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Commentary on "Guilt""
Day 6: Thursday, January 27, 2011 - Total Forgiveness
Overview
“How can we be sure our sins are forgiven if we don’t feel that they are forgiven? What reasons do we have to believe we’re forgiven, despite our feelings?” (Teacher’s Quarterly, Page 62)
Problems
Sigh…
After referring to some of the most sublime passages of Scripture and explaining them in appropriately victorious terms, the author negates his or her entire argument by whining about not feeling forgiven. How terribly sad! How completely illustrative of unbelief! The very question, though probably intended to bring hope, actually engenders more of the guilt this week’s lesson supposedly is trying to cure.
Our forgiveness has absolutely nothing to do with our feelings. Either we stand without condemnation, or we are 100% condemned. Either God has removed our sins as far as the East is from the West, or He has removed none of our sins.
Did Jesus die for nothing? Was His resurrection meaningless? Is the indwelling Holy Spirit a myth? When are we going to settle, once and for all, the finality of the cross and the reality of eternal life now? When are we going to take Jesus at His own word?
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one. (John 10:27-30)
This is not the babbling of some madman. It is the bold assertion of an absolute fact made by God Himself.
Stop looking at yourself! Stop wallowing in your feelings! If Jesus said you have eternal life, you have eternal life, and you know eternal life is impossible if sin is still an issue. Therefore, sin cannot be an issue between you and God anymore.
If you believe sin is still an issue between you and God, then one of two things is true. Either you are lost, or you are listening to Satan instead of listening to the indwelling Spirit. Both are bad, but both are easily corrected. If you are lost, come to Jesus right now, at this moment. He’s been wooing you all these years, and He will not cast you aside. If you are saved but have been listening to Satan, stop. Listen instead to the testimony of the Spirit within you.
Summary
- Please read the passages suggested by the lesson and ignore everything written about those passages – by me and by the author.
- If you have to get off by yourself for some period of time, do so. Do whatever it takes to silence the noise so you can listen to the Spirit reveal their meaning to you. You will be changed, perhaps not in a moment or in the twinkling of an eye (for that is reserved to our final glorification) but changed nonetheless, forever and without reservation.
Copyright 2011 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised January 18, 2011. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and the corresponding E.G. White Notes are published by Pacific Press Publishing Association, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The current quarter's editions are pictured above.
Official Adventist Resources
Standard Edition Study Guide Week 5
Teacher's Edition Study Guide Week 5
