Subject 12 : The Faith of the Apostles Creed
● Faith in the Forgiveness of Sins (1 John 1:9)
We
believe that only the Lord can wash away our sins with the gospel Word
of the water and the Spirit. So Isaiah 1:18 also states, “‘Come now, and
let us reason together,’ Says the Lord, ‘Though your sins are like
scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like
crimson, They shall be as wool.’” In 1 John 1:9, it is also said, “If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Here,
we must realize that the phrase “if we confess our sins” does not mean
that God forgives our sins whenever we give prayers of repentance.
Rather, 1 John 1:9 exactly means that we receive the remission of all
our sins when we admit our sinfulness before the Lord and believe that
the Lord has already blotted them out with all the sins of the world
through the baptism that He received and the blood of the Cross. Anyone
who admits his/her sins before God and believes in the gospel of the
water and the Spirit is clothed in the grace of the remission of sin by
God.
What Are the ‘Sins’ Here?
Every
descendant of Adam is born with sin. Therefore, no one can claim to be
“sinless” by not committing any sin, for human beings, having originally
been born with sin, already have sin even if they do not commit any
sin. This means that everyone needs the Savior who can save him/her from
sin. Those who claim to be sinless and to have no need to believe in
Jesus only end up standing against God.
At
the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, made the Garden
of Eden, and allowed Adam and Eve to live in it. In this place where
there was no sin, God had the most familiar fellowship with them in
personal relationship. But to make them His children, God had given them
a law. This law was not to eat the fruits of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. God had said to them, “for in the day that you eat of
it you shall surely die.” And to give them eternal life and everlasting
blessings, God told them to eat the fruits of the tree of life. But
instead of eating the fruits of the tree of life as God had told them
to, they ate the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
the tree that would lead them to their certain death (Genesis 2:17,
3:22).
Falling
into the Devil’s temptation, Adam and Eve ended up eating the forbidden
fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Death came as the
price of this sin. This is why Romans 5:12 states, “Therefore, just as
through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus
death spread to all men, because all sinned.” In short, human beings now
came to need their Savior.
Some
people are self-confident, like the rich young man in Matthew 19, that
they have kept all the commandments of God since their childhood. But
there is no one who has ever kept all the 613 commandments of God.
Then
why God gave us the Law, which we cannot observe at all. The Bible says
that through the law we become conscious of sin (Romans 3:20). The Ten
Commandments that God has given us point out our sins. For instance,
someone might hate his/her own parent, thinking in his/her minds, “That
old guy must be senile!” This person is then already breaking the Fifth
Commandment of God’s Law. And when a man lusts after a woman in his
thoughts, even if he does not actually commit adultery, he has already
broken the Seventh Commandment. Moreover, God also considers
covetousness, jealousy, and hatred as murder even if we do not actually
kill someone, for these are what motivate us to murder. Who, then, can
ever completely keep the clear and spotless commandments of the Law of
God that pierce through the deepest recess of our thoughts?
Furthermore,
James 2:10 states, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet
stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” In this light, who can
possibly claim to be sinless before this strict Law of God?
In
our weaknesses, we often stumble in sin. Why is this the case? It is
because of our original sin—that is, it is because human beings are
fundamentally corrupted. This is why David, repenting from his sin of
breaking the Seventh Commandment, said in Psalm 51:5, “Behold, I was
brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” David, in
other words, admitted his fundamental sin. The prayers of repentance
offered by the ordinary Christian today and David’s confession of
himself as fundamentally a mass of sins are completely different from
each other. The former only admits one’s actual sins of deeds, while the
latter, in contrast, admits that he cannot help but sin because he is
fundamentally a mass of sins.
Only
those who recognize their fundamental selves as big masses of sins and
believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit given by the Lord can
receive the grace of the remission of sin from God. Wouldn’t this be the
case? What is the right thing for us to do? Is it to list our daily
sins before God and ask for His forgiveness everyday, or is it to
recognize our weaknesses, admit our true selves as big masses of sins,
and believe, in thankfulness, in the gospel of the water and the Spirit
given by the Lord? The latter, of course, is the right thing for us to
do! Let us all believe that by knowing and believing in the gospel of
the water and the Spirit, we can have all the problems of our sins
solved away.
In
John 6:53-55, Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat
the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in
you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I
will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My
blood is drink indeed.” Here, that we must eat the flesh of the Lord and
drink His blood means that that we must have the faith that believes
that Jesus took upon all the sins of the world with the baptism that He
received from John. This means that if we do not know the truth of the
baptism of Jesus, then we cannot pass our sins onto Him, and our sins
therefore cannot be forgiven, either. If we have been running a tab at a
store, then we would remain debtors until we pay off the tab
completely. Likewise, if there had been no baptism that Jesus received
from John the Baptist, the representative of mankind, our sins have
never been forgiven (Matthew 3:15, 11:11-13).
The
crucifixion of Jesus was a consequence of the fact that before this, He
had first taken upon the sins of mankind through the baptism that He
received from John. Like this, the Lord has saved us from all our sins
by being crucified, shedding His precious blood, and thereby bearing all
the condemnation of our sins for our sake.
When we profess to believe in Jesus, we must believe that He took all our sins upon Himself with His baptism.
The
Bible speaks clearly about the believers’ remission of sins, which can
be summarized into two main points. First, it tells us that by being
baptized, Jesus accepted all the sins of the world passed onto His body.
Psalm
32:1 states, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin
is covered.” The word ‘atonement’ contains the meaning of ‘to take upon
sins’ and ‘to accept sins.’ And 1 Peter 3:21 says, “There is also an
antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the
flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ.” With baptism that He received from John,
Jesus accepted all the sins of everyone in this world once and for all.
Second, the Bible tells us that Jesus has blotted out our sins.
Isaiah
43:25 says, “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My
own sake; And I will not remember your sins.” “To blot out” here means
to make it disappear by painting over and to blow away.
This
means God the Father has cleansed away the sins of the world by passing
them onto His Son through His baptism. For those among us who might be
saying, “I have no hope since I’ve committed so many sins,” they, too,
can be freed from all their sins by hearing the Word of the gospel of
the water and the Spirit. The Devil says to us, “Haven’t you committed
all kinds of sin?” But even if we had heard such words, when we believe
in the baptism of Jesus and the blood of the Cross, then we can all be
liberated from all such sins. When we have this kind of faith, the Devil
gets scared and runs away. We are convinced that the Lord has forgiven
our sins with the baptism and blood of Jesus. When we believe that Jesus
has forgiven all our sins with His baptism and the blood of the Cross,
then His amazing works of peace come into our lives. This is the central
faith of Christianity, the faith of the remission of sin.
The Result of Receiving the Remission of Sin
It
is to be freed from our sins and our fear of death. When people do not
believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, they are abandoned by
God, and therefore they are plagued by many tragedies and worries,
unable to avoid their terrifying death. So, human beings have done their
utmost to be saved from their sins and death. Sometimes they turned to
the so-called religious rituals made by their corrupted selves,
continuing to cling to their repentance, asceticism and meditation, all
to no avail. But to us the saints, the gospel of the water and the
Spirit has not only blotted out all our sins but it also has restored
our relationship with God that had heretofore been broken, and have
thereby freed us from all our sins and our fear of death.
Everyone
who believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit has consistently
made such a confession. With His baptism and blood, the Lord has
forgiven even people like myself of all my sins. Until we have this kind
of conviction, our hearts are weighed down and worrisome. But the
believers who have been forgiven of their sins by believing in the
baptism and blood of Jesus come to rejoice in the grace of the remission
of sin, the likes of which they had never experienced before in this
world.
Looking
at us, who had been sinners before but who now believe in the baptism
of Jesus and His bloodshed on the Cross, the Lord has washed away our
blemishes, forgiven us of all our heavy sins, and thereby given us true
peace. As the Lord has purchased our bodies by paying for them with His
own precious blood, in thankfulness we remain faithful to Him, saying,
“What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? ”
(Psalm 116:12)
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