Where we are Today

Here's a key to where we are in Christianity. God in the Old Testament was the Almighty, to be feared, obeyed and revered. He still forgave sins and provided a way for His people to live in forgiveness through the sacrifices at the Temple. Many other laws regarding diet, hygiene and crime and punishment were designed to help people live in health and maintain order in society.

Jesus came to reconcile us to God as the Father, the One who created us in his Divine Love to take care of the Earth and live as His family. Jesus brought us into intimacy with Him, by offering Himself as the ultimate, perfect sacrifice for sin and the curse of the law. 

Through that sacrifice, we have access to God's own life, by believing in faith that Jesus is the Saviour. He then sends us the Holy Spirit, the same guide that He followed when he was on Earth, to comfort us and "lead us into all truth".

So we don't need, acting independently as individuals, to go off in our own strength and try to follow the old law any more, because the one who wrote it and knows how to practice it now lives WITHIN us. We just need to learn to rest in the gifts of peace and righteousness He has given us, and follow the promptings of His Spirit. That's living in New Testament Grace.

Classifying Sin

Believe it or not, under the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, God is only judging us of one sin; which is whether or not we believe in His Son and accept His sacrifice on the cross, which paid for our sin condition.

Don't believe me? Read John 3:16-18: (NASB)

 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

So despite all of our efforts to classify sins and place certain ones higher up or worse in the "sin heirarchy"; like homosexuality, child abuse, murder, adultery or whatever your least favorite behavior might be, God does no such thing. Any transgression of His law means the same to Him as breaking the whole thing, and there is only one way out, to believe in Christ.

What about after people come to Christ? God knows our condition, in fact He knows all about us when we are born again, and He says "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come."
(2 Corinthians 5:17, NASB).

Of course it takes faith and time for many of us to work our way out of the old life. In my case, for example, it took a couple of years to stop drinking heavily and three years to stop smoking after I became a Christian. Others dealing with other issues may take longer or not as long.

And if you sin as a Christian (and in our imperfection we all do, daily, to some degree) how should you repent? The Bible says Jesus has already paid for all your sins for as long as you live, (Romans 3:2 says we are "justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus"), so all you need to do is say you're sorry to God and anyone you may have hurt, then "change your mind" (the true meaning of repentance) and start focusing on His finished work.

That is what grace is all about -- resting in the fact it is "sufficient" for us as Paul wrote in Second Corinthians 12:9. We do not need to add to it with more of our own efforts and even if you are unaware of some sins, you are still covered by it. There is no need for heavy confessions, hand-wringing and wailing on your knees. It's all been put away and, as Jeremiah said, "... (God) will forgive their iniquity, and their sin (He) will remember no more."


It is all quite simple. Theologians and many ministers and pastors complicate the gospel with their own denominational rules, trying to lure people into buying their particular "brands" of Christianity. But when you take it back to its origins and peel those away, the truth is that the news is good and, as Jesus said, "(His) yoke is easy and (His) burden is light." (Matthew 11:30)