Gwin (my wife) and I spoke at a small group recently, and the theme was Freedom in Christ.
One
of the freedoms Gwin discussed was "freedom from sin" or "freedom to
not sin". That second one sounds a little strange since God told us to not
sin in the first place. So how can freedom to not sin be an option?
Sin,
once it entered into the world, into man, was stuck there until
Christ. All the sacrifices and law (Torah) keeping and such, will not do us a bit
of good outside of our relationship in the Trinity. Sin has kept us
prisoners and any attempt to do otherwise will only cause us to be
"sinless" outside of God (Trinity). And any attempt at that is a sin.
Yes.
That is a sin. Sin is living our lives outside of who and what we are
as God created us. Once man chose that path, all that he does is tainted
with sin. Our works are tainted with sin, our prayers, our fastings,
our sacrifices and traditions are all tainted with sin. Even our repentance has a sin
attached to it like a virus or a "Trojan horse" in an email.
The
story of what we call "The Prodigal Son" (though the story was about
the Father) showed our sinful state inside the repentance. The young man didn't
truly repent until after he met up again with the Father. The son went
back because though he knew he did wrong, came back because he could get
three meals a day, a clean place to live and a bath once in a while!
Think about this: If he had these things while slopping hogs, would he
have really returned? Maybe, maybe not. Most likely not. His
"repentance" was to get him into a better place. But he still would
have accepted the position of a servant and relinquished his right as a
son!
But the Father would not have that! He did not even hear
his request, his prayer (ever feel like God is not hearing your prayer?)
He grabbed his son while his son was trying to give his little penance
of a prayer, again, tainted with more sin of being other than who he is, and
grabbed him in his filthy, dirty, pig smelling state and thew his own
coat of authority as well as the family ring of authority on him and
demanded a party for him!
THAT is what this story is all about! It's about the Father and how MUCH he Love us! How much He LOVES YOU!!!
The young man lived in sin because that is what he was in Adam! How could he be otherwise?
BUT....that
was BEFORE Christ. What Churches today don't get is that Christ forgave
that Sin of Adam, man. He took humanity BACK into the realm of his Kingdom and
righteousness "while we were yet sinners", or slopping hogs so to
speak. That doesn't mean we don't sin, nor does it mean we don't need
to repent. Of course we do. But NOW...we have an opportunity to live
righteous lives, NOT because we did good stuff and God forgave us when
we did these good works, but because of JESUS (Yeshua) who gave himself
for our sins! We are no longer stuck in the post Adamic/pre Christ
world of Sin. We are freed from that prison! Death no longer has us in
it's grip unless we allow it! We are freed from that Sin of Adam!
The
belief and repentance factor comes in when we realize that and come to
understand our freedom to live and rejoice inside the Trinity! To dance
in the Trinity. Just as the young man who came home didn't fully know
the Father or what he would do until the Father showed him and took him
unto himself. That was when repentance had it's full affect!
Forgiveness was there before the young man repented (while we were still
in our sins)! We come to the Father, not because we did good stuff to
get there, but because of the goodness of Jesus Christ that brought us
to repentance before the Father in His train of glory!
But if
you don't believe, you will still be in the trinity, but miserable
because you insist on trying to be someone you are not. Like being at a
wedding party and refusing to enjoy it because you hate the groom! You
are still at the party, you are still free to choose either to rejoice
or to be miserable. Or it's like being in prison, or hell itself, and refusing to come out. You lock the gates of hell from the inside.
You have FREEDOM, not TO sin, but to
actually NOT sin! Before, in Adam, you had no choice. No matter what
you did, you were a sinner, you were under the curse of Adam, under the
law, the curse of the Law. But NOW, in the Second Adam, Jesus Christ,
you are FREE from that curse, you are FREE from that world of Adamic
Sin, you are FREE to actually live a life of no sin! Why? Because of the works of
Jesus, not our good works!
Rejoice in the LORD, Rejoice because you ARE in freedom of the LORD!
Blessings and Freedom to all!
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| Boyd Merriman |
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Many read the bible as if God spoke and man wrote it down verbatim. Sure, in the Old Testament, a lot of that was done, especially when Moses took down the words on Mount Sinai, or maybe a prophet had to write down what God wanted him to speak to the people, but in the New Testament, it was written as letters to the Church and to the pastors. It was never intended to be dogmatic scriptures to be canonized. Had the writers thought for a moment that their letters were going to be canonized as scriptures for future reading by people of another country, speaking a totally different and unknown language 1500 to 2000 years later, they would have freaked out and never written it down! They wrote down their walk, their faith, their understanding at the time for the people of their time. The New Testament, or the letters to their contemporary church, was written to encourage them and keep them focused on and in Jesus Christ.
I hear people say “We are a bible believing church” as if others don’t use the bible. But what they are really saying is “We use the King James Bible and nothing else, and if you use anything else, you must not be a bible believing church”. I find when churches use only the King James and nothing else, as if The King James IS the very word of God himself, even praying to God using old English language, they are often very legalistic and stuck in their beliefs.
When the disciples (now apostles) received the Holy Spirit that day of Pentecost, they spoke to the people who had different languages and they heard the apostles speak in their own native language even though the apostles were speaking in their own Aramaic language. It reminds me of the Swedish Chef on the Muppet Show who, on the international special, told a joke to the international group back stage. The Swedish Chef had a language all his own that is a mix of broken English and something else nobody knows. Kermit (the frog) never did understand the Swedish Chef since they met, but everyone in the group (Chinese, German, Italian, Russian, French, etc.) all understood him and laughed at his joke!
