It occurs to me that as followers of Jesus, we talk a lot about our sins being forgiven. While the forgiveness of sins is a huge part of Christianity, I wonder if people outside the church really understand why it is important. I also wonder if they understand that the goal of Christianity is not the forgiveness of sins, but something far more impactful.
When Paul was in Athens in Acts 17:15-34, he came upon a monument “to the unknown god.” The reality of our situation in life is that we are created by the God who is higher than all others whom humans call gods or worship as gods. He is who he is. He has existed from eternity past and will exist for eternity future. Time itself is his creation and his domain. We are born alienated from Him. Sin is the reason for that condition, but I am not sure that sin is where we should start in our approach to unbelievers.
When we talk to unbelievers about the need to repent from sin and find forgiveness without talking about our separation from and ignorance of our Creator, I wonder if they get the connection. Perhaps we should start where Paul started with the Athenians. and talk about knowing the unknown God. Forgiveness of sin is a doorway to knowing the One who created us and purchased our redemption. But a relationship with God is what is behind the door.
Many people think of themselves as good people. They don’t cheat or steal, they try to be truthful and to treat others well. And I agree; there are many “good” people walking the earth. When we visit Genesis 2-3, we see how God created the first man and woman and how they were in a relationship with God. God walked in the garden with them. They enjoyed His presence together.
They were naked before each other, and they felt no shame. They saw each other completely: physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. There were no masks or pretenses between them. They saw each other fully, openly, with complete love, full acceptance, and in perfect harmony. They were also fully transparent before God.
God created them with both a physical body and a spirit. They experienced each other through the physical senses, but they also enjoyed a deeper level of relationship because God made them with a spiritual nature. They could know God because God made them spirit creatures when He breathed into them. We know God through our spiritual nature. It is the only way we can know him. Adam and Eve knew God’s physical presence as they did His spiritual presence.
Genesis chapter three tells the story of how the first man and woman rebelled against God’s command. They chose earthly desires over their relationship with God. They chose pride over submission to God. As a result, God expelled them from His physical presence. He locked them out of the garden home they had known since creation.
Being expelled physically from the garden was only part of the consequences they suffered. Their choice to pursue something other than a relationship with God separated them from God’s spirit. Their rebellion condemned every member of the human family to the same fate.
Scripture says that they immediately knew they were naked and covered themselves with leaves. Because now they felt shame, they also began hiding spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually from one another.
Rather than being able to stand open and bare before God, they hid in the bushes; concealed in guilt, shame, and fear. They demonstrated our instinctive response to God when we sin. They hid and tried to fix the problem themselves.
In Romans, Chapter One, Paul writes about the decay in our ancestors’ recognition of God’s existence. Humans could see evidence of God’s power and glory in creation, but they rejected Him. They created idols of gods and goddesses and worshiped the creation instead of the Creator.
Whole religious systems were created. Superstitions and false beliefs became rampant. Humanity descended into the depths of depravity in their efforts to find solace for the vacuum in their souls left by the absence of a relationship with God.
Running throughout all of history is a nagging truth and a subtle reprimand. There is One Whom we do not know, Whom we should know, Whom we could know. All the efforts to reach that unknown God fall short, for He is not found in the worship of idols or emblems of power. His favor is not won by our efforts at being good.
Each of us has inherited the separation from our Creator that Adam and Eve purchased through their rebellion. We do not know Him. We are rightfully under judgment because we too have strayed from the knowledge of God, our Creator. Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 53:6, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way.”
Yet God hinted at the answer to our condition even in Genesis 3 when he slaughtered animals to provide coverings for Adam and Eve. God shed the first blood to provide coverings for them. Shed blood was the consequence of sin. God’s perfect law required the blood of animals to remind us of the consequences and severity of human rebellion.
God Himself shed the last blood that would ever be needed to justify, to redeem us, and to cover human sin. The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was the final sacrifice to bring down the barrier between God and His crown jewel of creation, human beings. His resurrection ensured that those who believe in Him will have a relationship with the Father forever.
As Christians, we teach forgiveness of sin. Sometimes we talk about it as if that were the goal of life in Christ. But forgiveness is not the goal. Forgiveness is the doorway that opens the way for us to personally know our Creator and to begin a new life of relationship with Him.
When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus in John Chapter Three, He told him that we must be born of the Spirit. He said, “You must be born again.” To be restored to God, we must be reborn by God’s Spirit. This restored relationship is and always has been the goal of God’s work among human beings.
Coming to faith in Jesus is so much more than being forgiven. Through faith in Christ, we now have new life. Paul wrote that we are new creatures in Christ (1 Corinthians xx). We are raised to eternal life that we begin to enjoy now, but we also have the hope of eternal life when we leave this present life. We are adopted as sons and daughters of the Living God. We can now live a life that was impossible before.
What was lost through Adam and Eve’s rebellion is regained through faith in Christ. Through that faith, we are more than forgiven. We are restored to the fullness of what God originally intended us to be. We experience the new life in part here on earth. We will experience the fullness of that promise when God completes His process of salvation, and we live with Him forever.
Next time, we will talk about what this new life entails.
