SHORT time ago, the writer met an intelligent young lady, who, nevertheless, thought it presumptuous on anyone's part, to assert that he was saved. She believed it was quite right and praiseworthy for all to live good Christian lives, but very wrong and unbecoming in any to say they knew that their sins had already been forgiven. This lady being a school teacher, liberty was taken to ask her if she taught the scriptures to the young children attending her school.
She replied, "Oh, yes, I teach the little ones such words as these: 'Feed my lambs.'”
Without waiting to point out to her, that no one is in a fit state of soul to feed Christ's lambs, who is not consciously reconciled to God by the death of His Son, she was further asked: "Suppose a little girl came to you for an explanation of these words I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake'; how would you explain this scripture to the child, without showing that it assures those whom it addresses that their sins are already forgiven?”
Now, dear reader, it is most important that you should see that the "knowledge of salvation," "by the remission of sins," is not only attainable here, but is in fact one of the very first messages God sends to you in the gospel of His grace; and that no one can live "a good Christian life" while the question of his acceptance with God remains unsettled. His word is express.
The forgiveness of sins is viewed in more ways than one in scripture. We learn there both the forgiveness of the sinner, and the forgiveness of the child of God. Those who have believed in Christ, and are therefore "the children of God by faith" in Him, sometimes, alas! grievously err, and need to confess their sins to God, and to one another.
But all this is under God's government. They still continue to be His children, and He remains their Father. It is much to be regretted, that not a few who have really trusted in Christ, on finding they have failed, revert practically to the old ground of being lost sinners before God; instead of seeing that, while our wrong-doing must ever make us amenable to His Fatherly discipline, our Christian relationship with Him is not destroyed, even by failure. God's children, if disobedient, suffer sometimes very serious consequences in this world: indeed they may even suffer loss in eternity through their careless walk here; but, having already "passed from death unto life," they do not “come into judgment" as lost sinners.
Reader! if you on the one hand, believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but on the other, have slipped away from Him, and have, therefore, a bad conscience, do not give yourself up for lost, but come, and come now, to the Father in the name of Christ; and confessing your sins to God, while you sever yourself from all you know to be wrong, accept by faith the forgiveness which He assures you is given. "For if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
But what is evidently in view in 1 John 2:1212I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. (1 John 2:12) is the forgiveness of sinners when they first believe. At once "we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." In the first and twelfth verses of this chapter, true believers in Christ are all addressed as "little children," but in verse thirteen they are distinguished as "little children," "young men" and "fathers." In the twelfth verse, the words "little children" do not mean the newly-born into the world, but all those born into the family of God. Some persons reach manhood, or even old age before they thus become as little children. But it is certain that such "little children" have full divine authority that forgiveness is already bestowed.
My reader, would you not like to know that your sins are forgiven you? Such knowledge would work a wonderful revolution in the whole of your future life. Knowing that his sins are forgiven, the Christian servant courageously goes forth to meet unknown perils in the service of his Master, and thus the Christian sailor calmly faces the frequent dangers of the deep. This assurance of God's forgiveness is the secret of the Christian mother's cheerfulness and patience in trying circumstances; the Christian master's equality, justice, and forbearance to his men; the Christian workman's faithfulness, steadiness, and joy in his work. Where redemption is known, religion becomes a career of liberty, instead of a condition of bondage; a state of reality, instead of a round of forms and ceremonies.
How many in singing hymns have thanked God for a salvation with their lips, which they have never believed in their hearts? Have you ever pondered the sinful inconsistency of this? But, when once we know God's forgiveness in our hearts, the Bible, which before was to us a message of condemnation and death, now breathes a spirit of reconciliation from cover to cover. And just as the man who has done no wrong is not afraid to meet a Justice of the Peace, even so, one who is reconciled to God, is not afraid of the awful hell revealed in God's holy word.
But a little child is a perfect picture of helplessness. Some referred to in the scripture we are considering were no doubt little children in the knowledge of God's word. They could not explain its far-reaching prophetic utterances, its profound doctrinal teachings, nor yet the many mysteries of life; but ignorance of all these things, and many more notwithstanding, they are assured of a present forgiveness. The blind man, in the ninth chapter of John, had questions addressed to him which he could not answer, but he was sure on one point. He said: "One thing I know that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”
Neither were those little children likely to have been adepts at walking in the ways of God. A little child learns to walk by degrees. We hear God saying of old, "I taught Ephraim to go, taking him by the arms." In Matt. 9 the man sick of the palsy heard the Savior first of all say, "Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee." It was after this that Jesus said, "Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house." The poor prodigal returned from the far country, received the warm kiss of his father's forgiveness, before there had been time to put shoes on his feet.
Moreover, these little children could not be expected to do much in the service of God. That would no doubt fall to the "young men," or the "fathers," who were, and ought to be strong. The little children are not expected to be like David's mighty men, one of whom entered a pit and slew a lion in a time of snow. If some were unfit for Christian warfare, their sins were forgiven them for His Name's sake.
God and His great love has made known a reason for forgiveness outside the sinner himself. He has provided a substitute for the lost and helpless in the gift of His own Son. When God forgives the sinner, He has before Him the great atoning work which Christ wrought in His death. God is thus righteous in forgiving sins and in justifying the ungodly. Hence we read that "we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom. God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. "We also read," Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things.”
Reader I will you not be one of the "all that believe?" And thus to-day be entitled, with us, to "joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation?”