Outline:
- The Forgiveness of sin is Grace. Repentance is our human Response. (Justification) – was saved
- Resurrection of the Body as a New Creation (Sanctification) – being saved
- Our Eternal Life as union with God and in Christ (Glorification) – will be saved
Introduction:
Today, we will look at the last three statements of the Apostles’ Creed.
I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
Let’s begin with the first one.
I believe in… the forgiveness of sins…
The word sin is commonly understood as missing the mark. The mark of man was a mark of obedience between God and Man. Man without sin is in perfect union with God. The best place to see this union is before the fall. In Genesis 3:8, we read that God would walk in the garden (of Eden) in the cool of the day. We also read of the many open dialogues between Adam and God. That was how close God was to Adam. There is a sense of closeness and transparency. God is described as the One who walks among Man.
Unfortunately, we know how this story goes. Adam ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, disobeying a direct command from God. Thus, breaking this perfect union. This was when sin entered the world. Adam and Eve were kicked out from the garden. Sin is the result of Man’s disobedience. Sin separates Man from God. And death enters our world through one man’s sin (Rom. 5:12). For the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).
Fortunately, there was a plan to bring us back!
According to Rom. 5:19, Paul tells us that we are made righteous, because of Christ’s obedience.
Rom. 5:19
For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
Sometimes, sin is described as a debt or a ransom. Christ paid the price to redeem us from the debt of sin. This debt and payment relationship is common in our Christian talk. But it has its limitations. One of its limitations is seen when we ask who was this debt paid to? To Satan? To God himself? It may not be so clear to some Christians.
This is where the Apostles’ Creed might be helpful for us. We try to understand sin, not as a debt to be paid, but as a rebellion against God. A broken relationship. We have turned away from God and yet, God forgives us. The parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) is useful here. We have God the Father who runs after us to gain us back. He forgives the prodigal son who has done so much wrong against the Father. The language of forgiveness seems to be better suited than the language of a debt-payment.
And so, what do we mean when we say, I believe in the forgiveness of sins?
It means that I believe that God has forgiven our sins because of what Christ has done on the cross. The separation between God and Man has been removed. We are now back in union with God. We have returned to the garden of Eden (metaphorically speaking). Once again, God walks among us in the cool of the day. Unlike Singapore. We are right with God once again.
There was once an evangelist who would walk around airports, approaching travellers, asking them, “When did you get saved?” His operating assumption was that these people were not “saved,” and his job was to tell them how to get saved and avoid the flames of hell. But one day the evangelist got quite a surprise. On one occasion the person he asked was a retired pastor. The evangelist went up to him and asked rather abruptly, “Are you saved? When did you get saved? Can you tell me when you got saved?” The pastor stopped in his tracks, feeling a bit accosted by the well – intentioned though somewhat intrusive evangelist. He paused for a moment, scratched his head, and replied, “I got saved two thousand years ago, but I only found out about it recently!” Then promptly walked off![1]
The evangelist equated salvation with man “making a decision” to accept Jesus. While the retired pastor understood salvation as an act of God that occurred way before his decision to follow Jesus. Who do you think is right? Let’s consider the following.
One views it from a human perspective, and the other, from God’s perspective. Like the evangelist, we are often concerned with the question of salvation. Are we saved? And if so, when did we get saved?
One biblical scholar (Scot McKnight) recognised the issue with this kind of questions. He calls it the “salvation culture” of today. He is concerned that Christians are over focusing on personal salvation rather than to focus on God’s salvation plan for the whole world. He compares this “salvation culture” with the “gospel culture” in the New Testament.[2] The gospel culture is concerned with telling us who Jesus is and what he has done. The good news is Jesus Christ! While the salvation culture focuses on how and when we are saved? Or the quintessential question of the rich young ruler, “What must I do to inherit eternal life? (Luke 19:16)” The evangelical movement of the 70s might have been responsible for this “salvation culture.”
McKnight: “PART OF THE GENIUS of genuine Christianity is that each generation has to think it through afresh.”
This “thinking through our faith” is precisely what we are doing today! He is not saying that salvation culture is wrong but that sometimes it has overshadowed the greater salvation plan of God for the whole world, that is the message of the gospel.
There was a time when it was encouraged to say the sinners’ prayer and to mark down the exact point in time when we had accepted Jesus as our personal Lord and saviour. The salvation culture emphasizes on personal salvation and “making a decision” to follow Jesus as expressed by the evangelist. We have equated the gospel with personal salvation.
While the gospel culture focuses on what God has done to save the whole of humanity from sin. This view is precisely what the retired pastor had believed in. Modern evangelism has shifted the focus from God to man. When we do this, we narrowed the gospel’s message of salvation. God’s salvation plan was for the whole world and it occurred two thousand years ago. We just discovered it recently!
So, what is the relationship between what God has done and what we believe? Why does our faith matter when salvation is all of God’s doing?
This is where the concept of repentance comes into play. Repentance is the link between recognising what God has done and our human response to faith. In our previous sermon, Dr Tan talks about the gift of the Holy Spirit and the Church as the Community of believers. He reminds us that while the Spirit has many gifts, the Spirit itself is God’s gift to the world. Jesus promised to send the Spirit to us forever as our advocate (John 14:15). One of the many gifts of the Holy Spirit is the gift of repentance. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts us of our sins and we repent and we believe in Jesus Christ as our Messiah!
Both John the Baptist and Jesus himself calls for our repentance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matt 3:2 and 4:17).
To repent is to turn away from sin, or more importantly, turn towards God.
Repentance is the one of the key messages of the entire Bible. The nation of Israel has turned away from God, they have strayed from the laws. The prophets of old have never stopped calling for repentance from its people. This call for repentance continues today, even after Jesus was raised from the dead. So, why do we still need repentance when God has already forgiven us?
This is because, even though our sins have been forgiven, we are justified but not yet sanctified. We live in the “already but not yet.” Justification occurred at a single point in time, the moment when Christ died on the cross. But sanctification is a process of time, not a point. We are being transformed into Christ’s likeness during this process of sanctification. There is a third part, which is known as glorification. This will occur when Christ comes again, that is when our transformation will be completed and finished. We are glorified because Christ is glorified at his second coming.
If we would to summarise the last three statements of the Apostles’ Creed, it pairs well with these three theological understanding.
The forgiveness of sins = justification
The resurrection of the body = sanctification
The eternal life = glorification
- The Forgiveness of sin is Grace. Repentance is our Response.
Two accounts of forgiveness can be found in the gospels.
The woman who was caught in adultery (John 8:7-11). According to the laws of Moses, she was to be stoned.
Jesus said “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
No one threw a stone at her because they knew that they were just as sinful.
This would have been a good enough ending to our story but Jesus went further by asking the woman, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.”
And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
Jesus forgave the woman before telling her to sin no more. Forgiveness is God’s grace. Repentance is our human response. Repentance can only come after God’s forgiveness. Not the other way around.
Another example of forgiveness is seen at the cross event (Luke 23:39-43). The two criminals who were hanging next to Jesus on the cross.
One of the criminals challenged Jesus to save himself and to save them. The other recognised his own sins and asked for Jesus to remember him when Jesus enters his kingdom. Of which, Jesus said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
The second criminal showed a heart of repentance that was not seen in the first.
Now, we ask ourselves: are we like the first criminal or the second? Do we also demand God to save us or do we submit to God with humility and repentance?
When we say we believe in the forgiveness of sins, our attitude should be like the second criminal. We recognise that it is only by God’s grace that we are saved. When confronted by the grace of God, we can either choose to repent and believe, or, to reject this gift and disbelieve. It is not our faith that saves us. It is Jesus’ faith on the cross that saves the whole of humanity. This is what we mean by the justification of faith.
Forgiveness is unconditional. Repentance is consequential.
God’s forgiveness is unconditional because it is not dependent on our human response. God did not forgive us because we had repented first. Rather, we repent because God forgave us first. Our human repentance is a consequential response to God’s forgiveness. Our faith, our obedience, our love for one another, all these – our works, as our accomplishment can never be counted as righteous before God in judgment. God alone justifies and sanctifies us.
The call of repentance has been constant from the Old Testament to the New and even to today. The Christian church must continue to call for repentance, as a response to God who forgave us first. It is freely given and unconditional. Jesus died for both the repented and the unrepented. The only difference is our human response to this costly grace. Do we accept this gift or do we reject it?
1 John 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Because our transformation is not yet complete. We have not been fully sanctified. We often fall back into sin. So, we continue to confess our sins in worship.
This brings us to the next two statements of our belief. The resurrection of the body and life everlasting. What do they mean?
- Resurrection of the body as a New Creation.
The resurrection of the body and the belief of eternal life is closely associated with the second coming of Christ. Specifically, they refer to the future event.
To understand the resurrection of our body, we must first understand Jesus’ own resurrected bodily form as he had appeared to his disciples in John 20. We know that Jesus’ newly resurrected body was physical in the sense that the disciples could see his nail-pierced hands. Yet, this physical body was able to pass through locked doors. When Jesus appeared before them, they recognised Jesus immediately. When Jesus asked Thomas to put his hands on his side, Thomas responded, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).
From this, we understand that our resurrected body is also going to be physical and yet, permeable. Whatever wounds we may have would be healed, but the scars will remain. Matt 11:5 tells us that “the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” All our sickness would be healed, and our disabilities would be restored. Our identity remains. We will recognize each other in heaven. Just better looking!
In 1 Cor. 15: 44, Paul tells us a natural body was given to us, but it [will be] raised a spiritual body. This spiritual body is understood in comparison to the natural body which will decay. It is spiritual not in the sense of ghostly spirits, but being spirit-filled! This spiritual body is one that is filled with the spirit of God in us.
So, what happens on the day of resurrection? Let’s look at these two passages: 1 Th 4:16–17 and John 5:28-29. In Jesus’ own words, as he describes this day vividly.
1 Th 4:16–17
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
The “dead in Christ” refers to the believers who have died before Jesus’ second coming. They are Christians like you and I. We would have been dead for a long time before Christ comes again. According to Jesus, we will rise first before those who are alive at that time.
Note the use of the preposition “in” “the dead in Christ.” It denotes a special relationship between Jesus and the believers. When we are still alive, and when we believe in Jesus, we are alive in Christ. But when we are dead, we are still in Christ! How amazing is this? Even in our death, we remain in Christ. This union is not broken even in our death!
2 Cor. 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
Once we accept God’s gift of forgiveness, we begin our relationship in union with Christ. We begin our process of sanctification – the process of becoming the new creation! We begin our Christian journey of transformation to be Christ-like. To believe in the resurrection of the body is to believe that our human body will be made into a new creation. Our old self will pass away, our new self will be clothed in Christ Jesus. Even in our death, our physical body may decay and perish, but our new resurrected body will be glorious.
On the day of resurrection, both the good and the evil people will be raised from the dead. The righteous will be resurrected to life and the reprobates to judgment.
John 5:28-29
28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Now we come to the last statement of our creed. I believe in the life everlasting.
- Our Eternal Life as union with God and in Christ.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
The word “eternal” or “everlasting” denotes more than an endless time. It “implies a relation of intense involvement in time.” It is qualitative rather than quantitative. It is not about the length of time, but the ongoing and permanent relationship with God and in Christ. It doesn’t necessarily mean to live forever and ever, with no end in sight, a sense of immortality. But it means to be together with God and in Christ. God is eternal in the sense that he is without limits of duration or time. God is not bound by the concept of time. And because God is eternal, and we are in union with God, we too have eternal life. The moment we are no longer in Christ, we also no longer have eternal life.
So, in this sense, our eternal life begins the moment we form this relationship with Jesus as our Lord and saviour. When we surrender our self to the lordship of Jesus, our life everlasting begins.
This concludes our series on the Apostles’ Creed. I hope that we now have a better clarity when we recite this creed in worship. Allow me to summarise.
The forgiveness of sins is an act of grace. This grace is given to us unconditionally. The justification of faith alone refers to the faith of Jesus Christ. It is not by our works that we are saved. Repentance is the consequential response to this act of grace that was given to us first. We must repent and believe if we accept this gift of salvation. We believe in the resurrected body because we believe that God will raise us when Christ comes again. For us believers, we are in a permanent state of union with God and in Christ, even in our death. Our resurrection is our transformation from the old natural body of decay to one that is new and alive in Christ. We are a new Creation in Christ. We believe in life everlasting because our participation in Christ is constant and permanent. It is eternal, not in the temporal sense, but in the eternal unity of our relationship in Christ.
To this, we say, amen!
