In typical American Christianity, a person’s forgiveness by God is seen as a means to an end.<\/p>\n\n\n
And the end is his or her eternity in heaven.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
It’s simple.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Now, I would agree that God’s forgiveness should be understood as a means, but time and again, the Scriptures make it clear that the end He has in mind is our righteousness.<\/p>\n\n\n
We were created to function as God’s image here on earth and I don’t see anything in Scripture to indicate that He scrapped that original plan when humans through the sin wrench into he works.<\/p>\n\n\n
It only meant that we all had to take the long way around.<\/p>\n\n\n
For example, it’s right there in one of the most famous Old Testament prophecies of a coming time when God’s Spirit would dwell in God’s people. Take a look at what is bookended by talk about getting people cleaned up in Ezekiel 36:<\/p>\n\n\n
24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses<\/b>, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. <\/i><\/b>28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. 29And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses<\/b>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In typical American Christianity, a person’s forgiveness by God is seen as a means to an end. And the end is his or her eternity in heaven.\u00a0 It’s simple.\u00a0 Now, I would agree that God’s forgiveness should be understood as a means, but time and again, the Scriptures make it clear that the end He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10308,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10307\/revisions\/10308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}