Understanding Sin

WELCOME PRAYER SONG SILENCE

We experienced a wonderful EschatologyStudy of “last things”—TGNN teaches all biblical eschatology was fulfilled in 70 A.D. More conference yesterday hosted by the Great NewsThe message that prophecy is fulfilled and we are free to pursue God in love and liberty—without fear or religious control. Network and if you question whether Yeshua has returned or not you might check it out. Also, as an update for you all here today, I have decided to gather up all the Psalms I am not presently inspired to cover and am putting them chronologically in a file to return to before we complete this series. At the present, this file contains Chapters 43 through 50. Before hitting chapter 50 today let’s just complete last weeks chapter which touched on a theme of water – there was a few verses remaining before we stopped.

Reflections on Psalm 42

So, continuing at verse 5 of Chapter 42 lets read,

5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.
6 O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore, will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.

At verse seven the writer returns to subject of water and says,

7 Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.
8 Yet YAHAVAH will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.

I love that notion that YAHAVAH has a song, His song that we hear in the nighttime. Verse 9

9 I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
10 As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?
11 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

Exploring Psalm 51

Okay. Let’s jump out to Psalm 51. The title to this Psalm is long, reading in some mss. “To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bath-sheba.” Seems fitting – except of the 4th and 18th verses which do not necessarily support the event of David and Bathsheba and Uriah. For instance, some believe that the 4th verse is hard to assign to the story as it says,

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

But whether it belongs or not to the David’s sinning is up to personal interpretation. So believers believe it is impossible to assign this to his actions with Bathesheba and Uriah by proclaiming that David sinned as much against them as God. Is this true? We will talk about it. Then verse 14, some say refers to time when Jerusalem lay in ruins, but I see it as having direct application to Uriah, when it says,

14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

In any case let’s read through the Psalm then talk about the big three letter S word – sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace..

Psalm 51:1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which

Request for Mercy and Forgiveness

me. 11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. 12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. 13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. 15 O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. 16 For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. 18 Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem. 19 Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

David’s Plea for Mercy

In the face of David’s sin, he writes the following asking God Vs. 1 to “Have mercy upon me,” according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. The first request speaks to a most tender hearted affection looking out over a severely wounded soul and groaning with compassion for their state. The second, rendered, “according to thy loving-kindness,” askes for a strong proneness, a ready, large, and liberal disposition, to goodness and compassion, powerfully prompting kindness and flowing freely like water from a living fountain. This line is more elevated and descriptive to the first. Then the third line, rendered “according to thy tender mercies,” denotes what the Greeks called splagcnizesyai, and describes the highest form of compassion possible.” David is openly pleading guilty, but being a man after God’s own heart,“ he is begging to have access to it in all of these ways. It tells us something about forgiveness of others and their sins, doesn’t it? To have “mercy” According the the lovingkindness of Christ, according unto the multitude of His tender mercies, blotting out their transgressions.” Kind David is asking these things of the Living God.

2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. That line wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity speaks to repeated cycles in the washing machine, to wash, rinse and repeat the process over and over again. This was the heart of David in the face of his sins and in a time before the writer of Hebrews posits in Hebrews 9:13-14 “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Acknowledgment of Sin

What is the basis for Davids request? He says, 3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Wherever David looked, whatever he did, he could not escape his sinful acts. We will talk about this attitude in a moment. And then at verse 4 we get the big one with David saying, 4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Just to recount, David’s sin was pretty conniving, ruthless and self-centered. I mean he first takes Bathsheba as his own when he could have had any single woman instead. Full on selfishness. Then she gets prego and instead of facing up to that he tried several times to get Bathsheba’s husband Uriah drunk (Full on manipulation) so he would go home, have sex with her so the child could be passed off as Uriah’s. (Full on deception). When Uriah refused due to his love for David, and slept by the palace gate instead of going home. Instead of letting his sin out and facing up to it, David strategized by getting Uriah in battle through his instructions to his fellow warriors – so now he is guilty of murder through indirect means. Now, we tend to elevate our station as humans and speak of people sinning against us. But the reality is sin is defined as missing the mark and that mark, and what made it sin, was created by God in and through His Law. So through our missing the mark that God gives we inevitably do hurt one another and commit injustices against each other but the crime is ultimately against God the Lawgiver. Laws to protect

Understanding Sin and Redemption

of justice but sin is always against God alone and that is what I believe David, who had a heart after God is saying as His love for Bathsheba, Uriah was wanting. In other words, in King David’s mind, he was asking God directly to forgive him and that is the context of the passage. And then David adds to his profession and says,

5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Now, let’s touch on this idea for a moment. Job wisely wrote,

Job 14:1 Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. 2 He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. 3 And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee? 4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.

We tend to think of ourselves as top of the food chain “HUMANS!” because God made us in His image, and everything orbits around us but the reality is after the fall, we were really nothing more than elevated and talented animals – with most of us doing exactly what animals do. This is hard for many people to accept – fine and in their case I suggest we patiently wait for them to meet their Maker and then they will see. But since the fall to Christ’s victory over sin deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God. Satan and Hell Job’s insight held fast when he asks, 4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.

The Nature of Humanity

I mean just look at the first child that came forth from Eve – his name was Cain, right? And we know what he did. On this basis we have the conception and creation of the Man Christ, born of a woman (with human will toward sin and human emotions to comfort and guide him) but with a father that was Spirit. How this worked so that He could enter into this world without the human stain of sin can be assigned to Him having God as His Father, but what that meant on His sin nature I can say, but He alone is the only human God ever acknowledged as His beloved human Son. So, when King David, prior to Christ says,

5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

I think we have to see that this was entirely true – of him and all others – before Christ. We will talk about the rest of us post Christ in a moment. At verse six David speaks to what he things YAHAVAH wants and adds,

6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Its as if he is saying from the womb I have been corrupt and lawless with my hands, and will and ways but you want your truth in my inward parts because in these unobservable parts (like the heart and mind – the soul – you can and do help me to understand your wisdom – yet another facet we will address before our conclusion today.

Symbolism in Purification

At verse seven David appeals to the physical reactions the Nation had been given (in Leviticus 14, Numbers 19) and even cites what Isaiah also mentions, saying

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Isaiah wrote in his very first chapter verse 18, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

Intriguingly, so poetically, the ancient Jews had two basic ways in scripture to address what is called sin. One is what we just read, and to appeal to God and for them to do what He told them to do in the face of it – in that former way their sins would become, at least temporarily, “white as snow.” The other way was emblematic in the outcome of the disease leprosy, which when untreated, unaddressed and ignored, manifested in the very same way. When we covered Numbers 12 Moses siblings decided to speak against him and a cloud descended over the tabernacle where God was deciding what to do and we read at verse 10-12,

10 And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and,

The Concept of Sin and Redemption

behold, she was leprous. 11 And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned. 12 Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s womb. Interesting the literary connection between the state of both Miriam and David(in-utero) and in that age as David sought to be white as snow but Miriam was leprous – therefore white as snow – but wholly unclean and untouchable. What artistry our God has.

Now listen closely to David’s petition in verses 8-10 because they speak to the humble heart before God but are anachronistic in this victorious age of fulfillment – ready? David says,

“Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.”

The Past and Present Economies

I can hear pastors from here to Timbuktu citing these passages and bringing them on the heads of congregates everywhere. Right? And it makes sense as this was the attitude of David, of the apostles, of the Bride but we must be discerning when we assign it to ourselves straight across because we are reading from two entirely different economies. The former economy, under the Law and in the face of God being inaccessible to sinful human beings, was WAS DOTTY inaccessible to Man – as it as predicated on elements of the Law and prior to the consummation of that age through Christ. Here is the hard part folks, dismissed by most believers today – ready?

The Modern Believer’s Perspective

The mindset for believers today remains the same in terms of humility, contrition, and a broken heart (especially when we allow our flesh to reign and act in ways that are in opposition to His will). HOWEVER, our petitions, our pleas are not the same as we might ask for God to “Make us to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” But we are not seeking for Him to . . . “Hide His face from our sins,” nor “to blot out all of our iniquities.” Nor are we asking for him to, “Create in us a clean heart,” nor to “renew a right spirit within us.” Contrary to most organized religion we are not continually “asking Him to not cast us away from his presence” nor do we plead that He “will not take His holy spirit from us.” These were all petitions based on the “conditional relationship” believers like David lived under in that economy and here is the deal, to think that our acceptance before Him continues to be conditional and subject to our abilities to obey His Law stand CONTRARY to the finished work of Christ where our faith and trust in Him alone is our solution.

Because (BECAUSE!) of CHRIST and our complete faith in Him, we trust that God has “forever hid His face from our sin,” and that he has (HAS!) “past, present and future tense, “BLOTTED OUT ALL OF OUR INIQUITIES!” Additionally, we do not ask for Him to “create in us a clean heart” – He cleaned it the moment we believed and we TRUST IN THIS THROUGH FAITH! We certainly do not need for Him to “renew a right spirit within us.” His Spirit has been right and present in us unconditionally all along. That said, I do believe that verse 12 is applicable to us in this day as David asks in his,

12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Okay, we have some work to do because we have a book that plainly describes sin, and its corrosive nature – with principles that apply formerly and presently. But this same book also describes God’s answer to sin, which is not us, but the finished work of His Son. This tends to leave people who study this marvelous book schizophrenically straddled between the biblical reality and repeated theme of sin against the final solution for sin having been given and how to see the two. The standard approach is to assign the contents of the book to ourselves as unforgiven sinners (again, because it is in the book) and to promote the solution to this fact like an antibiotic that a person must choose to take. In essence,

Sin and Its Contextual View

This situation leaves all undiscerning readers with having to choose what to focus on – “biblically based sin” or “the biblically based solution assigned and applied to a different age.” This is where what we preach at the Great News stands wholly apart from what can be summarized as religion of the past 2000 years and what we encourage everyone to see as a direct subjective relationship with God via the indwelling Spirit of His Son. I tried to summarize all the facets of sin in a graph and ended up erasing it entirely because the complexity is too great. So, we are going to work through as much of it as we can in an attempt to offer the most contextual view of it, all things considered.

Right out the gate however, I want to point out that an internal proof that supports our take that the Spirit is Primary and not the scripture for the simple reason that if we reverse this, and adapt the Protestant view of Sola Scriptura, our primary focus will be on?? Sin and a conditional solution to it instead of on the given solution and our complete trust in Him – alone. It is going to take some work and time but I think its worth it. I would suggest that sin, “or missing the mark” as the Greek word is defined is a constant element in the universe and that there has never ever been a time, due to the eternal existence of God, who is the mark, where sin did not exist.

The Eternal Principle

We can say this because of the first words of Moses to describe the creation of this world and this is the way he does it. Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. Since we accept the notion that God is everlasting, eternal, light and love, that there must be an opposite, temporary, dark, selfish. I suggest that it is on and through this eternal principle that extends off the eternality of God Himself, that there has always and will forever be, elements, places, creations, purposes, intentions that “miss the mark.” Does or did God create sin? Only by and through Him existing, put it that way. Could be wrong.

After whatever came before His decision to create heaven and earth and all things that in them is, and then creating Man in his image, male and female made He them, we cannot ignore the fact that where God is, there must be non-God, which we could call, “Sin,” “Dark,” and or “missing the mark” of Him and His perfections. Where God made Man in His image, was pleased with this construction and the environs where He placed the first couple, we have to ask, seriously, Did God make Man with the capacity to sin or miss His objectives? Our answer will put to bed all the ideas and debates over freewill because He either did or He determined Adam and Eve’s choice to eat of the fruit He forbade them to eat.

Free Will and Choice

I maintain that YAHAVAH created Man with the ability to choose, and in their case, choose more freely than any other human up to Christ’s victory, and that this is proven by the fact – the fact – that before Eve actually ate the forbidden fruit, she chose to eat it. Was she tricked? She was. But the scripture says she was tricked by selfwill and self-desire over choosing to put faith in YAHAVAH’s words and warnings, or as the scripture says, Genesis 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. The serpent – proving again the existence of Dark sinful miss the mark forces prior to the Creation account – aided in her being deceived but she had not fallen yet when she decided to serve sin (the Mark God gave) instead of God. These observations are invaluable in our assessment of the overall plan of God, of the right cosmology and of His ultimate solution.

The Concept of Sin and Free Will

Now, just as Adam and Eve had the ability to sin before falling, so did God give them the ability to actuate their rebellion. He did this by planting in the garden not one, but two trees – one would keep them physically alive and healthy (the Tree of Life) and the other, God promised, would bring death – meaning spiritual separation from God – very emblematic of God separating the Dark from the Light in the Genesis account and underscoring the fact that hamartia, missing the mark, sin, darkness and death (meaning the absence of God) was an eternal ongoing event and forever will be. Additionally, the freedom God gives for things, creations, people to choose sin is obvious in the mix.

Thus far we have some basic assumptions, including: Missing the mark is an eternal condition of all free-will matter. God established this in the first parents proven by their construction and choices in the presence of them. God is so good He made them perfectly and without sin, but gave them not only the ability to “miss the mark” but the opportunity in actually providing them with two trees – one that supported His will, His mark and the other to support missing that mark, which in that day, led to Spiritual death. From these things, which directly prove human accountability to Him through all He had done, He also proved Himself loving by warning them against an action that would separate them from Him and explaining consequences if that is what they elected to do.

The Role of Free Will in Creation

What this did was in effect the first instance of God giving them the bulls eye, or the mark by explaining His will clearly (given them a Law) and then the first couple deciding how they would respond. Its really the only way a good and loving God could and would orchestrate the ways and means of creations He made in His image. If that is too much for you, and you think that God was irresponsible in this or that He gave the first couple a Law that they couldn’t obey, you might look at the spiritual realm that God created and what He freely allowed them to do. I mean, where on earth (or in heaven) did the serpent come from? Do you want to believe that the good God created Him to miss the mark against Him or was the serpent a spiritual evidence of God giving all of His creations free will?

Again, what about angels that He created for the heavenly economy? How did they “fall” or “rebel” against Him? Then look on down the line of human history – was the Good God determining all the evil acts that has occurred on earth by the hands of human beings or were these simply more of God’s creations CHOOSING to miss His Mark? Think before you assign evil to our Maker. Think about every facet that could possibly be involved in the Dark, sinful, mark missing actions of everything our Good God has created, right?

Continuation of Sin and Redemption

So, from before the very beginning of all things, then as a consistent like of His creation of all things, we have a consistent, solid steel cold wire of sin and in response to its natural self-willed existence, we have . . . Him. We are going to continue on from the Garden and talk about sin – and ultimately the solution to Sin – which is our focus as recipients of the Great News view. But let me wrap up Chapter 51 with what David says starting at

Then listen to what David says will result he realizes the former joy and free spirit present in him, saying,

13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee. This concords directly with what Yeshua said about the living well of water last week, that He would give to all who ask, water that not only refreshes and hydrates the individual, but it flows out to others. David continues with his own petition saying at verse 14

14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. The Chaldee version translates this as, “Deliver me from the judgment of slaughter.” Hearkening to the law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” and the adage that “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword.” The idea that when this happes David’s tongue shall praise thy righteousness,” suggesting that in

The State of a Forgiven Mind

His state of a forgiven mind he would not be able to refrain from singing God’s goodness. With a heart believing unto righteousness, David then proclaims:

15 O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

The Principle of a Broken Spirit

And then we have an affirmation of a principle I think David knew well as he states in verse 16-17 and which we covered back in Psalm 40:

16 For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Reiterating the fact that David understood fully that the living God was only pleased by the honest state of the heart and not the sacrificial blood or burnt offerings of animals and that his own broken heart and contrite spirit was what he really relied upon and not religious practices.

David’s Conclusion

David concludes with:

18 Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

Which most scholars believe takes this Psalm and timestamps it to the National Captivity. I have a different take. David was in Jerusalem when he first saw Bathsheba. She was bathing on a rooftop and he looked down from his digs and was overcome with lust. And then she got pregnant, then he started doing what Adam did, making fig leaves, hiding, manipulating the circumstance, getting further and further away from God’s Mark and this caused the Kingdom, at that time and in Jerusalem to shake – and I suggest that this last verse is a Hebrew response to that, then – and not the captivity that would come later.

Okay, Questions/Comments/Prayer