Pre-school theology.
It is always good for a laugh or two.
Sometimes it even becomes our teacher.
Such was the case recently when my husband came home telling
me a story told to him by one of the hygienists who work at his office. She has
a precious little boy, Isaac, who is about 4 years old. Four year olds are
wonderful sources of information as far as I am concerned. They may not always
have their facts straight, but they are usually good for a few laughs.
Apparently Isaac was telling his cousin, who is about his
age, the Easter story.
“Jesus died on the cross to take away all our sins”, said
Isaac.
So far, so good.
Here is where the theological train ran off the tracks.
“And on the third day……….he gave them back.”
Bahahahahaha! We have laughed about that for days now, but
the Holy Spirit would not leave me alone about it.
I fear all too often we live out this version of the Easter
story. So often, we act as if Jesus failed in his mission to not only take our
sins away, but completely cover them forever. In full repentance we confess and
lay our sins at the foot of the cross, asking for Jesus’ blood to cover them.
Then, in less than 24 hours, we are feeling all guilty and shamed over that
very sin. We mope around and tell others that ‘we just have not been able to
forgive ourselves for what we did.’
We forget that God promised to remove our sins from us, as
far as the east is from the west. (Proverbs 103: 12.) Now, I know I’m not the
brightest Crayola in the box, but as best I can tell, the east and west never
meet, so if God promised to take away our sins as far as the east is from the
west….well, I think that means they are gone….for good.
Now, let’s deal with this ‘I can’t forgive myself’ thing.
That is such a prevalent theology today. Psychiatrists make thousands of
dollars trying to help people forgive themselves for things they did. I heard renowned
Bible study teacher and author, Kay Arthur, address this topic recently. She
said the idea of forgiving ourselves cannot be found anywhere in the Bible. I
was stunned. I had never considered that, so I went searching in the Bible to
see if she was right.
Guess what?
It isn’t there.
Do you know what means?
It means that if we
sincerely ask God to forgive us for our sins, that is enough. If we say that we
need God’s forgiveness PLUS our own, we are telling God that Jesus’ death on
the cross was not enough; that it was deficient in some way.
What pride! What arrogance on our part! Good grief, we must
get rid of this faulty ‘I need to forgive myself’ theology. It isn’t biblical.
It isn’t right.
So, in these days following Easter I hope we can remember
that Jesus died on the cross to take away our sins. Period. They are gone. Now,
live like it.
MEDITATION MOMENT: Have you been guilty of falling prey to the ‘I cannot forgive myself’ theology?
