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In accomplishing His work in man, God does not deal with individuals. He includes the whole of humanity in Christ. Whatever He executes in Christ is carried out in us. The doctrine of salvation is found in Christ. God also gives man a new life in Him.
God has no desire to change our outward behavior; He only wants to change our life. His one intention is to replace our old life with a new one. He can only accomplish this in Christ Jesus. When we are in Christ, this work of replacement is automatically applied to us.
However, before God can dispense a new life to us, some matters need to be taken care of. If these things are not settled, God can never give life to us, and we will never have the right to receive anything from Him. We know that the most crucial matter in the Christian faith is the possession of a new life from God. But there are a few prerequisites, without which it is impossible to partake of this life. Therefore, these items occupy an important position and rightly demand our attention.
The first item is the forgiveness of sins. This provides God with a proper standing to dispense life to us.
We all know that the manifested behavior of our natural life is extremely evil. It is hopeless beyond measure. Our corrupt behavior is made known by the sins we commit. Some commit rash and ugly sins, while others indulge in more refined and subtle ones. In either case, all these sins have to be forgiven. They have to be forgiven justly and properly before we can receive the life of God.
Second, the very life which activates sins must be dealt with thoroughly. Unless this life is removed from its root, the possibility of sin remains; it will continue to bear corrupt fruit. Sin will still be manifested in our thoughts and actions. God must give a final solution to our old life. It must be terminated once and for all.
After these two things are taken care of, God can freely dispense a new life to us in Christ. Then we can walk according to it day by day. We will also be able to live a God-like life on earth and fulfill His purpose.
How does God forgive our sins? Many people have an erroneous concept concerning this matter. They think that although they have committed many sins, the sins can all be pardoned if they repent of their evil conduct.
But repentance can never remit a sin that you have committed. No matter how much you repent, your sins are still there. You may regret your sins as much as you want, but they will not be removed simply by your repentance.
When I was preaching in Kaifeng, some government officials were present. I told them, suppose a bandit committed many crimes and murdered many, but was not caught for a long time. Then one day he appeared before you, saying, "I repent of all my past misconduct. From now on I am going to reform. I have determined to be a law-abiding citizen and a good man." Please tell me, would his repentance annul his former crimes, the cases brought up against him by his victims, and the prosecutions conducted against him by the law? Would they be nullified? Would the law let him go?
The Bible shows us that all sins incur certain kinds of judgment. Nothing we do is lightly passed over. The outward manifestation of our life is sinful. Not only do we sin against ourselves, but we sin against others and, above all, against God. God is righteous. He cannot evasively bypass our sins. His righteousness does not permit Him to do so.
I remember a true story. Once a man murdered someone and stole a sum of money. He then took refuge in another town. There he married and had some children. The people in that place knew nothing of his past.
One day, three detectives came to look for him. They found the man and were about to take him away. The man turned to his wife and asked, "For all these years that I have been with you, have I not been a good husband?" The wife agreed. Then he turned to his children, saying, "Am I not a good father to you?" The children also nodded. Finally he turned to his neighbors: "In all these years, have I ever intruded upon your property or done any wrong to you? Would you not consider me a good neighbor?" They all consented unanimously that he was a fine person.
He then turned around to the three detectives and defended himself, saying, "See, I have been a good man all these years. Here are all these witnesses testifying to my goodness. You should let me go!" The three replied, "You may be justified before everybody, but you are not justified before the law. Your repentance may guarantee your future innocence, but it can never remove your past guilt, nor can it deliver you from the judgment of the law." In the end, he had to face his trial in court.
When we sin, our conscience also does not let us go. Sometimes when the conscience is hushed, we do not sense too much guilt. But though the conscience may sleep, it never dies! The minute the conscience awakes, it convicts us of our sins and makes us feel very uneasy. Perhaps it is silent today, but it will not shut up forever. It will never let go of what we have done in the past.
Furthermore, God cannot forgive our sins lightly. If we sin carelessly and God forgives our sins irresponsibly, then God Himself falls into sin in His forgiveness. This does not mean that God does not have the power to forgive sins, but it means that God can only grant forgiveness when it comes up to His dignity. He cannot degrade Himself to a state of unrighteousness in the process of forgiving our sins. God is forever the righteous God.
In Kaifeng, I met a Christian by the name of Wen. He was the chief officer of a certain department in the government. One day he invited me to dinner and mentioned a difficult situation that confronted him. Within his department a few persons were known to have engaged in a fraud that involved more than ten thousand dollars. The act was brought into the light, and the guilty persons were arrested. The law of the department said that anyone involved in a fraud that exceeded five thousand dollars was to be executed. According to the law, such men had to die.
Wen said to me, "As a Christian, I am very reluctant to put people to death. If I forgive them, I myself become guilty of breaking the law. However, I cannot bear the thought of executing men. This is my dilemma. What would you say?" I could not think of any way to save them either. The law is absolute! There is no way around it. As Christians we cannot violate the law and fall into unrighteousness. Yet, if we uphold our righteousness, we sacrifice others' lives.
How then did God forgive our sins? The Bible shows us that we not only received forgiveness in our salvation, but we obtained justification as well. Many times the Bible puts forgiveness and justification together. These constitute the two initial steps towards the receiving of a new life.
Let us take a closer look at the matter of forgiveness and justification. We have to come back to Christ because He is the key to all these matters. God regards Christ as the Head of a new race. He is the second man. He is also the last Adam. The first Adam was a huge man incorporating the whole of humanity. When he sinned, the whole human race was corrupted. God executed His judgment on one person, Christ, because Christ also is a huge corporate man. Those who are included in Him bear all the judgment of God in Him.
For this reason, the Bible says that when Christ died, He died for us. We do not die as individuals; we die in Christ. His death included all of us. With this death our sins can be forgiven. Hence, God's forgiveness is based upon His judgment in Christ. This is not irresponsible forgiveness. Rather, this is very just.
Once a man argued with me concerning this point. He said, "Mr. Nee, if God wants to forgive our sins, why can He not just say so? Why did He have to send His Son to be crucified on the cross? This is too cumbersome!" He thought that God is a nice fellow who writes off our sins unscrupulously without any concern for the law! He did not realize that God had to go through many steps before He could issue forgiveness.
A few years ago, I was preaching on this matter in a girls' school in Nanking. However, the students could not quite grasp the idea. There was a little table before me with a beautiful vase on top. I asked the principal of the school, "Suppose someone broke this vase. According to the rule of the school, what would you do?" The principal replied that reparation would have to be made. I asked, "What would happen if one of your favorite students had done it?" She answered that the same rule would apply. I pursued on and asked, "What if she could not afford to pay?" The principal repeated that the rule would still hold.
The next day, during the meeting, the vase was gone. It was broken by one of the principal's favorite students who also happened to be very poor. I took the opportunity to preach once more the doctrine of salvation by the death of Jesus. The principal could not release the student from her responsibility on the basis of love. Yet the student had no way to make reparation. In this dilemma there was only one way to take: the principal had to use her own money to repay for the student. On one hand, this fulfilled the law of the school; on the other hand, it showed the love of the principal for her students.
Christ came to earth to bear the judgment of our sins and suffer their consequences in order that we may be forgiven. The coming of Christ was the very coming of God Himself. He came to repay for us. By doing so, He did not degrade Himself in unrighteousness; rather, He proved Himself to be just and righteous.
I believe we have to see one more aspect of the meaning of forgiveness. Forgiveness implies bearing the transgressor's loss by the transgressed. For example, if someone has stolen my pencil and I have forgiven him, it means that I have suffered the loss of a pencil. What then is unforgiveness? It simply means to take back the pencil from the thief in order that I may not suffer a loss. Hence, to forgive is to suffer a loss.
When the student broke the vase, she should have been the one to make reparation. Unforgiveness means that she would have to suffer a loss by payment. Forgiveness, on the other hand, means that the transgressed, who was the principal, had to take up the loss by paying for it herself. Therefore, when God forgives our sins, it means that He takes up the loss incurred by our sins. No third party can forgive our sins. Only the transgressed can suffer the loss of the transgressor. Christ is God, the One against whom we sinned. His forgiveness is the suffering of the loss of our sins.
This is not all. We have to realize that Christ is a man. He bore our sins as a man. God looked at Christ as a man and included all of us in Him. When God judged Christ, He judged us also. Hence, God has judged us in Christ and also forgiven us in Christ. This forgiveness is perfectly just.
Second Corinthians 5:14 says, "Because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died." The "One" here refers to Christ, and the "all" refers to us. When Christ died, we all died with Him because we were all included in Him. It is said that all Chinese came from the one man Hwang-ti. If in the very beginning, somebody had killed Hwang-ti, he would have killed the whole Chinese race. In the same way, we are in Christ. When Christ passed through the judgment, we passed through the same. His death became our termination.
Verse 21: "Him who did not know sin He made sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." The One "who did not know sin" is again Christ. He was made to be sin for us. What does it mean to be "made sin"? It means that when Christ was hung on the cross, God regarded Him as the sin of you and me. He looked at Christ as sin representing the whole human race. When Christ died, sin was all-inclusively terminated and removed. Now all of us who are in Him have our sins terminated; we become the righteousness of God in Christ.
Why does it say "become the righteousness of God," rather than "become righteous"? What is the difference between the two? To become righteous implies that we have done a good work, whereas to be made the righteousness of God declares that God Himself is righteous. There is a big difference between the two. God did not forgive our sins in an unrighteous way; He forgave in a very righteous way. He has punished Christ. As a result of this punishment, He can forgive us in Christ. God has not glossed over us. God is not an evasive God. When He grants forgiveness, He does so in a just manner.
Once I was going to Chiu-kang on a boat with a friend. A Moslem was reading on the deck of the same boat. After beginning a conversation with him, I told him that I would like to know if his scripture mentioned any way of salvation. He said, "All that one needs to do is repent of one's past evil deeds. The sin will then be forgiven. Why is there the need for salvation?" I replied that if God forgives in this way, He Himself sins in His forgiveness.
He was very surprised at what I said. It seemed that he had never heard such a thing before. I asked, "Do you think that it is righteous for a man to be forgiven of his sins once he repents of them? For example, when a criminal is brought before a judge, is it right for the judge to release him merely on the basis of his repentance?" After thinking for a while, he admitted that this was not just. Unfortunately, I had no time to explain to him the death of Christ. The salvation of God is based on the judgment of His Son. We receive our forgiveness in the Son.
Romans 3:25-26: "Whom God set forth as a propitiation place through faith in His blood, for the demonstrating of His righteousness, in that in His forbearance God passed over the sins that had previously occurred, with a view to the demonstrating of His righteousness in the present time, so that He might be righteous and the One who justifies him who is of the faith of Jesus." This portion of the Scripture is not easily understood. However, there are two points which we need to notice.
God set forth Christ as a propitiation place. In the original language the words "propitiation place" mean propitiation cover. In the Old Testament, the ark of the covenant was covered by a golden lid called the propitiation cover (translated by the King James Version as "mercy seat"). Man's prayer passed through this cover to reach God, and God's answer went through the same to meet man. That was a meeting place between God and man. Now Jesus has become this propitiation cover. He is the focal point of God and man. Both can now meet in Him on the basis of His blood. Jesus has died for us. He has shed His blood and forgiven our sins. Now He has become our propitiation cover.
Before Jesus died, "God passed over the sins that had previously occurred, with a view to the demonstrating of His righteousness in the present time." From Adam to Jesus, for more than four thousand years, countless sins were committed by man. Although God passed over them, He did not let them go by. This shows His righteousness in former times. In the present time, He has sent His Son. We are now justified in Him. In itself this very justification is a just act. This passage tells us the different ways that God handled these two things. First, He passed over the sins committed formerly, reckoning that Jesus would come; in this He proved Himself righteous. Second, He forgives all the sins committed now, basing this upon the judgment of Christ; in this He also declares Himself righteous. By the death of Jesus, God has both declared us sinless as well as Himself righteous.
Once I met a sister in the Lord. She said that she was an evil person and had committed many sins. She had indulged in all a woman could ever commit. Because of this, she thought that she could never be forgiven. I checked to see whether she believed that Jesus shed His blood for the sins of man, that is, for man's redemption. She said that she knew all these doctrines, but having been a Christian for so many years, and committing the multitude of sins as she did, it was impossible to be forgiven anymore.
I was sitting in front of her. At that point I stood up and solemnly looked into her eyes, saying emphatically, "I do not care whether your sins are forgiven or not! But the way you talk implies that God has sinned. This I do care! On the one hand, you believe that you are in Christ. Yet, on the other hand, you do not believe that your sins can be forgiven. If God does not forgive you, does that mean that God is unrighteous? If He is unrighteous, then He sins. How can God ever sin? I do not care if you are condemned and are going to perish. But God loved you and sent His Son to pay all the debts of your sins. His Son's death is now your death. All your sins are on His shoulder. If what you say is true, then God has indeed taken back His words. He is coming again to collect the debts of your sins! You are saying that God cannot forgive your sins and that He has become an unrighteous God! What kind of talk is this? For this I have to stand up! My God can never be unrighteous!"
On that day, tears streamed from her eyes. She exclaimed, "I am sinful, but God is righteous! He has to forgive me in Christ. Although my sins are numerous, thank Him; He is bound to forgive me! He would be unrighteous if He did not do so."
It is true that God is full of grace, but you do not have to be saved by His grace. You can be saved by His righteousness. The grace of God is based upon His love towards us. It makes Him willing to save us. But His righteousness is based upon His Son's death for us. It makes Him unable not to save us. Before Jesus died, God was free either to save or not save us. But once Jesus died, God was bound! He is absolutely obligated to save whoever comes to God by the blood of Jesus! Have we read this? It is impossible for Him not to forgive us!
This is salvation according to His righteousness. Before the death of Christ, if He had forgiven any of our sins or had acquitted us from the punishment for sin, He would have made Himself a sinner. Now He has caused His Son to be crucified on the cross. The judgment of sins has been accomplished. The problem of sin is solved. God can no longer reject anyone who comes to Him by the blood of Jesus. Now He will make Himself a sinner and an unrighteous one if He does not forgive.
Some may think, "Is it that easy to be saved? I am afraid that I need to pray more. I have to pray to an extent that God softens His heart and has favor upon me. Only then will I be saved!" There is no such thing. Today, even if God would not soften His heart, He still has to forgive your sins! Even if God is absolutely disgusted with you, He still has to grant you this forgiveness. It does not matter whether you pray for a long time or not. Rather, it depends on the fact that redemption has been accomplished. Even if God does not want to save you, it is too late for Him to change His mind. It would be all right if it were two thousand years ago. However, God has accepted the sacrifice of Christ; now it is impossible for Him not to save you. A sinner can suffer judgment only once! He cannot be judged twice.
In order to forgive our sins, God has taken all the trouble to accomplish the salvation in Christ. Now He has commissioned us to go to the whole world to show others that God has accomplished this work of salvation. He can now forgive sins without placing Himself in an improper standing.
Others may say, "Why don't I feel saved? Why is it that after I believed, nothing special seemed to happen? I don't feel the peace inside." Please remember that it is not a matter of whether you have the peace or not. Whether or not you have the peace is immaterial. The important thing is for God to have the peace. He has to grant a forgiveness that is just and honest. When God forgives you in Christ, He does so righteously, uprightly, and openly. All you need to do is receive it.
A passage that is quite familiar to many people is Mark 10:45: "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve." Unfortunately, many only read up to this part. They cut off the remaining half. The word "and" following this phrase should be translated as "even to the extent that." To what extent did the Lord Jesus come to serve? He came to serve to the extent that He gave His life as a ransom for many.
In Matthew 26:28 the Lord Jesus said, "For this is My blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." Hence, the shedding of His blood is for the forgiveness of our sins and for our redemption. We can only obtain forgiveness in Christ. Outside of Him, whatever kind of forgiveness you have is not just.
We will select a few more passages to see how Christ accomplished redemption for us.
Romans 5:6-8: "For while we were yet weak, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will anyone die, though perhaps for the good man someone would even dare to die. But God commends His own love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Romans 5:9-10: "Much more then, having now been justified in His blood, we will be saved through Him from the wrath. For if we, being enemies, were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more we will be saved in His life, having been reconciled." This shows us clearly that the death of Christ was not the death of a martyr. He did not die for a belief or a cause. He died for sin, in order for a way to be opened for sinners to be declared guiltless! Hence, 1 Corinthians 15:3 says that Christ "died for our sins."
Hebrews 9:22b: "Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." Sin can only be forgiven after judgment.
First Peter 2:24: "Who Himself bore up our sins in His body on the tree, in order that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness; by whose bruise you were healed." Then 3:18: "For Christ also has suffered once for sins, the Righteous on behalf of the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God, on the one hand being put to death in the flesh, but on the other, made alive in the spirit."
First John 1:7: "But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin."
Isaiah 53:6: "We all like sheep have gone astray; / Each of us has turned to his own way, / And Jehovah has caused the iniquity of us all / To fall on Him." The words "fall on" here can also be translated as "placed upon." All of our sins have been placed upon Jesus. A brother who is an accountant said once that this is like transferring an account. Originally, sin was in your account. Now it has been transferred to the account of Jesus Christ.
One time a person asked a Christian about the way of forgiveness. The Christian showed him this passage in Isaiah and told him that if he would get in through the first "all" and come out through the second "all," he would be saved. We all are like sheep gone astray. Yes, I am included. I am a sinner that has gone astray. The Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to be placed upon Him. Yes, all my iniquities are upon Him.
There is a hymn which well describes the joy of this salvation:
Why should I worry, doubt and fear?
Has God not caused His Son to bear
My sins upon the tree?
The debt that Christ for me has paid,
Would God another mind have made
To claim again from me?
Redemption full the Lord has made,
And all my debts has fully paid,
From law to set me free.
I fear not for the wrath of God,
For I've been sprinkled with His blood,
It wholly covers me.
For me forgiveness He has gained,
And full acquittal was obtained,
All debts of sin are paid;
God would not have His claim on two,
First on His Son, my Surety true,
And then upon me laid.
So now I have full peace and rest,
My Savior Christ hath done the best
And set me wholly free;
By His all-efficacious blood
I ne'er could be condemned by God,
For He has died for me!
Hymns, #1003
