hatchcreek.com Bible blog

1Jn 3:5 NASB  You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.

So many times I’ve thought about how Christ died on the cross to forgive me of my sins.  What a wonderful thought it is to know that the God of all creation would actually forgive ME an unworthy, selfish, rebellious sinner.  It has always boggled my mind that he would do that for me.

But, the above verse tells us He actually not only came to bear our sins on the cross and forgive us of our sins, but to “take away sins.”  Did you get that?  He came to take them away!  That means we don’t have to sin any more!

Wow! What a revelation that was to me!  When we become a Christian we become a new creation in Christ.  Our old self is recreated.  We are brand new.  Yes, we still have our old bodies, but we are new inside, in our spirit.  

Sometimes, I’ve written a long email to someone.  I’ve spent an hour or more and looked up scripture and pasted in several quotes.  Finally, I’m almost finished and I either hit a wrong key, or my computer acts up, and in a blink of an eye that email that I’d spent so much time on completely disappears.  Something has taken it away, and it can never be found or recovered again.  I simply have to start all over again! 

I think when Christ takes away our sins it is something like that.  He actually takes them away never to come back to us.  Those sins are gone!

In the Old Testament there is a good example of the meaning “take away sins.” 

Lev 16:21 LITV  “then Aaron shall lay his two hands on the head of the living goat, and shall confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel, and all their transgressions, and all their sins, and shall put them on the head of the goat, and shall send it by the hand of a chosen man into the wilderness.”

This sin offering was laid upon the head of the scapegoat.  The goat then was sent away forever with the sins upon him.  Get the picture?  That is what Christ did for us on the cross. He took our sins away forever.

But, you say, “Wait a minute, I still find myself sinning at times.  I thought you said our sins were taken away.”

Those sins were taken away when we became a born-again Christian.  We were sanctified, made righteous and holy in God’s sight.  But, we still have our old flesh that we live in as long as we are in this world, and our righteousness will not be complete until we get to Heaven.  In the meantime, we are striving to become more and more like Christ.  We do not have the disposition to sin anymore.  We really don’t want to sin, but sometimes in a weak moment we do.

Yes, we do fall and sin at times, but it is not our way of life now.  If you are a true Christian you will see that your life has been transformed.  You are not the same person as you were before.  When you do sin, you will feel it in your spirit and not be able to live with it.  You will confess it and repent of it and get right with God.  That is what a true Christian does.

On the other hand if you call yourself a Christian but you still live your life the same way as before you got saved then you need to question if you are truly a Christian.  It is impossible for a true believer to continue to live in sin.  Your conscience won’t let you do that.  You are a NEW creation. 

2Co 5:17 LITV  So that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new!

Here again the scripture says, those old things have “passed away.”  They are gone, “taken away,” by Christ. 

The bottom line is this:  Once we are a true Christian we do not have to live in sin anymore!  Isn’t that great?  Sin does not have to control us anymore!  Now, we have a choice.  Before it wasn’t up to us as the devil controlled us, but now, God has given us a choice.  We can choose to reject sin in our lives! 

The way we do this is by living close to God.  We obey the scriptures.  We ask God to allow the Holy Spirit to give us the courage, and strength we need to overcome any sin that keeps us from living the way we should.