Our problem today is that there is a great hindrance in understanding the twofold aspect of justification—that God both forgives us and makes us righteous. It is easy to believe we are forgiven, but we have trouble believing that we are made just because so often after conversion, we find ourselves committing the same sins as we did before. It becomes very obvious to us that we are not righteous or we would not do the same things that we did before that are so wrong. We reason that, since so many are like us and continue doing the same sins they did before conversion, justification must not include being made righteous. It only means that I am forgiven. Everyone cannot be wrong. We all seem to go on and on in our weaknesses and sins, thinking that justification must not include making us righteous. We assume that. This is quite a roadblock in understanding the twofold aspect of justification by faith.
Are we truly justified by faith in Christ and His righteousness when we go on in the same old sins? I am not talking about new ones, but just the old ones. Are we really justified by faith? This has much to do with your understanding of the subject, and it has caused some to invent their own understanding or ideas about it, and all in order to accommodate their own experience.
To understand this we must go back and study pardon and forgiveness. Then the other aspect of the new life will be much easier to understand. As soon as you read the next quotation, you are going to think I have been deceiving you so far. I have been presenting how justification is more than merely forgiveness, and also includes being made righteous or just. After you read this next quote, you are going to think I am contradicting myself.
“As the penitent sinner, contrite before God, discerns Christ’s atonement in his behalf, and accepts this atonement as his only hope in this life and the future life, his sins are pardoned. This is justification by faith.” 6BC 1070. His sins are pardoned, which is justification by faith. In case you did not understand, at the bottom of the same page it says: “Pardon and justification are one and the same thing. Justification is a full, complete pardon of sin. The moment a sinner accepts Christ by faith, that moment he is pardoned. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to him, and he is no more to doubt God’s forgiving grace.”
Why did I tell you that justification was more than pardon, more than forgiveness, when she says they are the same thing? Because I was dealing with your understanding of forgiveness and pardon. Many believe that forgiveness is simply gaining peace with God again, or reconciliation as it is called in the Bible. Forgiveness is where all the wrongs are set right and there is no more guilt or condemnation, and that is all there is to it. This is what happens as we deal in our affairs with one another. If two people are alienated because one offends the other, and if one asks for forgiveness, the alienation is gone. There are no more ill feelings; and we assume that forgiveness with God is identical to that. But the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy teach a forgiveness much greater than this human understanding of this topic. I was dealing only with your understanding of the words forgiveness and pardon. In this study you will understand what the Bible says about it and you will see that I was teaching you the truth about justification; for it includes pardon and all of its ramifications, which includes making us right.
Ellen White tells us that in David’s prayer, we find the correct understanding of pardon. We need to learn how to confess and seek forgiveness as did David. You might not brand yourself with his type of sinning, but this is the pattern of prayer for those who confess. “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me [he could not forget about them]. Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight: that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalms 51:1-10.
That last verse (10) is unique in confession. Most of us use some of the other thoughts, but very few people use verse 10 in their confession of their sins. It is a whole different perspective of confession, a whole new dimension. David said he saw something inside of him that needed correcting, it was not just the vile sins he had committed with Bathsheba and having her husband killed. It was far more than that. The reason he did those things was that there was something corrupt inside him. He knew he needed a new heart and a renewed spirit that would change him so that he would never again conceive of such things. “Create in me a clean heart.” This is confession, and the forgiveness that results is genuine forgiveness. This is the true picture of pardon. Everything else is only partial. In this plea for a new heart, we see the other half of forgiveness.
The book of Isaiah, we are told, also contains a picture of God’s forgiveness and genuine confession. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:7-9.
In genuine forgiveness, where there was sin there will be righteousness, where there was a sinner there will be a saint. God who can give new life to a parched land by the showers of rain that come down from heaven can, by His grace, send showers of His Spirit to transform your life so there will be no more thorns in your life. This He can do by creating in us clean hearts.
“But forgiveness has a broader meaning than many suppose. When God gives the promise that He ‘will abundantly pardon,’ He adds, as if the meaning of that promise exceeded all that we could comprehend: ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts [and she quotes Isaiah 55]. God’s forgiveness is not merely a judicial act by which He sets us free from condemnation. It is not only forgiveness for sin, but reclaiming from sin. It is the outflow of redeeming love that transforms the heart. David had the true conception of forgiveness when he prayed, ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.’ And again he says, ‘As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.’ Psalm 103:12.” MB 114.
How far is the east from the west? The earth is about twenty-five thousand miles in circumference. Is that how far it is from east to west? No, for when you go around twenty-five thousand miles, east and west are still just as far apart as when you started. East and west never meet. As far as the east is from the west, this is how far He has separated our sins from us. They can never be found again.
The Spirit of Prophecy includes the new heart in the true conception of forgiveness; but we seldom include these thoughts in our limited understanding of forgiveness. That is why I have added the other dimension in previous discussions about justification and pardon. Now we will put all the pieces together.
Pardon includes a reclaiming from sin, a transformation of the heart that removes sin as far away as the east is from the west. In true pardon, you can never find those sins in God’s books, and they no longer reside in your heart. They become non-existent. God has a different idea about forgiveness than we usually anticipate or expect when we come asking for forgiveness. Justification includes a conversion experience, which David called a clean heart and a right spirit.
In His forgiveness, God is making it so I will not sin. Is God able to do that? We of ourselves cannot stop sinning, but He can stop us. How able is your God? “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” Ephesians 3:20. If He is that able, can we gain victory over besetting sins? When John the Baptist saw Jesus coming to the Jordan River, he said “Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” John 1:29. What does Jesus do? He takes sin away. How far? As far as the east from the west.
“The religion of Christ means more than the forgiveness of sin; it means taking away our sins.…It means divine illumination, rejoicing in God. It means a heart emptied of self, and blessed with the abiding presence of Christ.” COL 419,420. When I receive Christ, I receive His righteousness. The abiding presence of Christ must come into me. Continuing on with the quotation: “When Christ reigns in the soul, there is purity, freedom from sin. The glory, the fullness, the completeness of the gospel plan is fulfilled in the life. The acceptance of the Saviour brings a glow of perfect peace, perfect love, perfect assurance. The beauty and fragrance of the character of Christ revealed in the life testifies that God has indeed sent His Son into the world to be its Saviour.”
If you are going to include Christ in the life, there must be a transformation. If He becomes your Master, He produces different activity than was found before when you were the master or the devil was the master of your life. The new Master produces different works. If you have accepted Christ as your Supreme Master, saying as did Thomas, “My Lord and my God,” then God produces different actions and behavior in you. This is what Christianity is.
Please don’t get negative on me and think that I am criticizing you. I am not trying to be critical. I am trying to help us to understand what God is offering us, and that we have been satisfied with too little. The world no longer is buying our Christianity. In fact, they are tired of Christians because they are so ineffective, so weak. They are very critical of us and I am happy they are. You know why? It might prod us into looking at our Christianity to see whether we have the genuine article or if we are a farce of some kind. We will not take criticism from fellow Christians, but we might take it from the world when they tell us how ineffective we are, how helpless we are to ourselves, and how little we help other people. Maybe we will find fault with ourselves when we begin to accept their faultfinding.
Our concept of forgiveness reminds me of a house we lived in when I was a young boy. We rented an old house and we were a very poor family with quite a few children in the home. Every time it rained the roof would leak. Not one or two leaks, but dozens. It leaked in the bedroom, and the living room, and the kitchen and everywhere else. Our routine at that time was to bring out a bunch of pails, kettles, and pans to catch the dripping water. When it stopped raining and the sun came out, we would put away the pans and pails after we emptied them, and save them for the next rainstorm. There were many neighbors just like us. In fact, that was the normal routine in my neighborhood.
Some people use forgiveness like those pails. Every time they get a leak in their life—their character—they run and get the bucket of forgiveness and say, “O Lord, please forgive me for this terrible sin.” Then they feel better. Empty the pail, and then wait until the next time to sin. Every time it rains, and sometimes it pours, we run and get the buckets of forgiveness and say, Lord forgive me for this or for that. A very sensible person would find some shingles, and wherever there was a leak he would put on a new shingle. What could you do with the pails then? You could probably throw them away. Are you understanding me? The leaks are sin in our lives requiring the pails of forgiveness; but if you start patching up the roof (and I don’t mean to imply that the Lord does a patch job), when He plugs up the leaks of the sin in our lives, you don’t need the forgiveness, do you? No. If you do not commit the sin anymore, do you have to ask forgiveness for it? Not at all. Don’t you think the Lord would like to plug up the leaks? Does He always want us to have a bucket brigade of forgiveness? Much of what we teach about forgiveness is just that. Our prayers are structured to catch the leaks in our lives. And we say, “Oh, if I only ask enough times for forgiveness, the Lord will forgive me and I will be saved.” We have taught that so many times.
It is almost inconceivable of what we have done to the Investigative Judgment and to God’s character with this attitude of forgiveness. Under this concept, if I lose my temper eighteen thousand and twenty times in a life time, in order to be judged righteous in the Judgment, I must ask God to forgive me for my temper eighteen thousand and twenty times. If I only ask for forgiveness for my temper eighteen thousand and nineteen times, God says, “Ha! I caught you! You missed one and you are going to burn.” That is the way some people picture God. They think God is out to trap us. We have left this concept with our children and with people we teach about the Judgment. People go away thinking that God is some kind of spy, watching their character to see if it is flawless; and if we goof up one time too many, we won’t make it. With all the array of sins we have, just imagine all the times we have to ask for forgiveness for all those sins. People come to me and say, “Elder Lehman, I am worried. I am afraid there are sins that I’ve forgotten all about, and if I don’t confess them I will be lost.” I have difficulty answering them because their understanding of forgiveness and God’s pardon is so meager and so perverted that it takes a long time to get them straight. God is not like that with forgiveness. He is able to abundantly pardon our sins, the Bible says, and take it all away, as high as the heavens are above the earth, as far as the east is from the west, He removes them from us. Yet we think we must confess every act to be declared righteous in the Judgment. God’s bookkeeping is not like that at all. I cannot find that concept in the Scriptures or the Spirit of Prophecy. This is an invention of ours because of a wrong concept of forgiveness.
In addition to making the Investigative Judgment a perversion, we have also done the same thing to repentance. Repentance is almost a farce with this understanding of forgiveness that so many of us believe in. Supposedly we are sorry when we offend someone because we love them, and therefore repentant, which is sorrow for that sin. Can you imagine yourself going to a dear friend whom you have offended and saying to that person, “I am very sorry I offended you. I really love you very much and I don’t want to harm you. I hope you will forgive me, but I will probably do it again before long.” If you were that person’s friend you would say, “I really wonder how much you love me if you are planning on offending me again tomorrow or next week.” But that is exactly what we do with God. We say, “I love you very much, Lord, and I hope you will keep on forgiving me even though I might offend you for the rest of my life.” And we hope that He believes we love Him. But we ourselves really wonder if we do with that kind of repentance. That is a farce. That is not sorrow for sin. If we are sorry for sin, we do not plan, or even make allowances, for offending again that person whom we love so dearly. So our concept of repentance is not Biblical, either. You must go back into this whole picture and discover the true understanding of forgiveness and confession.
Repentance is described in this fashion: “Repentance includes sorrow for sin and a turning away from it. We shall not renounce sin unless we see its sinfulness; until we turn away from it in heart, there will be no real change in the life.” SC23. There is no real sorrow for sin until we really see how bad it is. The Lord can do that for us, for both forgiveness and repentance are gifts.
Much of our problem concerning all of these aspects revolving around the one word “pardon” is that most of our understanding about repentance and confession and forgiveness are all verbal transactions. I go through the motions of saying the words, “Lord, I am sorry I was mean this morning. I hope you will forgive me.” And we imagine God, like a great High Priest of some kind, gets on His hot line to the recording angel and says, “Bill Lehman has confessed his sin of being mean this morning, so mark pardon next to that sin.” And I feel relieved. It is all taken care of. Is that right? This is what many have invented about confession and forgiveness. The Bible does not teach that kind of confession.
In Hebrews 9:22, the apostle Paul brings out a key thought about forgiveness and confession: “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.” Ellen White quotes this verse, then says: “Remission, or putting away of sin, is the work to be accomplished.” GC 417. Remission for sin is the putting away of sin; and you cannot take sin away without the shedding of blood.
We are only forgiven because Christ died on Calvary. There is no other reason why. He earned the right by shedding His blood to cleanse us from sin, and forgiveness is only offered at Calvary. Christ has gone to heaven as our High Priest, and He ministers His precious blood in our behalf, does He not? That is what He is doing there. His sacrifice, His atonement for us is what He offers in our behalf there in heaven. When I come confessing my sin I must never leave out the death and the blood of Jesus. Many have gone so far today that they do not even like this subject. There are many among us who criticize this and call it a bloody religion, meaning it is unsophisticated, non-intellectual, crude. Believe me, if you have trouble even thinking about your sins, you will have a terrible time adding the blood of Jesus to that sin. You will stay a thousand miles away from what caused the shedding of Christ’s blood and never look back.
If those who are frightened about the mere mention of their sins and sinfulness would go to the cross, it would really do something to them. Some have come to the place where they have invented a sophisticated religion that is a crossless Christianity; and if it is crossless, it is Christless. The heart of all the ministry of Jesus was His death on Calvary. You leave it out and you have no gospel. You can use all kinds of Bible texts, but you have no gospel without the cross. None! There is no gospel, there is no good news, for the Bible is not good news without the cross. It is bad news, it is all condemnation, and it is all law and no mercy without the cross. I don’t care how many texts you use, if you leave out the cross of Jesus you have left out all the good news, and all of us are a hopeless people.
The Jews believed the Scriptures and preached them very prominently, and even memorized great portions of them, but they killed the Savior. It is not enough to be Bible Christians. Somebody must be a gospel, Christ- filled, cross-preaching Christian. There is no salvation and no forgiveness apart from the cross. We have learned how to use the Bible without the cross and without Jesus. We are satisfied as long as it is Bible. That is not enough. It must be the cross and the gospel and Jesus in the Bible, from cover to cover. Without this we are hopeless people practicing an imaginary religion.
Forgiveness in the Old Testament was far more than some kind of a verbal communication or transaction. I know that some people do not like this and what the Old Testament had to say about this as a symbol or a type. Often it says more in that picture than you can read in the words in the New Testament. Come with me back to the Old Testament and look at the words and the picture there.
Leviticus chapter 4 talks about how priests are to do this, how rich people are to do it (or rulers), and how common people are to do this; and since we consider ourselves common, let’s read what it says about us in verses 28 and 29: “Or if his sin, which he hath sinned, come to his knowledge: then he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin which he hath sinned. And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering.” And the “he” is the sinner, not the priest.
This is confession in the Old Testament, which was meant to be an example, or picture, of confession in the New Testament. In olden days, when sin comes to your knowledge, there was only one way you could confess it. You had to bring a sacrifice, an animal, to slay. You brought the animal and the priest helped you tie it down so it could not get away; and then he hands you the knife, and if you like to quibble about it he would say to you, “I didn’t do the sin. You did. It is your sacrifice, not mine. This animal is not dying for me, it is dying for you.” You hold onto the knife and take a good look at it, and you take a good look at that animal.
Have you ever seen a young lamb, or ever have one as a pet? Suppose you had one that was one year old that you raised up yourself; and this is the animal you are going to offer. How do you feel? You gulp, and your heart does flip-flops and ends up as a knot in your throat. And you wish there was some other way. We always wish there were some other way, but the Bible says that without the shedding of blood there is no putting away of sin. I am just as capable as you are when it comes to inventing other ways, and I am just as sure as you that they do not work. They have never worked in my life at all; and I like to invent them by the hundreds, because I just don’t like to do the job, do you? It makes me miserable to think that my sins are like that. It isn’t very pleasant to think that an animal should die for me. All I can see is its innocence. Why should it die? The ceremonial law said the sinner must put his hand on the animal’s head, which to that person meant that he was transferring his sins to that innocent animal. He must die because I sinned, not because it sinned.
Friend, there was no other way to find forgiveness in the Old Testament except this way. Some people think it has changed for the better. In reality, it changed for the worse. In the place of the lamb, it is the Lamb of God now. In the place of an animal, it is Jesus, the priceless Son of God. Our sins crucify Him afresh. Does that make you feel better? It is as though you are right at Calvary watching Him die for your sins when you come confessing in the Biblical fashion. This is why there are so few righteous people. We hate Calvary. We will not linger there a thoughtful hour, and some people cannot stand it for two seconds. Our minds want to evade that place, and the thoughts we have while there. So we hop the next jet plane (not a boat like Jonah) and go in the opposite direction, and we never look back. We say, “I never want to see that horrible place again.” And we go on indulging our own ways and inventing new ways to say that we are justified. We even pick the Scriptures like Romans chapter 7 and misinterpret them to allow for our lack of a just life. We fix it up beautifully so it sounds logical and sensible. We say, “Well, Paul said you can keep on sinning after you are converted.” Did he really? The same old sins, is that what he really said? That makes God very small in my estimation, and incapable of changing my heart. That makes the converted heart a heart that loves sin and still indulges it. I really believe that when we spend that thoughtful hour at the cross everyday, it will change our whole concept of justification and forgiveness and righteousness. I am not criticizing anybody. I can look at myself and see how seldom I bring my sins to the foot of cross.
Ellen White said there is no higher place that you can ever reach than kneeling at the foot of the cross. And believe me, when you have been there a little while and experienced the saving grace of Christ, and the beauty of Jesus and His tremendous love in dying for us, you will never want to leave. At first you are miserable, then you do not want to get away. You always want to stay there. It is a strange thing that happens at the cross. This is a different concept than what we have usually had, and we must go back and live the experience of forgiveness and confession, not just mouth a few words. We must go back and see the sacrifice in our mind’s eye.
“Jesus has said, ‘I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.’ John 12:32. Christ must be revealed to the sinner as the Savior dying for the sins of the world; and as we behold the Lamb of God upon the cross of Calvary, the mystery of redemption begins to unfold to our minds, and the goodness of God leads us to repentance.” SC 26,27. Repentance was given at Calvary. The goodness of God seen there in that love gift, with all that agony, leads me to repentance. Continuing on with the quote: “In dying for sinners, Christ manifested a love that is incomprehensible; and as the sinner beholds this love, it softens the heart, impresses the mind, and inspires contrition in the soul….And as Christ draws them to look upon His cross, to behold Him whom their sins have pierced, the commandment comes home to the conscience. The wickedness of their life, the deep-seated sin of the soul, is revealed to them. They begin to comprehend something of the righteousness of Christ, and exclaim, ‘What is sin, that it should require such a sacrifice for the redemption of its victim? Was all this love, all this suffering, all this humiliation, demanded, that we might not perish, but have everlasting life?’ The sinner may resist this love, may refuse to be drawn to Christ; but if he does not resist, he will be drawn to Jesus; a knowledge of the plan of salvation will lead him to the foot of the cross in repentance for his sins, which have caused the sufferings of God’s dear Son.”
Do you understand what is happening? He is trying to woo us. He is trying to lead us there. He wants you to see the magnitude of His love. Why? So you will love Him. If you stay away you can never see that love, you can never comprehend it. It is there that you find it, and not from just talking about it or reading about it. It is coming there with your own sins right down in the front of the cross.
The Spirit of Prophecy enlarges on this: “We may have flattered ourselves, as did Nicodemus, that our life has been upright, that our moral character is correct, and think that we need not humble the heart before God, like the common sinner: but when the light from Christ shines into our souls, we shall see how impure we are; we shall discern the selfishness of motive, the enmity against God, that has defiled every act of life. Then we shall know that our own righteousness is indeed as filthy rags, and that the blood of Christ alone can cleanse us from the defilement of sin, and renew our hearts in His own likeness. One ray of the glory of God, one gleam of the purity of Christ, penetrating the soul, makes every spot of defilement painfully distinct, and lays bare the deformity and defects of the human character. It makes apparent the unhallowed desires, the infidelity of the heart, the impurity of the lips. The sinner’s acts of disloyalty in making void the law of God, are exposed to his sight…He loathes himself as he views the pure, spotless character of Christ.” SC 28,29.
When you come to that condition, you really find yourself at the bottom. The temptation for depression is terrible. You want to flee from that place. So to encourage us, the author continues: “As you see the enormity of sin, as you see yourself as you really are, do not give up to despair. It was sinners that Christ came to save. We have not to reconcile God to us, but—O wondrous love!—God in Christ is ‘reconciling the world unto Himself.’ 2 Corinthians 5:19. He is wooing by His tender love the hearts of His erring children. No earthly parent could be as patient with the faults and mistakes of his children, as is God with those He seeks to save. No one could plead more tenderly with the transgressor. No human lips ever poured out more tender entreaties to the wanderer than does He. All His promises, His warnings, are but the breathing of unutterable love.” SC 35.
We thought He was criticizing us as He shows us how bad we are. He is only showing us how much we need Him. He is saying, “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. I will take away the load of burdens and the fear. I will bless you. Come unto Me.” All His warnings, all His promises, all His entreaties are the breathings of unutterable love, a love that is beyond our understanding. This is what He is doing to us as He makes plain to us our sinfulness and brings about repentance at the cross.
The last of this is the consequences of it: “Confession will not be acceptable to God without sincere repentance and reformation. There must be decided changes in the life; everything offensive to God must be put away.” SC 39. Don’t get too upset with me. The next sentence is a jewel: “This will be the result of genuine sorrow for sin.”
Now let’s go back and clear it up, shall we? Confession will be acceptable to God with sincere repentance and reformation. But I cannot change my life, and I cannot even produce sorrow for sin. “There must be decided changes in the life; everything offensive to God must be put away.” How? This will be the result of genuine sorrow for sin; and the sorrow for sin is found at Calvary. As I come there, it breaks my heart that I could do all this to Jesus; and as I sorrow for sin, the result is genuine repentance and genuine reformation, and a change in my life—the putting away of everything offensive to God. How can I hurt the One who loves me so much? But you see, I will never comprehend that love, nor my offense, until I am at the cross. Never. There it is all taken care of; and the natural result of being at the cross is true heartsorrow for sin and a radical change in the life. This is the natural result. When I see myself going the same old way, I may be certain that it has been a long time since I have been to Calvary, and I did not stay very long then. When I find myself crushed with a load of sin and bringing out the bucket of forgiveness a hundred times a day or more, I have almost totally forgotten Calvary. Just one time in confession, if I had come to the cross and knelt there, and recognized I am forgiven because He died for me, then suddenly there are changes in my life. Suddenly I want a new heart like David and I loathe myself; and I ask God to create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me. I don’t want to be anymore like I used to be! Is that what David said? I never want to see that old sinful fellow again. Make me a new David. I don’t like that old fellow. I don’t care how nice you have been, when you come to the cross you will find the other half of forgiveness. This is what John meant when he wrote, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This is what it is all about. If we truly confess, He forgives and He cleanses.
“By every sin Jesus is wounded afresh; and as we look upon Him whom we have pierced, we mourn for the sins that have brought anguish upon Him. Such mourning will lead to the renunciation of sin.” DA 300. Renunciation—I will never do it again. And friend, this works a marvelous transformation. It is only at the cross that I see myself and want to be somebody different. There He makes me different. I do not make myself different. He makes me different; and as I leave that place I do not want to leave, because there is peace at the cross. You can criticize me all you want. He has taken care of it all. You can find out all of my failures. He has taken care of all of them. You can reject me all you wish. He accepts me just like I am, without even one plea. I do not care what you find wrong with me. At the cross it is all taken care of. I find perfect rest, perfect freedom in Christ at the cross. And there I am safe ever more, and I do not want to leave that place. I just want to linger in that place of quiet rest. How nice and pleasant it is there.
You know, friend, we have been struggling for years to be good enough for God to accept us. We have been struggling for years thinking about how much praying, and how much striving, how much studying or something else we must do so that we can be good enough. And all the time we have been going around the cross, a thousand miles away from it. All the time we have been running in the opposite direction and never looking back. And all the time we came confessing our sins, but left out the blood and the precious love of Jesus. And all the time we acted as if we did not care if Jesus ever lived or died for our sins. And all the time we go unforgiven. Yet we keep on thinking we are forgiven and that we must be a Christian because we go to church, because we keep the right day, because we pay tithe. And Jesus says, “Why do you stay so far from Me if you love Me? And how can you avoid Me at the very place where I expressed supreme love.” Greater love hath no man than He that lays down His life for His friends.
God is waiting for Seventh-day Adventists to not only be forgiven for sin, but to be reclaimed from sin. The world is looking for a Christian who is displaying and demonstrating a God like this. For they long to have this peace, this joy, this freedom. They do not know where to find it. They come to our churches and go away empty. They come to our homes and go away empty; and they have gone other places, also. Jesus has been waiting and longing to make us a different people. He wants to give us total forgiveness, which includes a changed life. May God help us to realize how much He really loves us.