A New Creation

Message / Question

You say that when someone comes to Christ, they are made new, their past is forgiven by God. Isn't their future forgiven by God too? Why is it when Christian ministers talk about forgiveness, they always talk about it in PAST tense. Are they worried people will keep going on sinning? And don't genuine Christians do that anyway? Let's be honest Dave, you know that when you wake up tomorrow, you will sin, right?

Response

Your question was about things in a person’s and I answered from that perspective. But yes, you are absolutely right, when someone comes to Christ, their future is forgiven by God too. As a matter of fact, when Jesus died, all of my sins were in the future (obviously, as Jesus died a LONG time before I was born!), so when I received Him, He forgave ALL of my sins – past, present and future (Col. 2:13) and made me a brand new creation. One of the features of this new creation is the new standing or status that we have in life. Once, we were sinners, now in Christ, we are saints. Now, people may protest, even once we’re saved, we’re still sinners, it’s surely just that we are sinners saved by grace. But no, that’s not actually right. A sinner has no relationship with God and is heading to an eternity that is separated from God. A saint, on the other hand, does have a relationship with God and is heading to an eternity in the presence of God. You can’t be heading in both directions at the same time and you both have and NOT have a relationship with God simultaneously. So, am I suggesting that a Christian doesn’t sin? I WISH!!!! NO, you are right when we wake up tomorrow there’s a very high likelihood that we will sin. So are we, in Christ, a saint or a sinner? Answer is simple, we are saints who still sin – but here’s the great truth, the price has been paid for our sin, we stand forgiven as saints, clothed, not in OUR righteousness, but in the righteousness of Christ. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous! So, as a saint, we when we sin, it affects our fellowship with God, but our righteous standing is untainted – because it’s HIS righteousness that we wear as a robe, rather than ours! This is the great reality of the new creation, we are made Kingdom people, fit to live in the Kingdom with the King!