Clearly Forgiven But Still Not Clear

A good friend of mine sent me this great video I that want to share with you.

What a great illustration of our need for God’s forgiveness and how complete that forgiveness is in Christ! Sin has completely blackened us. There is no part of us that sin does not effect. This is what we Reformed (or Calvinist) types mean by “total depravity.” When you hear someone say “I believe in the doctrine of total depravity,” what that person means is that sin effects every aspect of life and thought. Isn’t that true? Sin is not just here and there but everywhere! But even just a little of God’s grace completely removes the black and stain of sin from us, leaving us—in the Father’s eyes—as clear and pure as Christ. And as the demonstration showed, no matter how much sin there might be, Jesus’ grace is enough to clear it all up.

It is a great picture of justification, that theological term that describes our legal position before God regarding our sin. When we come to faith in Christ, His righteousness (His perfect life of love for the Father and all the people He ever met) is credited to us; while all the debt we owed because of our sin is credited to Him and seen as paid in full by His death on the cross. The result is that we are justified, seen as being “just” and owing nothing for our sins. We are instantly, totally, completely, and irrevocably forgiven!

What is equally important to understand however, is that while justification is a done deal as far as God is concerned, that is not how we look to one another right now. We are clearly forgiven in Christ, but our lives are clearly not sin free.

God’s grace certainly changes us right away. Sin begins to lose its attraction and its power over us as our love for and attraction to God grows. To stick with the dirty cup illustration: before Christ, sin has left us all black. Once His grace starts to pour into our lives, sin starts to break down and we go from looking black to brown or grey. In other words, it is obvious that something has changed, but there is still plenty of pride, fear, and selfishness in the mix. Generally, the longer we are in contact with God’s grace the closer to “clear” our lives become; but the reality of a life that is completely free and clear of sin isn’t going to happen until we are in heaven. As long as we are on this side of the ground, things are not going to be so clear.

Justification makes us legally clean before God. Sanctification is the process of becoming actually clean because of God’s gracious work in us. Justification is instant. Sanctification is a life-long process.

Here is a good illustration of sanctification. We start out like the cup on the far left. Once God’s grace is poured into us by faith in Jesus, we start to change. We don’t look quite so nasty. As time goes on that grace changes us more and more and the browns and greys of sin fade as we learn to live for God through Christ. Some days we seem more clear, others we seem darker, but we never get back to just being black. Grace moves us irrevocably towards being clear of sin.

While we live in the various shades of the first four cups, God relates to us as we look in the fifth cup. He knows that we are still dirty, He is not fooling Himself, and He certainly isn’t pleased with our sin. But because Jesus paid all the penalty for it, and because the Father looks at us through Jesus’ life, God is free to relate to us as if our lives were as pure and clear as the cup on the far right. Because of Christ we have been justified. Because of that justification we are in the process of sanctification. And justification guarantees that the process of sanctification is going to end with us being free and clear of sin and the desire for it.

So, we need to understand these two realities are true in our life and in the life of every Christian at the same time. Like the clear side of the glass, we are totally forgiven. God is not ever angry with you because all His anger (just and righteous anger by the way) was totally poured out on Jesus when He was on the cross. Our sin has been paid for, there is no double jeopardy. God loves you because of Christ, who He is, and what He did. Nothing you can do can change that, so you never have to worry that God loves you any less. He loves you with the same love He has for His Son. You can’t get more loved than you already are.

Like the dirty side of the glass, we need to know that we still sin. Grace is breaking it down more and more, but we should not be shocked or surprised or disheartened when we sin or we see another Christian brother or sister sin, even horribly. Grace has removed the penalty for sin, not the desire to sin itself…not completely anyway. The more experience you have with grace, the more you realize you need it more than you thought! That reality gives us compassion towards those we see struggling. And because we know that the justification we have in Christ guarantees that grace will win out, we never have to sink into discouragement.