My old Bible instructor told the story of children who couldn’t resist digging up long-dead cats to see what they looked like after so much time in the ground. The results were predictable — stinking, decaying, and well … dead.
He went on to explain that we have an adult version of that morbid ritual — mulling over our pasts — endlessly ruminating over mistakes, bad decisions and rebellious actions. This is also a smelly business.
This ritual runs rampant among men and women recovering from drug and alcohol addictions. They find themselves standing in a smoking crater called their lives, haunted by memories of using and abusing others, and wondering where to go with all the guilt and shame.
While they may mentally understand that Jesus had forgiven them, forgiving themselves is another matter all together. That is where the Gospel comes in, like a cooling balm on a festering wound. The Gospel is so otherworldly, so counter-intuitive that it strikes most people as too good to be true. Yet, true it is, as Colossians 2:13-14 states:
“When you were dead in your transgressions … He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
Right there in black and white, “having forgiven us all our transgressions,” stands the greatest “cosmic deal” ever penned. While we had no means to pay our spiritual “bill,” so Christ paid it for us with His own blood. Why? To free us up to become what He created us to be.
Galatians 5:1 reminds us, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”
That “yoke of slavery” is our inbred compulsion to see ourselves as still under the Law, with its plethora of rules and regulations. Instead, believers are instructed to see themselves as God sees them, as Romans 8:2 says, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”
Of course, it’s spiritually healthy to be sorry for our sins and resolve to do better in the future, but then instead of beating ourselves up over our failures, we look away to Christ’s sacrificial offering in our place for our sins. And we stand firm in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection rather than trying to please God on our own by “fixing” ourselves. This way, God does the fixing in us.
Forgiven Us All Our Sins
Humanity’s prosecuting attorney, Satan, delights in accusing Christians night and day. But the most powerful voice in our lives should be the “still small voice” of the holy Spirit who always points us to Christ and His redeeming work on the cross — this is God’s last word on the matter of where we stand in His eyes.
Note that the verse above says that God has forgiven us of all our sins, not just the ones up to the time of our conversion. Remember, 2,000 years ago, when Jesus died, all our sins were future.
So, don’t fall for yet another one of Satan’s tricks — whispering in your ear that “you can’t possibly be a Christian after what you’ve just done.” It’s a lie. Just repeat, “He made me alive together with Him, having forgiven me all my transgressions.” Then pick yourself up and keep walking.
Evangelical author Neil Anderson writes, “Now that you are in Christ, you can look at those events (your past) from the perspective of who you are today. Christ is in your life right now desiring to set you free from your past. That is the gospel, the good news that Christ has come to set the captives free. Perceiving those events from the perspective of your new identity in Christ is what starts the process of healing those damaged emotions.”
How About You?
Are you still out in the backyard digging up dead cats? Stop! God isn’t into rubbing our nose in our sins. Look away to the cross in humble gratitude for Christ’s sacrifice, and stand in Gospel truth.
Theologian Lewis Sperry Chafer writes, “There is no spiritual progress to be made until one is convinced that something final was accomplished at the cross in regard to sin … Something has been done concerning every sin that ever has been committed, or that will yet be committed by man, and consequently, every person has been vitally affected by the cross.”
Do you believe that?
— D.C. Collier is a Bible teacher, discipleship mentor and writer focused on Christian apologetics. A mechanical engineer and Internet entrepreneur, he is the author of My Origin, My Destiny, a book focused on Christianity’s basic “value proposition.” Click here for more information, or contact him at don@peervalue.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.