Does God See Christ Or Your Sin?

Into December at last, that time of the year which has the Winter Solstice. That is, after six months of shortening of days and lengthening of nights, we see the start of the reverse, days start to get longer, nights shorter. And with the start of the month comes the Christmas season - the displays of fir trees decorated with light bulbs, baubles and fake presents, those gaudily-wrapped boxes which look so nice on the outside but contains nothing but thin air inside. And all those adverts, whether on TV, radio, newspapers, magazines - all of them bidding us to part from our hard-earned cash to buy presents for our friends and loved ones.

It's all a build-up for that one big day. In most cases, those bright illuminating decorations traversing our High Streets and shopping malls begin to appear as early as mid to late November, along with the city mall Christmas tree. It's all a build up, an annual build-up, to that one day of the year - with such a sort daylight span here in the UK, that by the time late evening arrives, somehow I can't help feeling that it's all over, rather like a balloon going pop after cautiously blowing into it. Suddenly, just like the residue left from the burst balloon, all the lighting, the tinsel, the fir tree, the row of cards, had somehow lost their magic, so it seems. Yet somehow, in this country, perhaps unlike in America where they are all taken down on the next day, here they all stay in place until, traditionally after the 12th day of Christmas - or Epiphany - they are all disposed of for another year.

It is during that particular morning when children open their presents with excitement and gusto, to find their favourite toy or game. Maybe the revealing of an electric train set, Lego, or Meccano which enthralled my generation has most likely been replaced by a computer, mobile phone or some other electronic gadget or wizardry which would never have entered our minds in my day.

Then comes the turn for the adults. I wonder how many homes, even along my street, let alone nationwide, have people still in their housecoats, unwrap their presents and then forcing out the words, Wow! Just what I've always wanted! - in their attempts to hide disappointment, a crushing anticlimax to a build-up of festive expectancy. Why is that teapot looking so much brighter and its colours so much more vivid in the catalogue photo than in reality? Or that ghastly jumper you would not be seen dead in, let alone wear at the office. Then, as one window-cleaning customer once told me, there is a queue for the store counter on the day after Boxing Day, all returning unwanted presents. 

It is the gifts which, I think, decides on whether a Christmas will be a good one or a bad one for the family. One relative brings as a present a computer software package or an updated PlayStation to a ten-year-old. Another brings in a well-wrapped tie. Sure enough, as foreseen by one benefactor happily looking on, while the other, shocked due to his total blindness to the boy's preference, watches with dismay as the lad greets the gadget with excitable glee and starts to set it up, while the tie lies quickly forgotten at the corner of the sofa. Indeed, how presents are evaluated by the recipients either makes or breaks Christmas. All that is the ins and outs of modernity, the growing up with the Christmas tradition as very much part of life where the exchange of presents are to be expected.

Perhaps one can imagine a group of shepherds out in the fields who had never seen a roasted turkey on show at the table with all its trimmings, along with Christmas crackers with their cheap trashy trinkets, all accompanied by tinsel, baubles, and torn wrapping paper squeezed into a nearby bin. Poor them. Over a span of two millennia, life without such niceties was much tougher. And furthermore, such an occupation in caring for sheep has made them pariahs of society. The posher guys of their day looked down upon them with disdain.

And after receiving an awful fright from a heavenly visitation, these men went off to nearby Bethlehem to see this newborn the heavenly hosts had informed them about. They entered the stable and saw the child, and believed.

They believed in their hearts that this child is the Christ, their Messiah, the future King of Israel, who will one day sit on the throne of his father David. From that moment onward they were saved. All their sins were forgiven, they were fully acquitted and furthermore, the righteousness of Christ imputed into their accounts, as was the case with Abraham (Genesis 15:4-6). As far as God was concerned, he saw those despicable shepherds in the same way he saw he only Son, even if as a baby he had done nothing whatsoever. They went away rejoicing, having received the best gift any man could receive. And that was without decorated fir trees, tinsel and Christmas crackers embellishing their dwelling.

Not long after, some wise men studying the night sky noticed a particularly bright star, and this was a revelation that the Jewish Messiah was recently born. At the moment they believed, they too were saved, even before acquiring gifts and setting off on their long journey. Throughout that trip, I doubt whether they mulled in their thoughts about any unforgiven sins remaining.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus performed miracles, even raising the dead, to demonstrate to all onlookers that he was the Christ. He preached a sermon upon a hill to show what the Law really stood for and to bring in the realisation that no one could keep the Law perfectly, together with the very uncomfortable fact that any acts of religion only worsened the situation instead of making it any better. He then concluded that believing in him as the Messiah is the only solution to the universal problem of sin.

That was so well attested by the sermon preached in Jerusalem (Acts 2) when up to three thousand Jews believed after the apostle had demonstrated from the Scriptures that this Jesus of Nazareth whom they crucified, was their Messiah, the Son of God. Sometime later, Philip was drawn to an African eunuch returning to his homeland after worshipping in Jerusalem (Acts 8:26-40). As the eunuch was trying to make sense of Isaiah's writings, Philip climbed into the chariot and explained the Scriptures to him, that Jesus of Nazareth is the fulfilment of the prophecy. When the eunuch asked what was stopping him from being baptised, Philip simply replied, If you believe, you may be baptised. To which, as the AV puts it:
I believe that Jesus is the Son of God - (Verse 37, AV).

And he was saved at that moment before he was baptised at a nearby lake or pond. And he went away rejoicing, without the need to ponder whether all his sins were forgiven or not. He already knew that they were all forgiven.

Cornelius is another striking example. Here an angel calls to tell him to send men to Peter's house, about two days journey away. After he arrives, he explains that Jesus of Nazareth who was recently crucified, was buried and three days later rose again from the dead, is the Christ, the Son of God, proved by his Resurrection. At their moment of believing, the Holy Spirit fell on everyone in the house (Acts 10). And so it goes on. Paul and Silas with the Philippian jailer is another example (Acts 16:30-31). And there are others, but the theme remains the same: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.

And the idea of forgiveness of sins, receiving forensic acquittal, and to have the righteousness of Christ imputed into one's account - that is the greatest gift from God anyone can receive. And it's eternal. An eternal free gift, and not given on the basis of probation depending on the recipient's post-conversion worthiness, or else it isn't a true gift, but more of a reward for the recipient's works.

Many good and sincere Christians, when asked how I could be saved, responds with a statement like this: Turn from your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That sounds spiritual, correct and fully orthodox. But by reading all the above testimonies, especially by the apostles, the words, Turn or repent from your sins does not seem to appear in their answers, but simply to believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of God. True enough, Paul did write a commendation to the church at Thessalonica that they had turned from idols to serve the living God (1 Thessalonians 1:9), but as I see it, it was more of changing religion rather than dealing with general sin prior to conversion. Just as the three thousand Jews did under Peter's ministry. They changed from Judaism to Jesus Christ.

The shepherds were not told to turn from their sins. Instead, they received an announcement that their Christ was born and the baby can be found in a manger. That was all. They saw, believed and were saved. The thief on the cross wasn't told to turn from his sins either. He was already aware of his guilt. Instead, after recognising Jesus as the Christ, he asked him to be remembered when he enters his kingdom (therefore believing he will rise again). He was saved there and then. God is indeed willing to hand out his gifts, and not just for Christmas either.

And that was one of my problems which can still arise from time to time - a warped perception of God through Roman Catholic upbringing. Every Catholic is taught a to regularly confess his sins and to do penance in order to have his past sins forgiven, leaving the board only momentary clean before another sin is committed to stain it. To be set free from such a slave-driving master is easier said than done. Because I have been through this, I do have feelings of compassion for Roman Catholics in general. In a sense, they are my former brothers in the faith, and I long to see them come to the realisation that the Son of God has already set them free. If only they believe that forensic acquittal and the imputation of Christ's righteousness is available to them instead of working, working, working to earn Heaven after death, with a lifelong uncertainty of their state in the afterlife, I'm sure they would be far keener to serve God.

No wonder that many a Catholic end up as determined atheists, or more accurately, God haters. I know. I was one of them. There was a time that I hated God. I hated him because of my warped view of him. I had a perverted view of God gotten by thinking that he is constantly looking at my sin and shaking his head at any thought of me entering Heaven after my time is up.

And this perverse view of God, I'm wondering: Could this be behind the general falling away from the faith, to embrace Darwinism? Could this be the dreadful truth which lies under nationalism and its offspring, Brexit? If God is perceived as one constantly looking at your sins instead of seeing you as one in Jesus Christ, then it's difficult, indeed, very difficult to love and serve God. No wonder such a philosophy is the gateway to religious liberalism, and eventually atheism where the Bible as the Word of God is denied, along with its historicity. Religious liberalism also denies the Virgin Birth and the physical Resurrection of Christ. Instead, it embraces evolution and denies that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone.

It does look as if the general morality of the world is declining, just as the knowledge of God is in decline. But I tend to believe that throughout history, the general morality of the world was always in decline or in a low state. After all, since the Reformation in the 16th Century, the slave trade was in full swing throughout the 17th to the mid 19th Century, and with it, prostitution was seen as normal, with brothels touting for business found in every major city and town. Or at sea, piracy was rife, with the Pirates of the Caribbean being most famous, but also at Penzance and other oceanic areas around the globe. On land, anyone travelling was always wary of the highwayman, who would readily kill if his robbery attempt does not go right. And let's face it, during the days of the Wild West, would it be safe to live if even a slight dispute is settled by a shootout to the death?

Indeed, even the Dark and Middle Ages, approximately between the 5th and the 15th centuries, corruption within the Church was rife. The late Dave Hunt, in his book, A Woman Rides the Beast, a copy which I have, wrote that the most horrific monsters ever to walk this Earth were the popes during that period of time. Within that realm, prostitution, adultery, murder, simony, high taxes, antisemitism, and forced rule over nations and their kings were all rife. With the Inquisition, the history of Church leadership was indeed dire. But that should come as no surprise when the main theological standing was about God constantly looking at their sins instead of seeing them in the same way as he sees his Son.

The forgiveness of all sins - past, present and future, the forensic acquittal, the imputation of Christ's righteousness, the adoption into God's family as the Bride of Christ, having God the Father seeing us in the same way as he sees Jesus, along with Eternal Security of the Believer (Once Saved Always Saved), are all divine truths which ought to draw the believer into a loving relationship with his God.

But dilute or remove these truths, leaving God to see only our sins, then little wonder the world is in such a mess, a very stormy sea with waves tossing at great heights. And which no Christmas present can appease.