It is of all importance for us, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, to distinguish between sin and sins. The one is the nature of evil in us, and the other is the fruit of that nature in our acts. From the one we want deliverance. For the other we want forgiveness.
The first thing that troubles a divinely quickened soul is sirs -that consciousness of guilt before God that brings on the conscience the fear of condemnation. The more the word of God deals with the conscience the more miserable the person becomes. The thoughts, feelings, words and acts, as seen in the light of God's presence, are all viewed as sins, and the dread of the final judgment of God increases upon the soul as the number and enormity of these sins is recognized by the conscience. The sense of guilt before God becomes complete, and the soul now realizes its utterly lost condition, and cries out for mercy.
God is before the mind as a judge, and the only hope the person has is in His mercy. "God be merciful to me a sinner" is all the soul feels able to say. He pleads guilty-confesses sins, and asks for pardon. Forgiveness of sins is the one, deep need of the soul, for conviction is complete. It is here that the work of Christ for the sinner, as having on the cross borne his sins, comes in. -God has set forth Jesus a mercy-seat through faith in His blood," and Christ being thus accepted before God as the ground of pardon, the Spirit of God seals the conscience in the value of the blood of Christ, and with this, on the authority of God's word, comes the knowledge of the forgiveness of sins. Sins having passed from the conscience, through this application of the blood of Christ, the fear of judgment is completely gone, and the person rejoices in a present salvation. Joy takes the place of the previous misery, and there is peace with God.
The question of sins is settled, and while this joy of salvation continues all goes well; but soon another trouble overtakes the soul, and the joy dies down, at least in measure, and after a while completely. The forgiveness of sins is retained, and there is no fear of ultimate judgment, yet the soul is in misery and distress. Conscience is again at work, but this time not about sins, but about sin. The sins are all seen to be gone in the blood of Christ, but, alas, the sin,-the evil nature, is still felt to be working in the heart, and do what it will the soul finds that nothing keeps it in check. God is before the soul, not now as a judge, but as One to be loved and served. Conscience keeps saying, do this, and don't do that, while at the same time it convicts the soul of doing the very opposite of what ought to be done. The love of God moves in the heart, giving increasingly the desire to please Hint, and yet every attempt to do so fails.
The holiness of God works powerfully in the soul, and the hatred of sin is intense. Every energy is put forth to overcome sin, and develop what is good, until at last the discovery is made that there is nothing but sin there, and together with this the bitter conviction of being helplessly captive under sin takes possession of the soul, and the cry is now, " Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver from the body of this death."
When sins simply were in question, forgiveness seemed the one and only thing required to give complete happiness, but sin is now the trouble, and the sense of forgiveness gives no relief, indeed it only makes the bitterness of sin more felt, because the sense of forgiveness fills the heart with gratitude, and supplies the deepest possible motive not to sin, but this gives no power to rise above sin, it only makes sin as an active thing the more intolerable. Deliverance from the power of sin alone can bring relief now, and under legal efforts to be good, only complete captivity to sin is the state arrived at. During all this process under law to attain holiness self has been looked to, it has been I, I, I, all along until rent with agony the cry for help from another has gone forth.
The Spirit of God answers this cry by presenting Christ to the soul, not now as bearing sins, but as having died for sin, and in Ills death to sin, as having died with Him when He died, the believer finds himself dead to sin; not in experience, but by faith as having died in Christ to it. This knowledge gives relief, and then with the sense of real deliverance, because faith in Christ's work is now carrying the soul, comes the exultant note of praise, " I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
A deep, calm, joy takes possession of the heart, and the soul now rests in Christ risen from the dead, having learned the truth of its own death and resurrection in Christ. It is no longer, " I am this, and I will do that," but "Christ has done that, and Christ is this." Not only that, There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ," but that " The law of the Spirit of life ill Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death."
For the continued enjoyment of this deliverance two things are needed: the abiding reckoning of ourselves " dead to sin," as having died with Christ; and the realization of being in Christ in a new life, where sin is not, as being risen with Christ.
May the Lord in His goodness give all our readers to know through the simple testimony of His word, not only the difference between sin and sins, hut with this knowledge, the enjoyment of deliverance from sin, as well as forgiveness of sins.