Seventy weeks are
determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression,
to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in
everlasting righteousness. Daniel 9:24
There are some Christians
who believe that you can lose fellowship with God when you sin, and you need to
confess your sin to God and obtain forgiveness to become righteous again. They
claim that your relationship with God is not broken when you
sin, but fellowship with Him is, so you need to confess your
sin to restore fellowship with Him.
It sounds very good. But
believing that your fellowship with God is broken when you sin will affect your
ability to come boldly to His throne of grace to receive from Him. In reality,
both the words “relationship” and “fellowship” share the same Greek root
word koinonia. This means that even if you fail, relationship and
fellowship with God are not broken. Why? Because your sins and failures have
all been paid for at the cross. How can you ever lose your righteousness in
Christ when it is based entirely on His perfect work and not your imperfection?
To see how we have
everlasting righteousness in Christ, look at the prophecy in the Book of Daniel
about Jesus’ work at Calvary. Daniel 9:24 describes His mission in no uncertain
terms: “...to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make
reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness.”
Beloved, we can rejoice today because Jesus has fulfilled every iota of this
prophecy! The blood of bulls and goats in the old covenant only provided
limited and temporal righteousness for the children of Israel, and that is why
with every new failing, the sacrifices had to be repeated.
But in the new covenant, the blood of Jesus put an end to sin and gave us everlasting righteousness! Listen carefully to this: Jesus does not have to be crucified repeatedly whenever you fail because every sin has already been paid for on the cross. We need to trust in just how complete and perfect His finished work is. Today, as a new covenant believer, you are righteous not only until your next sin. You have everlasting righteousness! (Article & Picture; courtesy of Joseph Prince Ministries used with kind permission).
No comments:
Post a Comment