Jesus Forgave and Cleansed Sinners, Not Those Who Are "Basically Good"

What Did Jesus Do?

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1.9


Halloween, a day when, many celebrate darkness, evil, and wickedness in the name of “fun,” has come and gone. Personally, I don’t find anything funny, or comforting, about darkness, evil, and wickedness. And, I don’t know how people who like to believe that they are “basically good,” can honestly celebrate, even in “fun,” darkness, evil, and wickedness.

You know, don’t you, that there are many, way too many actually, who like to both believe and proclaim that people are “basically good.” Right! (As Bill Cosby used to say) That’s why there is so much very real darkness, evil, and wickedness in the world—all those “basically good” people going about being “good.” In fact, the exact opposite is the case. Rather than “basically good” we are all totally depraved. Instead of goodness and light we’re all full of evil, filthy, smelly, darkness. Take a good, honest look inside people—inside yourselves—and you’ll find a reasonable facsimile of a cesspool. Not pleasant to contemplate, but what’s the alternative? To go about complimenting one another on our “basic goodness” while we cheat and steal and rape and murder? We desperately need an extreme makeover from the inside out, to be cleansed, and filled with light. Thankfully, the Father sent Jesus to forgive us and cleanse us.

To claim “basic goodness,” is to deny the reality of the sin nature within each one of us. It is the grossest self-deceit. Oh, we’re all full of something all right, but it’s not goodness, and, as long as we say we are without sin, it is certainly not the truth. There is no greater darkness, than that of a soul that deceives itself into believing in its basic goodness. In short, there is no truth to the claim to “basic goodness,” and those who make and believe that claim are filled with lies. And a lie, no matter how fervently it is believed, can never be the truth. John put it plainly and simply enough, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1.8) No truth, no light, and, ultimately, no life.

But there is great good news for all of us whose interior landscape would otherwise be a land of deep darkness—on us (and in us) light can shine! (Isaiah 9.2) If we would but confess that, rather than “basically good,” we are afflicted with a dark and sinful nature, the God of the Bible is altogether ready to forgive and cleanse us (1 John 1.9). The key is trusting in the faithfulness and justice that are part of the very nature of God. Where we are faithless and fickle, God is absolutely constant and true, completely and perfectly faithful to who he is, and to his promises. When God says that he will forgive the sins we confess to him, we can count on it as a certainty.

Our confession is made to God who is not only faithful, but who is also just. Justice requires that sin must be punished, which would be very bad news for sinners like us, except for the fact that Jesus has already taken the full measure of the punishment for sin upon himself. The penalty for sin has been paid on the cross—justice now dictates that those who formerly were charged with, and guilty of, sin be set free of sin and its curses. Sin’s stain has been thoroughly cleansed by the purging flow of Christ’s blood, our unrighteousness has been washed away, and we now stand, in Jesus, as righteous, which is not just to be “basically good,” but rather radically, totally, and perfectly good, as God is good so far beyond “basically” as to be immeasurably more so.

There’s another aspect of sin that must be confronted and dealt with. As noted above, there is much very real darkness, evil, and wickedness in the world. This is to admit that we are not talking in the abstract about human nature, but in actuality. Sin happens, it is real, and we are, if not its authors, then certainly its perpetrators. Even if we concede that we have a nature that inclines us to sin, but claim that we have somehow overcome our nature and not sinned, then there is great deceit again being practiced (1 John 1.10). In fact, we make God out to be a liar when we claim not to have sinned, for his Word declares that all of us have sinned, and fallen short of his glory. (Romans 3.23)

The glare of headlines may, if we are willing to surrender the false teaching of “basic goodness,” convince us of the reality of sin in the world. But, all of us need to let the light of Christ, the light of God’s Word, illuminate what we would rather remain hidden in the darkness inside us—our own sins—if we would be forgiven, cleansed, and filled with the light and the Word. To confess our sin is painful, but it is not risky, when we understand the faithfulness and justice of the one to whom we confess. Then, we are truly filled through God’s gift of the Holy Spirit with light, with truth, with love, thanks to Jesus, who forgave and cleansed not those who were “basically good,” but sinners.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4