Authors: Watchman Nee
What way does God use to forgive our sins as well as
preserve His integrity? It is easier to simply forgive, but to forgive
righteously and lawfully is difficult. Let me use the illustration again of the
wealthy Mr. Tang.
And let us suppose
that he has much more than the ten thousand dollars he lent me twenty years ago
and which I was unable to pay back, thus violating the agreement we both had
signed. One day he comes to my house. In the beginning his words are rather
harsh. At first he says that a contract cannot be changed, so I must pay him back
the money I had borrowed from him. But then he softly speaks these words: “Here
are ten thousand dollars which I want to give you as a gift, whereas the money
I formerly lent you was borrowed according to the contract we both had
established back then. Now, though, this ten thousand is freely given to you.”
Without saying any more, he leaves. And suppose further that the next morning I
take the money Mr. Tang had given me yesterday and go to his home with confidence
and say to him that this is the money I owe him. And in response he says, “Fine,”
and gives me back the I.O.U. note. This can illustrate for us the law of God
and God’s interaction with it.
God has said to man, “Keep My law and live, or else you shall
certainly die.” If we violate His law, God will not offer to save us from this
sentence of death carelessly. Once having given us His law, God himself cannot
violate it. What, then, does He do to save us? God gives us His beloved Son. God’s
means of rescuing us from death is not a matter of law but is beyond law. It is
out of God’s love that He gives His only begotten Son to us, for Him to shed
His blood for us and pay back all our debt of sin to God. And thus, through the
Lord Jesus’ blood, we can with confidence draw near to God. Such is the means God
uses to save us. So that all who are now in Christ Jesus have their sin debt
already paid back. Moreover, God will never ask us for any further payment because
our sins were not forgiven easily or carelessly but rather were righteously judged
at Calvary; and hence, we received the proof of sins’ forgiveness through
Christ Jesus. This is just like the story of me with Mr. Tang: I repaid my debt
to Mr. Tang who would have been unrighteous had he refused to give me back the I.O.U.
note. The Lord Jesus has already cleared our sin debt, so today we can approach
God with confidence. Through the blood of Christ God has saved us and this
salvation has fully satisfied God’s righteous demand. Please therefore remember
that the evidence of sins forgiven is God’s righteousness (see
I
John 1:9).
Let us also bear in mind that our sins are not cheaply
forgiven but that a costly redemptive price has been paid. We are saved through
the shed blood of the Lord Jesus (see
I
John 1:7). So
we now can approach God with a conscience void of offense (Acts 24:16), for the
Lord has already cleansed it for us (Hebrews 9:14), and concerning which God
will never make any further demand upon us. Henceforth we may offer up praises
to God.
Finally, let me relate a story which I always love to
tell. In 1925 I was in Nanking speaking in a girls’ school. One day I was
speaking on the righteousness of God. As I spoke to those girls, I sensed that they
did not appear to understand. I should note, incidentally, that resting on the
pulpit there was a flower pot and that the school principal was seated nearby. So
I asked her, “Suppose a student breaks this flower vase. What will you do?”
“Ask her to pay for it,” said the principal. “What if she does not have the
money?” I asked. She replied: “According to the school regulation one must pay,
whether a person has the money or not.” I further asked the principal this:
“Suppose this is a student you love dearly and she is the smallest as well as
the poorest. She has absolutely no way to pay for the broken vase. What, then,
will you do?” She replied, “Now that is altogether another matter.” Why could she
not simply forgive the girl? The principal realized that if she did, within a
few days all the other vases in the school would be broken. What should the
principal therefore do? She said, “I would pay for her.”
This, I said to the students, is God’s reaction towards
us who have violated His law. He loves us, and this love is without end. We
have sinned and have no way to comply with the righteous demand of the law of
God. Due, however, to His love for us, He himself came to solve our problem. He
gave His only begotten Son to us as His means of paying our debt of sin for us.
When I explained God’s righteousness in this way, the students at the girls’
school came to understand.
The next day was my last for speaking. When I entered the
hall, I did not see the flower vase. I asked the principal what had happened.
She answered that it had been broken. I asked if she had demanded payment. She
replied that she had. So I said, “Your word has the flavor of Mount Sinai.”
Once in the past God had spoken in this manner, but now through the blood of the
Lord Jesus our sins may be forgiven.
Suppose I had broken some law in my community and was
arrested by the police. And suppose a court judge condemned me to five years of
imprisonment. And suppose further that five years later I was released and I happened
to meet the very policeman who had arrested me. I could now joke around with him
because today he had no authority to arrest me again for the earlier crime.
For my guilt had been punished and the case was forever closed.
Similarly, let us praise God that in Christ all our sin debt has been paid.
Such, then, is the way of God’s righteous forgiveness of sins.
*
“Who [Jesus] was delivered up for our trespasses, and was
raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25).
“According to the law, I may almost say, all things are
cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there is no remission”
(Hebrews 9:22).
“The life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it
to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood
that maketh atonement by reason of the life” (Leviticus 17:11).
“The blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where
ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and there shall no
plague be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt” (Exodus
12:13).
“Inasmuch as he hath appointed a day in which he will judge
the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath
given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts
17:31).
We have already seen what
is the reason
for the work of God
. We know that God’s original purpose is for man to
possess His life. Unfortunately, man failed and that has complicated God’s
work. For today God must solve the problem of redeeming men as well as giving
men His life.
Therefore, God’s work towards us is twofold: to redeem us
on the one hand and to arrive at His purpose in us on the other. To redeem is
to solve the sin problem of men, to arrive at His purpose is to give God’s life
to men. In studying the Bible we come to know that this double work of God is achieved
through the death and resurrection of Christ. The Lord Jesus had said that other
than the sign of Jonah there would be no other given (see Matthew 12:39, 16:4).
The sign of Jonah bespeaks death and resurrection. What is meant by a sign? It
is that which pertains to God’s work. Apart from the sign of death and
resurrection God gives no other; for His work is centered on none other than death
and resurrection.
There are four aspects to the death and resurrection of
Christ: two of them are negative in character and the other two are positive. The
two negatives deal with sin whereas the two positives deal with life-giving. It
is through the realities of these four aspects of death and resurrection that
we are saved and arrive at God’s purpose for us. Hopefully we shall come to
understand these four aspects during these conference days together.
The four aspects of the death and resurrection of Christ are
these: first, the substitutionary character of His death and resurrection;
second, our co-death and co-resurrection with Christ in His death and
resurrection; third, the release of His death and resurrection; and fourth, the
resistance (that is, the self-denial) of His death and resurrection. We can discern
these four aspects in the Scriptures. Unless we clearly see these four aspects
of Christ’s death and resurrection, we shall end up in confusion concerning our
labor for the Lord.
Whereas substitution and co-death/co-resurrection are for
the purpose of dealing with sin, release and resistance (or self-denial)
are
for the purpose of dealing with life. Substitution and co-death/co-resurrection
are negative in nature, but release and self-denial are positive; yet all four are
for the sake of arriving at the purpose of God. At present, we will consider
only the death side of these four aspects of substitution, co-death/co-resurrection,
release, and self-denial. Later on, we will discuss the resurrection or life side
of these four aspects. I hope you will not be concerned if at first you cannot
understand these four aspects of Christ’s death and resurrection. Gradually you
will come to see them without any confusion.
Now we learn from Scripture that the first facet of death
is the blood, the second facet is crucifixion, the third is the flesh, and the
fourth is the taking up of the cross. The Holy Scriptures show us the blood,
the crucifixion, the flesh, and cross-bearing; and these are the four different
facets to the death of Christ.
This evening we will consider the blood and therefore,
also the substitutionary character of Christ’s death and resurrection. But
before we do so, let us first be clear concerning the problem of sin. We have already
discussed how sin is a problem to be solved before God. We also are aware that sin
carries with it the matter of guilt in man. What is guilt? Well, whenever I sin
I become guilty before God. It is I who commit sin, but as soon as I sin, I am
a guilty person before God. So how will God deal with this situation? Before
God can forgive sin He must first judge it. Only after sin has been judged can
it be resolved or eliminated. For instance, if I violate the law in some way on
the road, the police will apprehend me and bring me before a judge. The judge
cannot simply release me. On the contrary, depending on the particular
infraction of the law, I must either pay a fine or be imprisoned for a period
of time before I can ever be set free.
Similarly, when we sin against divine law, God cannot immediately
set us free. He must first judge our sin according to His righteousness. Yet
fallen man himself is unable to satisfy God’s righteous demand. So God in His great
love paid sin’s penalty for man. Whatever the penalty man must pay for his sin,
God himself pays for it. Hence, redemption is God himself in Christ being judged
and paying the sin debt for us. All is done out of God’s love and depends on
the blood of Christ. What is the use of Christ’s blood? It is to redeem us from
the penalty or wages of our sin and to satisfy God’s righteous or legal
requirements.
Many Christians misunderstand, they thinking that the
Lord’s blood is for cleansing our hearts. Blood is mentioned in both the Old
and New Testaments more than four hundred times, yet it never once says that
blood cleanses the heart. Christians may say so but the Bible never does. Are
you surprised at this? Someone may observe: “Does not Hebrews 9:14 declare that
the blood of Christ cleanses our hearts?” However, according to the Greek
original, this passage does not speak of a cleansing of the heart but of the
conscience
(cf. ASV). From this and
other places in the Scriptures we learn that the blood of Christ cleanses our
conscience, not our heart. Why is this so? It is because the heart of man
represents his very self—his real self; and this real I in man, having come
from fallen Adam, is unclean in nature and can never be cleansed but must be
eliminated.
The Bible describes this heart of man as stony (see
Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26). How can a
stony
heart ever be cleansed? It cannot. What, then, can be done? God says in this
same Ezekiel passage that this stony heart must be taken away and replaced with
a fleshy heart. From this we can conclude that regeneration is not a matter of
cleansing the old man but is instead a matter of getting rid of him. How can anyone
wash clean a man of clay? The more a person washes such a man the dirtier he becomes.
Just so is our heart situation. Hence, the Bible never mentions that Christ’s blood
washes the heart but says that it washes or cleanses our conscience.
What is conscience? It is that faculty in us which makes us
feel either uneasy or peaceful. And what—in this context—does the Scripture mean
by declaring that the Lord’s blood cleanses our conscience? It means that Christ’s
blood removes our sins before God, for the Lord Jesus has borne our punishment
before Him and our sins are being forgiven by God due to His blood. As we
believe in the Lord Jesus, we know our sins have been forgiven because His blood
has washed away the guilt from our conscience and given it peace. And since the
conscience has now been cleansed, it no longer feels sinful.
But please note that all this is objective, it all having
to do with God and nothing to do with man. Man has no need of blood; rather,
blood is required by God and is the righteous demand of God. That is why Exodus
12:13 tells us that as God himself would see the blood, He would immediately
pass
over and spare the homes of the Israelites. And thus
the focus of this Bible passage is not man seeing the blood but God doing so.
Please bear in mind that blood has nothing to do with
man. Blood is to bear the righteous judgment before God. For without sins being
judged God’s purpose cannot be reached. Man having sinned, he cannot be saved
except by God. From man’s perspective, therefore, blood is almost totally
objective. It is primarily concerned with God’s side. For man blood only provides
a peaceful conscience: the shed blood of God’s Son removes man’s guilt before
God and blots out his sins before Him. The rest of what God purposes in
redeeming man
is
to be accomplished by the other
aspects of the work of the cross. So when the Bible speaks of the blood, it is first
and foremost a pointing to God and His satisfaction.