As I mentioned last time, in my years of walking with Christ (oh so falteringly), and study of the Word of God, I’ve jotted down over time – some fundamentals or principles that continue to guide my own thinking and living.

Once more, these are not in any particular order. Just as each dawned upon me in retrospect. I pray they will be useful in your own thinking. They have come to impact mine.

Principle #2 – 2. Forgiveness of sins is personal – even with God. Justification is judicial.

Ever since the Reformation, the recovery of the glorious truth of “justification by faith” has taken a most prominent place in Biblical Christian thinking and theology. As well it should. Nothing so combats the true Gospel as making our right standing before God depend somehow upon ourselves, and not the imputed righteousness of Christ.

At the same time, it is possible for us to think so theologically, and in terms of the forensic (legal) justification of the Believer, that the relationship aspect of our salvation can get short shrift.

Because I’ve addressed the concept of asking forgiveness of God regularly as Jesus taught us in Matt. 6 elsewhere, I’ll not go long in it here. But the fact is, some today reason that because we are forensically justified and forgiven, that for the Christian to ask forgiveness is contradictory or unnecessary. I think Jesus’ instructions in the Lord’s Prayer militates against that conclusion. Is there a contradiction here? I don’t think so.

Take marriage for example.

Upon entering into the marriage covenant – we might liken it somewhat to our forensic justification and reconciliation. We have been made one with our spouse even as we have been made one with God in Christ, partaking of His Spirit. So far so good.

Now just as in marriage, sins against one another do not automatically dissolve the covenant itself. Nevertheless, by virtue of those sins intimacy and sweet harmony can be quite injured. My wife and I are not divorced every time we sin against one another. Nor do we need to be re-wed after each reconciliation after those offences.

So it is the Believer’s sins do not dissolve the covenant by which we are brought into oneness with God in the New Covenant. That legal standing is a once-for-all status – which, higher than mere human covenants (like marriage), can never be dissolved.

But, we’re not just legally joined to Him in covenant. We are now in relationship with Him. A real, living and dynamic relationship. And in that relationship, our sins against Him are not just legal infractions, they are personal affronts. Affronts which need to be addressed. Affronts which left unaddressed – though He responds to us in complete faithfulness, nevertheless can injure our intimacy and sweetness with Him.

It is because of this dynamic that Christians are warned against “quenching” the Spirit (1 Thess. 5:19). A word which carries with it images of throwing dirt on a fire. Dampening both the light and heat a fire gives off. It shades from the fullness of the light of His love and from the warmth of the soul’s perception of His favor. It is why the Puritans used to use phrases like “keep short accounts with God.”

Unaddressed offences breeds coolness of spiritual passion. And the longer they go unaddressed, the more distant we become. The more we stand on legal status rather than dynamic reality in relationship.

This is why we need to understand that forgiveness, even with God, is a personal matter, and not just a legal or forensic one. And when we fail to live in the reality of that personal aspect, our entire relationship with Him can take on a transactional tone. I sin, God forgives. Great arrangement! But if that’s it, a relationship which treats Him only like a judge, and not as a true Father.

Yes, we need to be reconciled to Him through faith in the atoning work of Jesus on the Cross. And we also need to walk with Him in personal relationship as children with our Father. A relationship which calls for the recognition of the personal nature of sins, and the need to address those sins face-to-face so to speak – in the day to day life of faith with our God and Father.