When we think about forgiveness, we usually think about three areas for which we need forgiveness: our thoughts, our words, and our actions. And each of these three areas can be viewed in terms of sins of commission and sins of omission, what we have done and what we have not done, and so on.

But even if God forgave us for all these sins, it’s not enough forgiveness to save us. We need forgiveness not just for what we have or have not done, but for what we are. We need forgiveness not just for our thinking/saying/doing but for our being. Even if I managed never to sin in thought, word, or deed, by omission or by commission, I would still need forgiveness for what I am.

To illustrate, imagine your sinful nature like a witch’s cauldron; a seething, swirling pot of disgusting, poisonous, and noxious mixture. When it heats up, it boils over now and again, and the contents of the cauldron spew out, spill onto the floor, and splatter anyone nearby. That’s what happens when we sin, our sinful nature boils over, and sin breaks out, injuring us and anyone else in the vicinity.

But what about when the cauldron is not boiling over, when sin is not being seen, felt, or smelled by us or others. The cauldron is still there; it’s still there before God; and it’s still offending Him and provoking Him to anger.

One of the things that happens in Christian conversion, is that we come to realize that our biggest problem is not our sins but our sinfulness, not the frequent or infrequent spillovers but the constant presence of a swirling, seething sinful nature in our hearts that revolts and offends a holy God. That’s what the Apostle Paul describes in Romans 7v7-14.

Read the rest of the article at the Christward Collective.

  • Mark Olivero

    indeed – “by nature”