Jesus Christ gave clear instructions for a saint’s forgiveness of a personal grievance in Luke 17:3: “Take heed to yourself.  If your (spiritual) brother sins against you, rebuke him, and IF HE REPENTS, forgive him.”  Jesus is talking to His disciples about how to handle personal affronts within the Church of God.  I assume that the same rules would apply relative to an offender and an offendee who are outside of the Body of Christ.  The saint has a responsibility to make the offender aware that he has offended.  The saint also must withhold his forgiveness UNTIL THE OFFENDER REPENTS.  When writing to the Colossian Church concerning forgiveness, the Apostle Paul wrote: “Being the holy and beloved elect of God, you must have a merciful, kind, humble, meek, and longsuffering attitude toward each other.  You must forebear and forgive one another.  As Christ forgave you, so you must forgive others.  And above all else, you must have love toward one another, which is the bond of perfection on your part” (3:12-14).  That is the Lord’s “headline” relative to forgiveness of the brethren.  However, let us not forget Christ’s caveat: WE ARE TO FORGIVE ONLY IF REPENTANCE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TOWARD US.  This is His “fine print,” without which the “headline” is guaranteed to be misunderstood and misapplied, which is exactly the case within professing Christendom.

The Lord’s repentance-before-forgiveness rule also applies to His forgiveness of a sin we have committed against Him.   WE MUST PROVE THAT OUR REPENTANCE IS TRUE BY OBEYING HIS WORD/LAW.  If, following repentance of a sin against Him, we sin again, our repentance was not genuine and God will not forgive the original sin.  As has been clearly noted in the previous posting, forgiveness of a sin must be followed by obedience to God’s Word.  Following our repentance of a sin we must “SIN NO MORE” in order for the sin to be forgiven.  God waits to see if we are truly repentant, or if we are just looking for a quick cleansing so that we can “be like the sow that returns to wallowing in her mire and the dog that returns to its own vomit” (2 Pet. 2:22).  In a previous series I label this universally-embraced church principle a “sin-repent cycle.”  This heretical belief is a primary “truth” within professing Christendom.  I have been excoriated by self-defined “Christians” for agreeing with the lying God of the Bible Who supposedly saved them.   The Scripture-deniers then use the Book they claim their lying God wrote to “prove” that, due to Adam’s sin-transferral miracle and Christ’s sin-erasure death, sin is natural and therefore unavoidable.  Then they dismiss the Scriptures that prove them wrong.  This attitude renders meaningless Christ’s “SIN NO MORE” command, along with the Truths found in 1 John 3:4-10.

The problem referred to in the previous paragraph can be traced back to a deadly error in church theology concerning the true meaning of Christ’s sacrifice.  Read The Message of the Cross.  Key word–Message.  It is true that our belief in Christ’s sacrifice for sin is essential for salvation.  However, our faith in His sacrifice is not the entire plan.  Though the Bible is perfectly clear on this point, there is mass confusion on this point within professing Christendom.  Many, I believe 99%, “know” that once one takes Christ as his personal Savior, there is nothing more to be done.  The Scriptural Truth of the matter is that doing so is just the beginning of the salvation process.  Read The Process of Salvation.  Key word–Process.

The key to understanding the Biblical Truth concerning salvation is plainly stated in Acts 2:36.  On the Day of Pentecost the Apostle Peter told a gathering of Jews that: “God has made this same Jesus whom you crucified, both LORD and Christ (anointed one).”  Notice what comes first–IN ORDER FOR JESUS TO BE OUR SAVIOR, HE MUST FIRST BE OUR LORD/MASTER/COMMANDER.  WE MUST MAKE HIM THE ABSOLUTE RULER OF OUR LIVES. IF HE IS NOT OUR LORD IN THIS LIFE HE WILL NOT BE OUR SAVIOR IN THE NEXT LIFE.  HE MUST RULE US NOW IN ORDER TO LEAD US LATER.

What Peter said “pricked the hearts (minds)” of those who heard him.  What did Peter do then?  Did he tell them to just accept Christ’s sacrifice for the remission of their sins and leave it at that?  “Now when they heard this they were pricked in their hearts and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?'” (vs 37).  They asked the right question, as did Saul of Tarsus when confronted by Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus.  Paul asked Him: “LORD, WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE ME DO?”  This series, as well as all other series presented on this website, answers that question.  The answer can be summarized in the following statement: REPENT OF ALL PAST SINS, BELIEVE THE GOSPEL/LAW AND OBEY IT.  This we do if we love Him.

As Jesus said in John 14:15,23, we prove our love for Him by obeying His commandments, which He calls His Words in verses 15 and 23 respectively.  In John 15:10 He said that keeping the commandments is the way we abide in His love for us, just as His keeping the commandments enabled Him to abide in His Father’s love.  Note it: Christ’s love for us depends on our obeying His commandments.  Read John 15:13,14 and Matthew 12:46-50.  Not even Jesus was exempt from the love rule.  In that God’s defines sin as the breaking of His Law/commandments (1 Jn. 3:4), one must obey His Law/commandments in order to SIN NO MORE, WHICH HE COMMANDS US TO DO.

Those whom Satan has trapped in his Catholic/Protestant Church System have never repented of their sins because they do not know believe God’s Biblical definition of sin–THE TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW (1 Jn. 3:4).  Having nailed the Law to the cross, those in “the church” have never repented of their sins and have never been justified, which places them on the same spiritual level as the world into which they comfortably fit.  L.J.