okay, God has given me some idea what I should be doing. Here's the stuff that I can improve. And as we discuss in today's episode, how we extend forgiveness to each other, one thing I hope will come across very clearly is that our lives are better in the moment, in in these hours and these days, when we extend God's grace to each other, you have to be easy on people who feel broken.

12:34 You don't clobber someone who already feels like they made a mistake. So I'm going to talk about this today because we don't want you to feel clobbered. If you're listening, you're like, oh man, I wish I hadn't done that. That should be a reason for you to know that God has forgiven you for whatever it is that you did. And so by the end of this episode, I hope that we can make that case clearly because God's word, his law, is ultimately a source of comfort. On one hand, it shows that we are all sinners and that we fall short of the glory of God. On the other hand, God's eternal will is that Jesus died on the cross to solve all of these problems, to pay for everything that you know and that you didn't know.

13:14 And so on the judgment day, you'll stand before the throne of God and your robes will be washed white in Christ's blood. And so God will have blotted out all of your sins, and we won't remember them. The evil that we've done will be forgotten. And forgiveness now in this life is also about a weaker imperfect form of forgetting forgetting that we'll be eternal in the new life. There are a couple points there that I want to pull out and flesh out a little bit before we move on to the rest of the episode, the main part of the episode. But even before doing that, I'm going to read three verses from Psalm 139, because I hope this came to mind when it was mentioned that wherever you are, even if it happens to be rock

14:02 bottom, God is still there. I won't read the whole thing, I am actually going to recommend that you pause the episode, go read Psalm one hundred thirty nine, and then come back and listen to the rest. And this is not just a trick to get some of you who have not done so yet to check the show notes, but it will be there. But I'll read three verses starting with verse eight. If I ascend to heaven you are there, if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there, if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. But the two points that I want to draw out are antinomianism as a general sort of umbrella issue, and then the difference

14:50 in terms of repentance between despairing and not despairing, I'll start with the second and then go back to antinomianism. But when it comes to repentance, the difference between Judas and Peter is despair. Judas regretted deeply what he had done and despaired, and so Judas was damned. Peter regretted deeply what he had done, because he had also denied Christ, he had betrayed Christ in denying him, but he did that without despair. And so we will one day get to meet Peter in paradise, because he did not despair, he repented without that despair, and that of course is a gift of God. But on the note of antinomianism, some Christians and Lutherans in particular historically by certain groups have been accused of being antinomian

15:46 because we preach the gospel in its fullness, in its absolute, fullest, truest sense. We don't mix works with the gospel, for instance. And as should be evident, as should be very clear from the listing of the three uses of the law, we are very clearly not antinomians. Because the third use is directly against antinomianism. The third use is a very clear statement that the law still applies to Christians. The law applied to Adam and Eve. The law applies for ever because the law is God's will. It flows from God's nature, it is eternal. And it's not an oppressive thing Yes, because of our fallen nature and our fallen flesh we cannot fully comply with the law, we attempt to do so, and part of sanctification is that we get better at it, as we are

16:47 a Christian for longer, and as we exercise ourselves in God's word, in God's law, but we won't be perfect in this life because we are fallen in this life. We are partly regenerated in this life, we are fully regenerated in the next, and that is when the law, of course, will then not be a burden. The law remains, because the law is God's eternal will. But you may be familiar with the phrase Lex Semper accusat, the law always accuses. It's important to note that is the law always accuses, not that the law only accuses. Because the law does not only accuse, yes, it always accuses because of our fallen flesh. But it also guides us in our life. That is another way you can another term you can use for

17:36 the third use is guide. And the law guides regenerate Christians. And so it accuses because of the fallen flesh, because we fall short of God's standard. But it is not only accusation. It is also a guide. It is wholly good. The law is not an evil that was done away with on the cross. Christ did not come to abolish the law as Scripture makes abundantly clear. He came to fulfill the law. He came to make it possible for us to please God with our even if incredibly imperfect attempts to obey His law, to comply with what He tells us to do. Our good works, our which that's all good works are, good works are acting in accord with God's law. Our good works are pleasing to God if we are in Christ, because we are in Christ, because the imperfection, the sin that taints

18:34 those good works, is not counted against us in Christ, it is only the good for which we receive credit, and we receive credit because of Christ's work for us. Which is quite a great deal for us, a very good thing. I want to read the full first part of Psalm fifty-one that I quoted briefly before because it goes to a lot of this. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you you only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight. So that you may be justified in your words and blameless in

19:20 your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. So when David speaks God's word saying, Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. He's describing what Christ's propitiating sacrifice on the cross accomplished when Jesus proclaimed it is finished as he died, before he died, in the moment of his death, that is what he was announcing, that we were cleansed from all of our sin in that moment. And one of the tremendous blessings that we have as Christians after the cross is that we no longer have to live as the

20:11 Jews did for two thousand years leading up to it and as all believers did from Adam through Mary, looking forward to the promise of the Messiah. We have the benefit of hindsight, we have the benefit of hundreds of witnesses of these things, who attest from firsthand knowledge and experience, the miracles that they saw, what they witnessed with their own eyes. And so our faith in a way today is even easier than it was for Noah or for Jacob or for Abraham, you know, you go down go down the list of all the patriarchs. Their faith was in a promise not yet fulfilled. And it's God we're talking about. So we can absolutely trust in his promise. Because as we often say on Stone Choir, the same God who

21:00 can speak the universe into existence, if he makes a promise, it's already happened. It's a done deal. You don't have to doubt it. So on one On one hand, it's not more impressive that Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteousness. On the other hand, I think it's fair to say that we have it easier. We have the fullness of scripture recorded for us today testifying to all these things. And so what that has to do with forgiveness is that when the Messiah, when the Christ died on the cross, when God died for our sins in that moment, all of our sins for all time were washed away. Because not only is God omniscient, he's omnipotent, He's He can do do everything, and He did it in that moment for us.

21:48 Every sin we ever committed, every sin we will commit from this day forward until our last was paid for past tense on the cross. And the future looking promise that they had in the Old Testament was a joy and a an expectation. What we have today is the fulfillment of that promise in the rearview mirror. And that's a tremendous blessing that I I think that those in the past would envy us because they had to promise something that was not yet fulfilled and they didn't know exactly what you know, there are hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament. They didn't know exactly what it's gonna look like. You know, they they knew bits and pieces and they believed it, but prophecies are only fully understood in the rear view mirror when

22:37 God fulfills them and you look and say, Yep, lines up perfectly. I wouldn't have imagined it like that, but here it is. And that is the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so the forgiveness that we share with each other today and the forgiveness that we take comfort in today is in view of the shedding of Christ's blood on the cross. And the fact that all transgressions, all sins, all trespasses are wiped away in that moment, by his perfect blood, is is the root of the Christian faith. In a future episode we're going to be doing something specifically on on the sacraments as a means of grace. That's an important part of Lutheran theology. So we're going to spend an episode describing how Lutherans view the

23:23 sacraments relative to some of the other denominations to demonstrate. Here's why we believe that our approach to Scripture is consistent with the Lutheran view of the sacraments. The sacraments are absolutely a means of grace, and it's how God delivers his promises and his forgiveness in time. The word is too. When the word is spoken, it delivers on those promises. And as we've said before, the superabundance of God's grace is such that there's more forgiveness than we have sin. He's forgiven everything and he's given us all these different means. He knows that we're going to doubt. Doubt is sin, and it's gonna happen anyway, because we will never be perfect until we die. And so the superabundance of God's grace is saying, I have the

24:11 word for you, I have the sacraments for you, I have pointing back to the cross for you, I've surrounded you as a Christian in your life in this wicked world with a hedge of promises and signs of the things that I have done for you. And so those are given as a comfort that the forgiveness that was earned on the cross is real. It's actually accomplished in time. It's not a forward-looking promise as it was for Mary. It's a revealed and realized promise that we look back and say, yep, God promised and God delivered. And the joy of the Christian life versus vertically as it relates to God is the knowledge that God delivered on his promises and therefore Christian freedom now means living free from the terror of our

24:59 sin. And that's something that's part of the reason we did this episode is there's some people who felt kind of beaten down by what they heard. Now they were beaten down by the fact that when we talked about the third use, when we talked about the rule or the you know, the guide of God's perfect will in our lives today and going forward, when you look back over your life, you're like, Oh, I I failed, I sinned, I did things I shouldn't have done. As I said at the beginning, if that repentance is in your heart, you should know that you have received forgiveness for that. You don't need to wallow in it. it's important to realize it. It's a it's a fruit of the Holy Spirit that we look that we look at our own lives and we realize, yeah, that

25:41 was sinful. That was bad. I shouldn't have done that. And then immediately turn to God and say, Thank you for the sacrifice of your son on the cross. That my wickedness that I didn't even know about was already forgiven. And then we go on with a joyous Christian life, knowing that that's the kind of God we have. We don't have a God who's sitting around hiding in the bushes taking notes and being angry with us. Yeah, that's what Twitter censors do. That's not what God does. God, with his perfect knowledge of the innermost recesses of our hearts, knows those things, and yet he still loved us so much that he sent his only begotten Son to die for us. We always quote John 3.16, but the next verse or two is

26:24 equally important in that sentiment. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that who whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. That's a perfect lead in because I was actually just going to read those verses. I actually have them up on my screen right now. Because it is so vitally important to include seventeen and eighteen when we read those verses, when we read that section, because we take the wrong

27:08 lesson if we don't read scripture in context. Particularly here, we need that context of verse 18. Because this pulls out some of the theological aspects of justification that I want to go over here. Because there are two aspects of justification. You could say two justifications if you are so inclined, but keep in mind that you're speaking after a fashion. There is the objective and the subjective, and these can also be called the universal and the personal. The universal objective justification is what Christ accomplished on the cross. And we have that in verse sixteen, because what does it say? For God so loved the world, that's ton cosmon, cosmos being the Greek word from which we get cosmos, that is everything.

28:06 Christ reconciled everything with his death. His death was of infinite value it was sufficient for the reconciliation of all things and so it is tan cosmon, it is not just some group of people, not some small group of people, not only human beings. It is all things. And that's of course the same word we get in verse 17 that is still cosmos there, the world. But 18 is important because eighteen teaches us the personal justification, whoever believes in him is not condemned. When it comes to human beings, there is a personal, a subjective justification, and that is when you believe, that is faith. And so And so, in essence, a way to summarize this is the crucifixion of Christ was the means by which God worked objective

29:05 justification, that being of all things. Faith is the means by which God subjectively justifies the sinner. And the word and the sacraments are the means by which God grants that faith to the aforesaid sinner. And we'll do the episode on sacramentology at some point. But this is the core of it here a response to an accusation that is levelled against Lutherans and others who have a sacramental theology Theology. There are those who will say, Well, you're defeating Solafida. You're saying that it's not faith alone. And that's not what we're doing. We are giving the answer to how God gives you faith when we say that the word and the sacraments are means of grace. Because you have to get the faith somehow.

30:00 And that's the point. God gives you the faith through the Word and the sacraments. It is a free gift. It is not something you do for yourself. It's not you have to believe hard enough and you'll be saved. No. God gives you faith. That faith justifies you. You are saved because of that faith, because of the free gift of God. It is a gift from beginning to end. That is vitally important to understand, because that is the gospel. The gospel is free justification for the sake of Christ. Not because you work hard at it and believe hard enough, not because you work hard at it and collect enough good works. This is not a competition where you collect little merit badges, and if you get to the pearly gates and you have enough of

30:48 them, then you get to be admitted to paradise. That's not how it works. God gives you faith that justifies you because of Christ's sacrifice, because vicariously he paid the price for you. And so it is all free, beginning to end. Now we do not deny that Christians will have good works. This goes back to that third use of the law. You will have good works as a Christian because you are in Christ, because you have faith, and those works are good only because you are a Christian. If you are not a Christian, you do not have good works. This is an important theological point that is often glossed over or completely ignored. No matter how good before the eyes of the world, some particular act, some particular work happens to be.

31:45 If it is done by someone who is not in Christ, the work is not meritorious and it is not good, it is not credited to that person, before God in God's court, because the person has to be justified to have good works. And that's good news for the Christian, for those who believe. That is excellent news, because if you are in Christ, again, as I stated before, the fact that your works are imperfect, the fact that you are still a fallen sinner, is not counted against you. Your works are considered meritorious, and there are rewards in heaven for good works. Scripture is very clear about that. But they are counted only as good because of Christ, and they are counted as only good because of Christ.

32:34 And I want to focus for just a minute here on the way that Scripture speaks about your sins when they're forgiven. God doesn't just say these are not counted against you. He does say that, but that's not the only thing he says. God says that he forgets your sins. I think that we really this is another thing. We gloss over it. We don't realize the fullness of what it means for God to forget. God is omniscient. God knows all things. If God says that he forgets something, it's gone. It's gone in a way that is total, in a way that is absolute. It never existed. So you So your sins in paradise, when you are fully renewed, are gone in the absolute fullest sense of that term.

33:36 There is no way to overstate it. That is the good news for Christians. So once you are fully renewed in paradise, all of those things that happened in this life, all of the imperfections, all of the times that you sinned, all of the times that you could have done better, that your good works were imperfect because of your fallen nature. That's all gone. It is only the good that remains. Of course the inverse of that is that it is not good news for those who were not in Christ, because none of the good for them counts. It is only the evil they did that remains because they chose to keep it. And that is a vitally important point. Your sins will be counted against you only if you decide to keep them.

34:31 No If you are unwilling to simply lay all of that at the foot of the cross and accept the free gift of salvation from God on behalf of Christ, then you have declared to God, No, I'm going to keep my sins and they're mine. And God says fine. You get to pay the price for them for eternity, because the debt owed for sin, any sin, no matter how small, no matter how great, the debt owed for any sin is infinite. That is why it is the sacrifice of Christ on the cross that was necessary to atone for those sins, because his sacrifice was of infinite value. So if you want to keep those sins, you can You get to keep them for eternity, because you will never be able to pay an infinite price because you are finite.

35:18 It took the Son of God, who is infinite God, to pay that infinite price. And that is why it is good news for Christians. The debt is paid, and the sins will be totally forgotten, completely erased to the point where they never existed. It is only the good that will remain. And this is why forgiveness of each other is such a vital part of the Christian life. It is a crucial part, in the etymological sense of the word, crucial, crucifix, same thing. The forgiveness that we are commanded by God, that is God's law, that we extend to each other as gospel, you know, to use the the Lutheran parlance. It's God's command and it's for everyone's benefit. Yeah, we I talked at the beginning about how some folks were

36:13 burdened with either the their own sins or feeling that they had sinned against someone else. And so we want to talk for the I think most of this episode about the interpersonal part of this. Because the I the theological discussion of us approaching God and us receiving God's gifts is vital. It it's absolutely fundamental to this. It's also in some ways easier intellectually or at least spiritually, than the interpersonal stuff. I want to begin as we often do on in this show with uh Job. Uh at the end of Job in in chapter 42, when God is speaking to all the men who are involved in that story. He has something to say about forgiveness and about us forgiving each other. After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord

37:05 said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has. Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves, and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly, for you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has. So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuite and Zophar the Namathite went and did what the Lord had told them, and the Lord accepted Job's prayer. So this is an example of intercessory prayer. Yeah, something that the Roman Catholics often use in the describing the

37:49 saints interceding for us in heaven. I think that the much more vital read on intercessory prayer is what we do for each other. If someone sins against you, you are to intercede on their behalf to God, to say, God forgive them for this, for their sin against me. I don't want it to be held against them. Because the bad advice that Job received from his friends was basically telling him to sin against God. They were saying things that weren't correct. And if grow Job had listened to them, he would have fallen into sin. And so God was angry with that because they were effectively being the devil's tempters in that situation. And what was God's solution? You guys, you need to go sacrifice. I will hear Job's intercessory prayer on your behalf.

38:39 When Job says, forgive these men, I will forgive them for his sake. Which of course is also for Christ's sake, because all forgiveness is, as we've just laid out, is at the cross. That finished work, that perfect work on the cross of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, paid for all these sins, past, present, future. The intercessory prayer of Job for his friends is forgiveness. God forgave, and Job forgave. The thing that we have to deal with in this life, the very practical matter, is one of the hardest parts of being a Christian when you are commanded to forgive those who are trying to kill you, that's tough. That's ego is involved. The notion that I have been slighted, that someone wants to hurt

39:29 me, and I want to defend myself and I, you know, I want to protect my family, and I want to protect my property, and I want to obey God. And the joy of the Christian life is realizing that those things are not at odds. So when we're discussing forgiveness, we're not talking about pacifism. We're not talking about there being no temporal consequences for the evil actions of other men. We're talking about what God is saying here. These men sinned against me, and they sinned against you, Job. You intercede on their behalf. Ask me to forgive them, and I will. That's a promise that he makes to all of us. That's in the Lord's Prayer. Forgive us our trespasses, forgive us our debts, as we forgive those

40:14 who owe us debts or who trespass against us. That is that's a tough part of that prayer, because if you actually think about it and pay attention to it, it's it's not calling down a curse, obviously, because it's a it's a good thing, but it is the godly test for the kind of repentance that we're to have. If we say, Lord, Lord, forgive me, and God looks at our lives and says, Well, you're not forgiving anyone around you, the answer will be, You're not forgiven. You don't actually seek my repentance because you don't forgive anyone. You owe this infinite debt to me, and yet you won't forgive the small debt of this other man who owes you something. And that's the reason that forgiveness is so crucial in the Christian

41:03 life is that it's a hard ask. If you're not thinking about it in terms of obedience to God, once you actually think about it in terms of, well, God Almighty commands this. You just you should just do it. the proper response of the faithful Christian is not to argue, not to say, not to grumble, not to say, I don't like it, I don't think that's right, I don't think that's fair. Yeah, exactly. The point is that it's not fair. Do you want fair? I when I was a little kid, I was probably about five or six. My mom had been complaining on a particular day about something, some injustice in her life. I have no idea what it was. But it made enough of an impression on me that that evening when we were doing our family prayers, I said, Dear Lord, please

41:48 give my mom everything that she deserves. And my family still laughs about it to this day because that's such a horrifying prayer. of all the nightmarish things to pray for your mother. Please give her everything she deserves is the most horrific curse imaginable. I was a little kid, I was I I knew that she was crying out for justice and I wanted my mom to have justice. I didn't realize what I was actually calling down. But as as mature Christians, we do understand that if you say give that person everything they deserve, that's an infinite hellish death sentence. And God's command to us is that you're not to do that, because that measure by which you measure others, I will measure you. That is God's promise.

42:34 He promises to forgive our sins. But if we want to weigh out and meet out God's justice against other men for their slights to us, God holds that against us. He says you're not actually you're not forgiven because you are not forgiving. And that's that's law. that's the rule that God lays out for us. In Mark eleven, Jesus taught, Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. And the Greek word that's used for trespasses means the same thing in English. It means if if you're walking down the sidewalk and you step into someone's yard, you're trespassing. It's not necessarily a big deal, but it's a trespass.

43:22 And so when the word trespasses is used correctly as a translation in scripture, that's what it means. It doesn't mean big stuff. It doesn't mean, oh, this man tried to kill me, this kid man tried to burn down my house. It means he you know, he said something mean about me or you know he looked at my dog the wrong way or he stepped on my my yard, whatever it is. We have to forgive the small stuff too. We can't let that stuff pile up in our hearts as bitterness because It precludes us from receiving God's forgiveness to us. And so it's it's a blessing to know this as a Christian. And it's it's not a burden, but it's a it's a command. God is saying, here's what I expect of you. And in the third use of the law is the guide for

44:09 the Christian life, it should become easy for us. As Corey was talking about sanct sanctification earlier, it takes time as a Christian to get used to just obeying God and not being a whiner. Because that's not it's not our inherent type. It's not our personality as a human being. We want to say, no, not me, that other guy. Don't you know don't hold me to those standards. We're all like that. There's no such thing as being so great that you never ever have experienced that. As you develop in the Christian life, as you focus more on God's things, it does get easier. Not because you necessarily become this super person, but because you come become completely subsumed to the will of God. Like God commands it, okay, that's it.

44:56 And when that is our response, God commands it, Lord, let your will be done. When that is the the autonomic response of the Christian, suddenly everything gets a whole lot easier, which is part of God's blessing. Uh Corey and I were we faced some very serious threats against ourselves a few weeks ago and it kind of ruined my day when it happened. You know, I was thinking about how to handle something that was a very credible, potentially completely destructive threat to my life. And it wasn't until I got in bed and was praying that I realized this, you know, this stuff that we're saying to you now, I had to say to myself, like, what does God to say about this? Very simple, forgive 'em. Somebody does evil against you, you forgive them.

45:41 And forgiveness means exactly meant what it meant in Job's case and in all the other cases in scripture. When someone sins against you, as happened to Jesus when he was on the cross and they were dividing his clothes, he said, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do Stephen said the same thing when he was being stoned. That was his last words before he died. That sort of intercessory prayer from us as believers to God on behalf of the people in the midst of their very most malevolent and evil acts, is God's command to us to say, Lord, I don't want this person to suffer the earn eternal price for this evil against me. And in all those cases, in the in the case of Jesus and Stephen, in the case of the threats against us, it is

46:30 precisely because these people hate Christ that they are doing these things. And so when we say, Lord, forgive them for our sake, that takes us off the board. That is saying I don't want justice on in my name to be visited against this man in eternity. Because I don't want you visiting anyone else's justice against me for all the evil I've done. that's the equation. Please, Lord, take my name off the board on both sides of the ledger. And when we do that, insofar as they continue to hate and act as m enemies of God, God will deal according to them as he sees fit. We don't need to worry about that. And I only mentioned that in a specific personal example because I had a crap day when it happened.

47:17 I woke up the next morning, felt fine, and I'm worried about it since. That's a blessing from God when some evil is befalls you and you obey God and you trust in God and the next thing you know, everything's fine again. That that's the peace of God which surpasses all human understanding. And my comfort is not that, oh, I don't think anything bad is going to happen to me in the future because I prayed to God and for asked for his forgiveness for this person it may happen. The worst most evil things may happen. I I all the evil that is wished against me by our enemies may come to fruition if God permits it. So it's not a get out of jail free card for us to avoid temporal consequences for the evil of others.

48:03 But I don't need to worry about it because God has marked the hour of my death and nothing will be permitted to happen to me that he doesn't permit. And so if something happens, I'm not going to do what Job's wife said and curse God and die. I'll take the good with the evil and I will praise God for it. And it's important for us as Christians to think through these things now when it's easy, you know, when the lights are on and you have a full belly and you're not, you know, n nothing particularly bad is happening to you, even if you're stressed out. Or you're you're bummed out, you have lost your job, or some stress or some bad thing is happening, the knowledge that could get way, way worse to the point of you losing everything, including your

48:45 life. The reconciliation that we have to each other now in these moments when you're like, I'm gonna obey God and leave the rest to him. That habit that we form now in those quiet moments, you know, in bed before you go to sleep, is us being served by God in the future when calamity befalls, when terrible things are happening. We can look God, look, we can look back and trust that when God commanded us to do those things, and we know that He keeps His promises for those things. God will keep His promises to us then in the moment of horror and in the future, even if you know, if the future is that you're gonna be dead in five minutes. Okay. What does God promise then? Eternal life with him. So there's no bad thing that can happen to a Christian that

49:33 we can't receive with rejoicing. And forgiving each other for the things that we do comes upfront. And as Corey said, it's not we're not earning our salvation salvation. It has nothing to do with that. It's saying, I understand the debt that I owe to God and I understand the debt that this person owes to me, and there's no comparison. How could I possibly demand justice for this small thing when I have a lifetime of evil piled up against God? I would never ask for that man to receive whatever what he deserves, because Lord help me if I receive what I deserve. And with that knowledge, we then have peace from God. And that's the blessing of obedience, of obedience coming from faith is that everything is suddenly fine.

50:20 You can be completely peaceful in the middle of a hurricane. Because no matter what happens, you can trust in God's promises. And in the daily life, forgiveness is a key part of that. if you're having a great week, a great month, a great year, but there's someone who's done something evil against you, if you're harboring that against them, it's going to eat up the whole year. It's going to color a dark cloud across whatever else happens until you reconcile. And maybe reconciliation in terms of coming to you forgiving them and them being reconciled to you as brothers in Christ is impossible. That's not even what we're saying here. We're saying that you intercede to God on their behalf and say,

51:00 Lord, not in my name. What they do against you is between them and you, I'm not a party to it. I forgive them. I ask you to forgive them for Christ's sake, for my sake. And that's the end of it. That's hands off. it's j Jesus take the wheel. And we can trust that God will do that and He'll do it perfectly. And with that sort of confident faith, suddenly everything else becomes easy. On the good days, the bad days, the worst days, everything becomes easy when you have confidence that the promises that God keeps in these small things He's also going to keep in the great things. And being reminded in our own lives by those moments when we ask someone to be forgiven for our sake, and then we wake

51:42 up at peace, is God demonstrating his love for us that you will not be burdened by the evil of other men. The only way for them to burden you is if you permit it. And that can only happen if you don't trust in God's promises. And yes, someone will hear this and feel condemned by it, because again, if you're sinning against God by not trusting in him, that's a call to repentance. And so when we say these things, it's not intended to like beat up on people's consciences. But when the word of God acts on us is going to act according to God's will God's will. We don't have any control over what the Holy Spirit does with God's word in people's hearts. God will not return to him void. God will accomplish the task for which he sent his word forth.

52:27 Forgiveness is something that we give to others because it's been extended to us infinitely. And that's a very easy equation. And once we get used to it, you have a decent Christian peaceful life. No matter how bad things get with your neighbors, with your enemies, you can never be so beset that you won't be at peace inwardly. That's a that's a tremendous gift from God. And so this episode is about the gifts that God gives us through us giving each other the gift of forgiveness. If we have that, we have everything that God wants for us in this life. Personally, I've made a little bit of this easier for myself by taking a page out of God's book and simply forgetting many of the slights against myself, I suspect there may be some mechanical differences

53:14 there in God's case, but when we speak of fairness versus mercy, I would hope that Matthew eighteen comes to mind, and I'll read the section that I have in mind that many of you undoubtedly know which one of the But before I get to that, I want to draw out two terms and further define them so that we're abundantly clear about what we mean and what we're saying and what we are not saying. The first term is suffering. And when it comes to suffering, there are two kinds we should distinguish. There's suffering that is simply part of this life, whether it is caused by others, by the natural world or any other source. And then there is suffering for Christ. When Christians speak of bearing suffering, when the scriptures speak of that,

54:12 it is bearing suffering on account of Christ, on account of your faith. If someone comes up to you in the streets and punches you in the face and says I hate your shoes, you're allowed to defend yourself. If you don't defend yourself that's not suffering for Christ, that's being a pacifist. Christians are not called to be pacifists, Christians are prohibited from being pacifists. If on the other hand, you are dragged before the secular authorities, and you are told to renounce some part of Scripture, then you are required to affirm what Scripture teaches and bear whatever suffering may come, because that is for Christ. And the second term that I want to highlight is the term enemy. And the reason we need to further define

55:03 this term is because English and really insofar as I'm aware all Germanic languages have the same not problem but distinction between them and languages like Greek or Latin. And that is that the term enemy is vague. It is ambiguous in a way that it's not necessarily so in these other languages, because it has a wider range, a wider scope of meaning. If I tell you that someone is my enemy, you don't know if that's a personal enemy or a public enemy. So for instance, if you are if your nation is at war with another nation, the citizens of that other nation, the soldiers of that other nation, are not your personal enemies. They are public enemies. That's not what's in view here in Scripture when we're forgiving our

55:54 enemies and praying for them. Yes, you should still pray for those people to come to faith if they are pagans, if they are atheists, that's a separate matter from what we are discussing here. But the distinction in Latin would be inimicus and hostis. Enimicus is a personal enemy, which is what's in view here. Hostis is a public enemy, what's not in view here. And so you have to keep that in mind when you read these passages of scripture that deal with enemies. You are called to forgive your personal enemies, to pray for your personal enemies, not to hold these things against them. That is not saying that a nation cannot have enemies, that a nation cannot act against those enemies, that a prince cannot wield the

56:43 sword, because of course the prince does not wield the sword in vain. That is a separate matter. So those who accuse Christians of being pacifists are using this ambiguity in this term in a certain subset of languages to try and push false doctrine. Do not let false teachers befuddle you in this particular way. Scripture does not teach, again, just to make sure this is abundantly clear, Scripture does not teach that Christians must be pacifists. In fact, it teaches the opposite, that a good Christian, particularly a good Christian man, cannot be a pacifist. But to return to the issue, as I said, I would, of fairness versus mercy. You should of course think of the parable of the unforgiving or

57:32 whatever adjective it happens to be if you have headers in your Bible, it's not in the original text, so it doesn't matter. But the unforgiving servant. Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him, as many as seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy seven times. Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king, who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents, and since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with

58:17 me, and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants, who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him he began to choke him, saying, Pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me, and I will pay you. He refused, and went and put him in prison, until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me, and

59:01 should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you? And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. And so we see initially, when the Master is dealing with the unforgiving servant, the ungrateful servant. We see mercy. Because he forgives them this massive debt, and for those who don't know how large of a sum ten thousand talents is, it may as well be infinite. It is not something that you are ever repaying if you are simply a laborer. That's the sum of gold that a king would have in his stores. The average person will never possess that, will never be able

59:46 to repay that. He was forgiven an infinite debt, and so of course, that is typologically, us as sinners, forgiven the infinite debt of sin against God on behalf of Christ. And then we see later, when the master deals with him again, he is treated with fairness. Fairness is you have to repay the debt. You cannot repay the debt, you will never repay the debt, but it is fair to demand of you that the debt be repaid. And so in light of the fact that we are forgiven the infinite debt of sin, we are to forgive our fellow servants, our fellow Christians, our fellow man, his sins against us. Because those sins are minor. Here it's a number of denarii. Denarius is the day's wage for a hired hand for the average

1:00:38 laborer. So it's not a trivial sum. It's a hundred days worth of labor, but it is nothing compared to ten thousand talents. It is a finite sum compared to an infinite sum. And so we are called to forgive these minor debts of our fellow servants, in light of what Christ has forgiven us, what God has forgiven us on Christ's behalf. We are not called to be the wicked servant who fails to forgive his fellow servants, because that is rejecting Christ, that is rejecting faith. That is saying, No, I'm worthy of this, and it is my works that have done this for me. That is to be an apostate. That's what we see here. The wicked servant is apostate, and that is why of course he is delivered over to the jailer

1:01:40 And I just want to reiterate the import of the way God describes the forgiveness that he extends to us and the extent of the forgiveness that He expects us to try to deliver to each other. Obviously, God's completion of these things is utterly perfect, and ours is always utterly imperfect. Nevertheless, when God demonstrates the amount of and degree of forgiveness He extends to us, that's an example. That's here's what perfect forgiveness looks like. You should contrast your forgiveness with this. And when we say things like this, again, it's not intended as condemnation for however you're forgiving people. It's a reminder that uh make sure you're actually forgiving them for one thing. You know, it's if

1:02:29 I I've said in the past, if someone says I'm sorry, say I forgive you. Don't say, don't worry about it or it's no big deal. Say I forgive you. Announce forgiveness to them. Because frankly, you're doing something harmful if you won't announce their forgiveness. If someone is contrite, if they're repentant and they know that they need forgiveness and they come to you, you have an obligation to deliver it in clear terms. And that's that's one of these things that's you know it's we try to downplay you know socially by saying oh don't worry about it, it's a big deal. And And that may be true, but that's the downplaying in that moment is far less important than them hearing from your lips, I forgive you.

1:03:13 And frankly, that's equally important to you, because if you say to them, Ah, don't worry about it, it's no big deal. Maybe later on you think about it and think, well, you know, maybe it's kind of a bigger deal than I thought it was. I you know, looking back at what they did, it you know, I I would forgive them, but I kind of have a problem with the way they did it. If you announced their forgiveness, that's also binding on you. And it makes it very simple. If you're thinking about it later and they said please forgive me and you say I forgive you, when you look back, the that's bookended. That's the beginning and end of the thing. You have foreclosed on yourself dwelling on the past transgressions by announcing

1:03:55 that forgiveness. Because instinctively we know, well, okay, it's settled. It's over. And it's over in a way that's not over when you say that's no big deal. Don't worry about it. In Isaiah 43, God says, I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my sake, and I will not remember your sins. As Cory said earlier, this is God who is infinite and omniscient, who knows all things, says Saying, I will not remember. We don't know how that works, and we don't need to worry about it. All we need to do is trust in that promise. He says something very similar in Psalm 103. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who were oppressed. He made known in his ways to Moses, he acts for the people of Israel.

1:04:39 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion for his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him, for he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust. When God says that his steadfast love for us separates our sin as far as the East is from the West, that's Him describing

1:05:25 in in vaguely comprehensible human terms. There's an infinite distance between you and the penalty for the thing that you've done. Spiritually, that should be what we offer to each other. Now we're talking about forgiveness in particular. We're talking about it in general, but we're doing it in view of last week's conversation also where we were discussing interpersonal relationships. And when you're in a relationship, particularly a marriage, you're obviously going to remember the dumb crap that you did to each other in the past. And that's not sinful. Humans are not capable of completely forgetting. We are, however, completely capable of reframing past events that at the time were horrible and caused tears and anger and distance where

1:06:20 there should be no distance between two people who love each other. When forgiveness is announced and received, when forgiveness exists in that relationship, the fact of the separation, the fact of the pain between you honestly, in most cases, it usually becomes laughable. You know, it it that's gonna depend on the personality. It's certainly gonna be the case more in, for example, in American relationships than you know, Russian relationship where the Eastern Europeans aren't as jovial as we are about things. But certainly within the West, old married couples laugh about the stupid stuff. They don't dwell on it. But if if something comes to mind, all that all that's left in view of the forgiveness that you extend to each other for

1:07:06 Christ's sake is how humorously stupid it was that you're ever mad in the first place, or that you ever did something so stupid that required forgiveness. And so the silliness and the evil, you know, it's we're not minimizing the evil of it. But I think the fact that in retrospect, after forgiveness, we just see the absurdity of our own human folly shows the power of God's forgiveness. That something that was truly evil that would have destroyed a relationship between a man and a woman, between a man and God, with forgiveness, all of the all the bad is taken away and all that's left is the the stupidity and the absurdity that we would have done something against God or against someone we love in the

1:07:49 first place. And it's for us in these times, before the judgment throne, before we get to that point, it's okay to laugh. It's okay to forget too, like you're blessed if you completely forget about that stuff. But if you remember, remember and laugh and say that was just silly. I'm so sorry, I was dumb. Can you believe we did this? I will never do that thing again. That's That's repentance and it's the joyful Christian life to say, Yeah, I sinned. And another crucial part point that we wanted to make in today's episode is paying attention to when a sin occurs and when forgiveness is delivered as it relates to us interacting with each other. What I mean by this is if you're a young man and you're looking for a wife and you find someone and she's not

1:08:40 completely perfect, just as you're not completely perfect. A congratulations, you found a human being. She's gonna be great. B if she has sins in her past, and then you come to her and you say, I want you to be my wife. There's no forgiveness there for you even to extend her, but she didn't do anything against you. If she sinned in her past, you should not ever make her feel like she needs to apologize to you. Now, if she's a good girl, if she's repentant, she will look back and say, Yeah, it's not me anymore. I I wish that I hadn't done that. I can't undo it. I'm a completely different person now. You take her as she is, and you love her as she is, and whatever regret she has for her past sins that she's

1:09:27 repented of and left behind, you should never, you should be like God. You should forget about those things and never think that that colors who she is. Because we're not talking about sins within a relationship. We're talking about you had no idea this other person existed and then you met, you decide if she's for you or not. If she is, you have nothing that you can hold against her. Even apart from the fact that you should forgive anything that you did. What we're saying is that there's a case to be made that you shouldn't even be thinking about oh, I need to forgive her for what she did because she didn't do it to you. She did it to God. Or he did it to God. Like I'm not just picking on girls here.

1:10:10 we're all sinners. Duh. When someone comes to you and you create a relationship with another human being who is a fallen sinful creature, there's a clean slate in that relationship and you try to make sure that you keep that slate clean every day by forgiving whatever whatever sins occur within the relationship, you're gonna have a lifetime to do stupid stuff to each other. You have to forgive in both directions. For the young guys who are listening, or the young girls who are listening, you should not be burdened by things that you've already repented for. And that the comfort of the gospel, when we commit sins against God, when we do these things that are terrible, we realize they're terrible, we need to trust in God's promises about how far he

1:10:55 separates us from our sins. And when he talks about blotting and covering and removing and forgetting, we need to trust that God has done that for us. And so, you know, as we talked about last week, when you're talking about someone you can create a life with, it's not about a perfect person, it's about someone who is going to be able to fulfill the duties of a good spouse, who's not going to have the kind of baggage that will become insurmountable. There are cases where that that's simply the case. But the fact that anyone has ever done something wrong in their past, you shouldn't assume that it's baggage. it's a case by case thing. Someone did something and they regret it and they're absolved and it's

1:11:40 behind them, that's the end of it. And frankly, you know, it it's gonna depend on circumstances, but I would say in general, if you're already the point that you you love someone that you want to have a life with them All the things being equal, I think the default should be to say there's nothing here for me to even see. I'm not even gonna say you should forgive them because that the point was just trying to make is that you shouldn't feel like you have to forgive them for anything because it's none of your business. You can decide do I want this person to be a part of my life? When you get to that point and you say yes, that's it. Two become one flesh, and it's it's effectively a new person.

1:12:19 The new couple is a new thing. And you're starting from scratch, try not to pile up too many more mistakes with each other. Don't make the past mistakes and try to avoid making future mistakes. And when you do, forgive quickly and easily and get to the point that you can laugh about it. And you'll have a very long and happy and successful marriage if you're willing to extend the sort of grace to each other that God extends to you. But part of that is keeping an eye on what God commands and trying. If you if you're thinking day by day about I want to serve God faithfully, I want to be a good wife, I want to be a good husband, if you have that in view, when you sin, it's not going to be huge stuff.

1:12:59 You're not going to sin catastrophically. You're going to sin in smaller, stupid ways. You're not going to fall into the big ticket traps that occur when you're not paying any attention. And that's the reason that the rule of the third use of the law is so vital. And the reason it's worth talking about is not to burden consciences, but it's to say, hey, here's a way not to have a burden conscious in the first place. Obey God, fear Him, love Him, treasure His precepts, and you won't have a situation in your relationship where you have this terrible stuff to forgive. The ideal relationship is one where you don't accumulate those mistakes, those sins, and you And you don't have a bunch of baggage in

1:13:40 the relationship to carry around until you forgive. And you forgive quickly and freely, and you trust that God's promise that He will blot those sins out for that person holds within your relationship as it does between them and God. Typology is a great gift from God to the Christian and to the Church. Little foreshadowing for the Sacramentology Episode But marriage is used throughout Scripture as a type for the antitype that is Christ's sacrifice for the church. Marriage is used as the type for the antitype that is Christ's relationship to and with the church, with believers. This is a helpful way to look at how you should approach marriage, and this goes for both young men and young women, or middle aged, if you happen to be

1:14:36 getting married older. Who you were before you became a Christian, is in large part irrelevant from God's perspective. All of those sins do not carry over after the altar. That is the dividing line for the Christian. The dividing line is Christ's sacrifice. When you become a Christian, when you are given that free gift of faith Those sins are gone. They're in the past. Yes, there's this tension of now, but not yet for the Christian because we still live in a sinful fallen world, in sinful fallen flesh. But we have the beginnings of these eternal things. We have the beginnings of paradise. We have the beginning of sanctification that grows as we progress in the Christian life. And yes, there is progress in the Christian life.

1:15:37 But that altar on which Christ died, that's the true dividing line, because the sins are in the past with reference to that point in time, and the new you is the future. You should think of marriage in the same way. Those things that happened in your past or her past or your past and his past, you are leaving those in the past. The marriage altar is the dividing line. The two shall become one flesh. That is a new person, that is a new creation by God. So leave what happened in the past in the past. Yes, there may be consequences with which you have to deal in this life, because that is the reality of the fallen flesh. Handle those things as necessary, but do not bring up those things from the past.

1:16:36 Absolutely never use them as a weapon against the other person. These are not things that you get to hold over the other person that give you power to wield, to manipulate, or to force some sort of action out of your spouse. That is exactly what you should not be doing. That makes you the wicked servant. In fact. All of that stuff is left. That altar is the dividing line. So bear that typological relationship in mind with regard to marriage. That is one of the things that we can take out of Scripture when Scripture uses marriage as a type. But keep in mind that tension in the Christian life of now but not yet. Because that is true it flows through all of this. The sins still exist because we remember them.

1:17:34 As David says in the Psalms Your sins are ever before you, you remember the things you have done against God, the things you should not have done, and of course you regret them, you feel shame for them, that's proper. But also remember that you have been forgiven for those. So use that memory insofar as you still have it. Maybe God has blessed you with forgetting some of them. Undoubtedly He has blessed you with forgetting some of them. No human being has perfect memory. But use what you remember of those sins. To drive you into God's Word, into that forgiveness, into the Christian life. That is part of what it means to be a Christian. You seek that sanctification, you seek to do better. And

1:18:25 a quote comes to mind from Saint John Chrysostom that is an excellent one for this point Do not be ashamed when you repent. is a medicine for sin. It's phrased various ways. Do not be ashamed when you repent, but when you sin. That's the point. When you sin, immediately turn to God. Don't feel that because you've sinned now you've separated yourself from God and there's a chasm and you have to do X, Y, and Z before you can approach God. That is the voice of Satan telling you that you need to separate yourself from God. That is the absolute worst thing you can do at that moment. What you should do is immediately turn to God and repent. Turn away from that sin. That is what God commands you to do, that is what God

1:19:19 wants you to do. Because if you hold on to that sin, which is exactly what you're doing, if instead of repenting you say that I need to do these things before I turn to God, you're holding on to that sin. Don't keep your sin. Christ paid for that sin on the cross, he paid for not only every sin you have ever committed, any sin you are committing now if you are committing a sin while listening to this, he also paid for every sin you will commit. From the perspective of God, there's no real difference between the sins you committed when you were five years old and the sins you committed when you were, are or will be fifty years old. It's the same from God's perspective. They were all forgiven.

1:20:07 All of your sins were forgiven on the cross. So turn to God immediately when you sin. Don't hold on to those sins. Don't keep them for yourself. That's what Satan wants you to do. Because that's what he's doing. That's what every single person who will spend eternity in his kingdom is doing, holding on to those sins instead of handing them off to Christ. That's the miraculous or the wonderful exchange of which Luther speaks in his writing. We get to hand Christ all of our sins, and he hands us His righteousness. That's the gospel. You are righteous on account of Christ's work on the cross, not because of anything you do. And He has taken all of your sins, forgiven them, and God will forget them.

1:21:00 And so in this life part of the Christian life is forgiving others in the way in so far as we are capable that God has forgiven us. So forgive others their trespasses against you, and forget them if possible. If you don't think about them, you will eventually forget them. That's how it works, that's how human memory works. That is a blessing from God that we can forget these things. And that is particularly true in marriage. You are creating a new life with someone, you are a new creation, you are one flesh. That is what God is joined together, and so let not man separate that includes you, incidentally. You are still man. Do not hold on to those things from the past. That will do you and your spouse no good.

1:21:50 It can only work evil. So leave that all before you approach the altar, and start your new life. Yes, what we spoke of in the previous episode is of course important. It matters to this life. But as Christians, as forgiven human beings, yes still sinful, yes still fallen, yes still living in this world. We are called to forgive others because we have been forgiven. And that is not just because we've been forgiven, it is also because God wants to pour out his blessings on us. And as was mentioned at the beginning of the episode, when you obey God, there are blessings attendant that obedience, some of them flow naturally from the obedience, so for instance, if you do not practice birth control in your marriage, more likely than not, children will be

1:22:50 a natural consequence of that. Children are a blessing from God, particularly the children of one's youth, as the Psalms very clearly say. But the inverse of that, of course, is that if you ignore the blessings of God, do not seek the blessings of God. Often they will not flow. So part of being a Christian is seeking those blessings from God, and you seek those blessings by obeying God. God is the good father. You ask for a fish, he's going to give you a fish, not a serpent. So seek these things from God, repent, turn to God. God will bless you. This isn't a prosperity gospel, this isn't a therapeutic gospel. This is simply the word of Scripture. God says that He will bless you. All things work together for good.

1:23:46 For those who are called according to his purposes, for Christians, for those to whom he is given the free gift of faith. Now we don't know, in our limited understanding, how everything works together. Undoubtedly God will help us to see that after the fact, in paradise, we'll see how everything worked together, to bring us to where we're standing, when we finally understand. But even if we don't understand in this life, we can know for certain that God is absolutely trustworthy, that everything He has ever said is absolutely true, and He has told us that all things work together for the good And that he intends to bless us. And so what the Christian does is very simple. We believe. I think the discussion of Christian forgiveness provides a very interesting contrast

1:24:39 with The discussion of the conduct of doxing. You know, when someone's dox is published and it shows years of past transgressions, particularly for someone who is in the church who is receiving confessional and absolution weekly, who's receiving communion, who has been publicly announced by the pastor in God's voice to be forgiven for those sins. When a doxer comes along with a dossier with years of past transgressions and says, Aha, look what I found. I have I have called out this evil man, and here is all of his secret wickedness. One of two things is occurring. Either the man who's being doxxed, who's being accused, is leaving leading a completely two-faced life where the whatever is in the docs is their true nature and then their

1:25:38 public life was a lie. Or the doxer is doing something that is the purest essence of Satan himself. When Satan was before the council of God, accusing Job, as he accuses all men. when the doxer when the satanic accuser lays out here's all this stuff, the other possibility is that those things that the docs victim has done in the past are sins for which he's been forgiven, things that he's repented of, that he is sorry for, that he's turned away from, and been forgiven publicly by God for those things. And when a someone comes along and says, but here is all these accusations, it is the purest form of what Satan seeks to do to all of us. It's how he tries to burden our consciences with past sins.

1:26:37 When we When we're Christians, when we're living sanctified lives where we're receiving confession and absolution, where forgiveness is being announced, where we know it when we read the Word of God that announces our forgiveness through the very pages of Scripture and God's own voice. Satan wants to say, no, you're not really forgiven. Don't believe that pack of lies in church. Don't believe that crap you're reading in the Bible. You did something wrong in the past, and I'm gonna destroy you for it Someone who does not have confident faith can be torn down by that. And it's it's what he does in all of our lives. God Satan's always trying to dox all of us personally, using malformed consciences, saying, Here's this stuff you did a long time ago, or

1:27:22 here's that one thing you did recently that you knew better, and look how disgusting you are. The Christian response to the disgusting sins that we commit is to repent, to say, yeah, that's disgusting. I I hate that too. I never I never wanted anything to do with that. I fell into sin, I turn away from it, and I asked God for forgiveness. A Christian within his own Christian life who conducts himself in that way is free from the guilt for those sins because those sins have been laid at the foot of the cross. And there's no purchase for Satan. When he comes along with your secret docs or your public docs, whatever it is, there's a litany of accusations. If you're already forgiven by God because you're repentant for anything that's

1:28:05 actually sinful in there. May not be, because of course, Satan is the ultimate liar. He will lie and twist anything that he uses to try to get you to reject your faith. It's a tricky thing, and it's it's one of the weak spots that we have in a in an immature faith is to not be able to distinguish between my heart is accused by the words of God and scripture, my heart is accused when I hear someone preaching or speaking otherwise about the things of God, because I know that I have done something against God. God, through the Holy Spirit, desires an outcome of repentance and to deliver forgiveness to you. Satan desires the opposite. He doesn't want you to repent. He wants you to despair. He doesn't want you to be Peter.

1:28:55 He wants you to be Judas. And so every time any of us confronts our own past sins, those are the two directions. Either God condemning the sin and saying, I died for this sin, I forgive you, or Satan saying, There's no possible hope for you. You've done something too terrible. There's never going to be any forgiveness. I will accuse and accuse and accuse until you take your own life and seal your fate. It's two completely different responses to exactly the same fact pattern. And so that's part of what makes this important to actually discuss among believers, because when you you know the vast majority of people who are listening to Stone Choir or who listen to anything that they hear that's going to have something from God, almost no one

1:29:44 ever gives any feedback 'cause it's a one way thing. And that's fine. That's a normal part of listening versus speaking. When you hear something and it convicts your conscience, the important thing is that your conscience is not malformed and that you take a response that is itself guided by the very scripture that condemned whatever act it was. So if you did something in your past and you fail one or more of the tests that perhaps we lay out for what a perfect life would look like, that is never intended by us to heap condemnation on you, to heap burning coals on your head. The intent is to say, Here's what God wants for us, when we do this, we are blessed. Not saving ourselves, as as we said earlier on.

1:30:31 This is not about I'm gonna do really good and I'm gonna save myself. No. We that's completely out of the question from the beginning. That's the very first thing that Christian needs to learn. He can't save himself. Satan wants you to think you can't save yourself and God can't save you either. And that's the distinction. When you are confronted with your sin, you realize I can't save myself from this Listen to God and know that He has forgiven that sin, that He has paid the price for it, and that you have already received that forgiveness by believing that the sacrifice was given for you. Do not listen to Satan, who continues to accuse you and whisper and pester in your ear, and bring up things from year ago

1:31:14 th years ago that you've long since repented of, or there were never sins in the first place, and he's trying to trick you into thinking they were evil. He's a deceiver and he's an accuser. That's not what the law does. God's law, God's perfect will, never deceives. And it doesn't accuse in the same way that Satan accuses, because Satan's accusation is hopeless. When the word of God, when God's law accuses us of our sin, it is narrow in saying this is contrary to my will, repent, receive forgiveness. There's always an out. I don't mean to say that in the sense that you can continue to just do stuff and and knowingly sin and say, Well, yeah, God's got this covered. I don't need to worry about it.

1:32:02 You will drive out the Holy Spirit if you continuously do that. But it'll take a while. It's not instantaneous. It's something else Satan wants you to think, oh, you did it once. That's too big. That's That's how all these little these sins are small when we're looking at them. Like, oh, I wanna I'm gonna do that. Seems like a good idea. The moment you do it, Satan's like, oh no, that was a huge sin, actually. And you will never ever be able to reconcile to God for that. Scripture says the opposite. Scripture says that all sin has been paid for on the cross, it's done, it is finished. And so when faithful preaching announces it, when scripture announces it, when you hear someone just discussing it and the Holy Spirit works through

1:32:44 your heart to say, I screwed up, I need to repent, you already have. That is repentance. And with a Christian, the repentance receives that forgiveness immediately. And the reason that we have the absolution in church, and the reason that we are to forgive each other face to face, as we were just talking about a minute ago. If your spouse, if your future spouse sins against you, forgive them immediately. Say, I forgive you. This is it's gone. It does not exist between us. We do that so that there's no purchase for Satan to come along and say, but look at this. I got this laundry list of stuff. you are you s are you serious? Are you really gonna love this person? Do you really think God's gonna love you?

1:33:26 No. There's absolutely no room for that in the Christian life. So Christian discussions can f speak frankly about evil without it being something that beats someone down. You may momentarily feel beaten down, and that's that's you realizing I'm a bigger sin center than I thought. That's a good thing because that's God working within you. But the very next beat is I repent of this, God forgive me, and to believe and to know with certainty that you have received that forgiveness, because the price has already been paid. That's the reason that we sometimes talk about fixing our eyes on the crucifix, on the cross with Jesus' body on it. Because as long as you're pointed at that and that is your

1:34:12 focus, you will not get distracted by, oh, I I don't know if I'm I don't know if God loves me enough for this one. Really? Look at the cross. Look who's up there. Look what's happening. When you look at that, you can't possibly think that God doesn't love you enough to forgive whatever it is you did. And that's why we're to forgive each other for the same reason, because whatever someone else did to you isn't nearly as bad is the things that we have done to God. And this isn't relativism. And we've we've talked in the past about saying, well, you know, you know, we particularly called out the thing saying pedophilia is a speck in your neighbor's eye. I'm not saying anything like that. I'm saying that the accumulation of a lifetime of sin is itself

1:34:53 incalculable by human standards. God can calculate it, he knows. But the individual thing that someone does to harm you doesn't stack up. And so when we forgive each other, it's because we don't want to receive what we know we deserve. And that's a cause for joy and not despair. Ultimately all these things, even when it's a momentary pause, and you're like, man, I it's unbelievable. As Corey was saying, we most of the time we can't forget most things. And we look back at them, we should be like, it's astonishing. How stupid and evil and it's unbelievable. And part of that just astonishment at our own past evil is a way of reinforcing that's not me anymore. that's not who I am in Christ. Even if you're a Christian at the time, you're like, what was

1:35:41 I thinking? It was evil, it was wrong, I shouldn't have done it. And so your future life is guided by saying that's there's no room in my life for perhaps my past life. That is true repentance. And that is a life that is filled with God's forgiveness. Because you will sin in the future. But you won't commit the same types and degrees of sin, at least with the same volume and frequency, simply because you will spend more time being being hemmed in by all the good things that God provides where there's just less and less room for stepping too far out of line and getting further away to the point that Satan can start whispering and saying, Yeah, there's there's no hope for you. you're way too far gone.

1:36:21 That's the rock bottom that someone who's a substance abuser or something else hits and without God they're just stuck in that pit until they die. Christianity is saying that the forgiveness will lift you out of that pit. God will lift you out of that pit. You can do it yourself, but the work has been done, and when you believe it, you receive it. And that comfort that we receive as Christians in the perfect forgiveness from God, when we extend it to others, we are blessed with a peaceful life as much as we can and have in have in this life. A key part of the Christian life is sanctification, and part of sanctification is that the Holy Spirit will lead you to recognize sins in your life. And as you deal with those sins in your life, because that

1:37:15 is part of sanctification, there'll be a sin, you'll focus on that sin, you'll get over that sin, or you'll at least mitigate that sin, you'll be less prone to it as part of this process of sanctification. But as soon as you've done that, the Holy Spirit will identify another area in your life where you're sinning. This will continue for the entirety of your Christian life on this earth. Now for the immature Christian, that at first seems terrible. You mean there will always be more problems. Yes, there will always be more problems. That is part of life, part of this life. But that's not bad news, and I notably don't mean immature as a pejorative, simply an objective assessment. It is great news for the Christian that the Spirit will lead

1:38:12 you to recognize these things, because that is preparing you for and leading you into a better life, ultimately preparing you for the next life. That is the process of sanctification, that is the Christian life, that is great news for the Christian. You are turning to God, walking toward God, getting rid of these things that are dragging you down, these things that are making your life objectively worse. And so it is great whenever you can get rid of any of them. So sanctification is an ongoing process for the Christian. That is why we have the Holy Spirit. That is why we have God's Word. We have, of course, the Holy Spirit to help us understand God's Word. Without the Spirit we could not understand the Word.

1:39:02 But this is part of the Christian life. It is a progressive sanctifying of the Christian Because as we have mentioned in previous episodes, you are either heading toward God or away from God. There is no such thing as standing still when it comes to the Christian life, when it comes to being a human being. Because if you're not a Christian you're walking away from God. You are walking toward God or you are walking away from God. Sanctification is walking toward God. That is the Christian life, that is the purpose of the law, that's the third use of the law. It aids you in knowing what God wants you to do, because that is again God's will, and so you are walking Godward. That is what it means to be leading a Christian life.

1:39:54 You know you're forgiven for your sins already, but you're being sanctified. You're becoming the person God always wanted you to be, the person God will make you in the next life, because that is when the fullness of your sanctification will occur. This is something that Jesus describes in the parable in Luke 18. He also told this parable to some whom who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Quote Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus God I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I

1:40:42 get, but the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. So if you hear something in Scripture that you feel condemns you, you are the tax collector in this parable. You are the man who has sinned, who has done something, and you know it, and God says that you are justified for his sake by receiving the forgiveness through faith that was delivered at the cross. The man who is haughty, who sits around keeping track of other people's sins and announcing them and saying, look at the contrast between

1:41:35 me and these other people, I'm so much better. That man is the man who's in spiritual trouble. The man who is momentarily troubled by his current sins or his past sins is in better shape than the man who's like, No, I got this figured out. So if you feel like, man, I I I'm not as good as I thought I was. Yep. that's A, it's true. And B that's good news. It means that the Holy Spirit is working within you and you are frankly you're more Christian than you were yesterday. You're more Christian than when you didn't realize the depths of your sin. Because once we realize that we can't fix it, that only God can fix it, it becomes very simple. And so I just again I want to reiterate Satan wants to

1:42:25 dox you every moment of every day of your life to broadcast whatever evil you've done to the whole world to expose you and to make you feel like you have no hope in Christ. God wants the opposite. God wants to blot out and tr to forget your sins and to separate them as far as the East is from the West. And he accomplishes that through His word and through the sacraments. And And Christians know and believe that. We know that the evil that we have done is blotted out by God because it's what He promised. It's not what we deserve. We're not saying a prayer of Lord give me everything I deserve. We're saying Lord have mercy on me a poor miserable sinner, and God will answer that prayer. Undoubtedly some who are listening to this episode will have called to

1:43:16 mind the unforgivable sin. We're not deliberately ignoring the unforgivable sin. I'm going to address it right now. However, if you are still listening to this episode, I can confidently say you have not committed the unforgivable sin. Another standard by which the unforgivable sin, whether or not it has been committed, can be judged is if you can worry about it. If you can worry about the unforgivable sin, you have not committed the unforgivable sin. And this ties into something that Wo said about a sin being too big, which of course is a favorite accusation of Satan. I want to read just a short quote from CFW Walter. You were not rightly distinguishing law and gospel in the Word of God, if you claim the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit, cannot

1:44:11 be forgiven because of its magnitude. This is a vitally important point. Anytime Satan tells you that you have committed a sin that is too big, he's lying. He is a wicked, vile, liar. There is no such thing as a sin that is too big, as a sin that has a magnitude that is too great to be forgiven. The unforgivable sin is unforgivable because of its nature It is impenitence, it is apostasy, it is the refusal to believe, it is the rejection of the free gift, of salvation, of justification. It is not unforgivable because of its magnitude. And so when Satan says, Well that sin was too big, you always know that he's lying. You never have to worry about the sin being too big. Because all of your sins, every sin, everything was forgiven in Christ

1:45:14 on the cross. Because Christ's sacrifice was of infinite value. That is the thing to keep in mind. Keep that in sight. Focus on the infinite value of Christ's sacrifice. Don't focus on the magnitude of your sins. Yes, a Yes, until you have repented, you will focus on your sins. Those will drive you to repentance, that is, of course, the mirror, the second use of the law. But once that has driven you to repentance, focus on Christ, focus on the Word and the sacraments, focus on the way that God brings his gifts to you, because that infinite value of Christ's sacrifice on the cross covers any of the sins you have committed. So Satan is lying, because of course he is the father of lies, he's always lying.

1:46:08 So do not listen when he says ah that sin is too big. There's no such thing. Because Because our God is true and merciful. Our God is the ruler from Matthew eighteen, who forgives that infinite debt of his servant. That is the nature of our God. That is the nature of the gift of salvation that He has given us. Our debt is infinite. But so is Christ's sacrifice, so is God's mercy, so is God's grace. And so no matter how great your sins are, they have been forgiven, and you can absolutely rely on that. When we say Amen, we should keep in mind what it is we've said. It means truly, means let it be so, it means a number of things. But the full sense of it, when we say amen to something in Scripture, when we say Amen to something God has promised is

1:47:09 we're affirming it's already happened. It is already so, because God is so reliable that even if it is something in the distant future, it is so certain as to have already happened. That is the sense of what we're saying, and we should bear that in mind when we use that word. And so I'd like to read another passage from Hebrews to draw out some of these points we've gone over in this episode from Hebrews ten for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified, and the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us for after saying, This is the covenant that I will make with them, after those days declares the Lord. I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on

1:47:57 their minds. Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is no longer any offering for sin. And this passage really contains the summary of everything we have gone over in this episode, all of the points we were making, that we hope to make. The single offering is Christ. That single offering was of infinite value, so there is no longer any offering for sin, because once for all Christ offered what was necessary and all sufficient on the cross. God promises He will remember our sins no more. That is the greatest promise we can possibly hear. Because what God forgets no longer exists, never existed. Our sins will be absolutely gone.

1:48:56 To the point where they cannot even be recalled by God, because He promises to forget them, and His promises are always true. And that writing of the law on your heart, that's the third use. That's the Spirit guiding you into a sanctified life. That is the process of sanctification that makes you a better Christian, makes you a better person. Because yes, being a Christian will make you a better person. That is part of the Christian life, that is the third use of the law, that is God's Eternal Will. Yes, the law accuses your fallen flesh, but the law is also turning your fallen flesh into something greater, preparing you for the glory of the next life. And that is good news for the Christian.

1:49:46 And that is God's covenant with those who believe. And so all that remains now is to end with one more reading from scripture, to close out this episode, where we hope that we have pointed out to you, highlighted for you, the fullness of what it means that God has forgiven your sins and Because that is the gospel. That is the good news. That is the greatest news in the history of the world. Because of course that's what gospel means. It's good news. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.