I don’t know who needs to read this; I just know that many do.
Do you know what the unforgivable sin is?
The only unforgivable sin is rejecting the forgiveness of God.
So embrace that forgiveness.
Here’s what God promises about that forgiveness. First, God promises to forget about your sin. This is what the Bible records God saying through the prophet Jeremiah: “I’ll wipe the slate clean for each of them. I’ll forget they ever sinned!” (Jeremiah 31:34, Msg).
That’s right. When you are forgiven, God gets a case of holy amnesia. You may have gone to God a thousand times to ask for forgiveness of a sin that He forgot about after the first time you asked Him to forgive you. Or maybe you’ve repeated a particular sin over and over, and you go to God and say, “God, I’m so sorry—I did it again.” And He’s asking, “Did what?”
When God forgives, He chooses to forget.
But that’s not all.
God doesn’t just forget; He promises to cleanse you from it. In His eyes, forgiveness completely purifies and cleanses you. Read these words from God through the prophet Isaiah:
"Though your sins are like scarlet,
I will make them as white as snow.
Though they are red like crimson,
I will make them as white as wool."
-Isaiah 1:18, NLT
But that’s not all. There’s more. God promises to remove your sin from your record. This is how the Bible puts it:
"He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west." - Psalm 103:12, NLT
Once you are forgiven by God, your sins are gone. They are cast away. They are never able to come back and haunt you, accuse you, nor condemn you. As Corrie ten Boom once said, when God forgives us, he takes our sins to the deepest part of the ocean, attaches a large weight, drops them overboard, and puts up a “No Fishing” sign.
So drink from the well of forgiveness and take that scarlet letter off your chest. This is what it means to have what Christ did on the cross applied to our lives.
God forgets our sin,
... cleanses us from our sin,
... and removes our sin from the record.
As the apostle John reminds us:
Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything. (I John 3:19-20, NLT)
Like I said, I don’t know who needed to hear this,
... I just know some of you did.
Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Julio Rionaldo
James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on X, Facebook, and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.
There is to be one defining mark of a political Christian.
In John's biography of Jesus, we have the poignant final words and prayers of Jesus to and for His disciples before His death on the cross. Many consider this section to be among the most moving of the New Testament.
So what occupied Jesus during the moments before His death?
Not surprisingly, He wanted the world to know that His death was a sacrificial one—that He was laying down His life for theirs, paying the price for their sins, offering that death as a gift so that they could receive forgiveness and then enter into a full, intimate relationship with God the Father.
But how would that happen?
How would people know, beyond a doubt, that what Jesus was offering really was from God? That Jesus Himself was God the Son in human form, came to planet Earth to show the way? How would it be authenticated in a way that would be unmistakable and would force people to reckon with it? What would be the unanswerable argument in His favor?
He told them: “This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you” (John 15:12, NLT). And then He followed that with a prayer:
“I’m praying not only for them
But also for those who will believe in me
Because of them and their witness about me.
The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind —
Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
So they might be one heart and mind with us.
Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.”
- John 17:20-21 MSG
The observable love between those who called themselves His followers was everything.
Why?
Jesus said it would be this unity, and this unity alone, that would arrest the world’s attention and confirm that He was from the Father.
There has been so much written about the growth of the early church—sociologists have studied it extensively. The explosion of faith in Christ in such numbers and speed that in only a blink of history, the Roman Empire had officially turned from paganism to Christianity. We look for formulas programs, services, and processes. The simple truth is that they fleshed out the challenge and prayer of Jesus.
As the second-century writer Tertullian observed, the awed pagan reaction to the Christian communal life was, “See how they love one another.”
So, what is the mark of a political Christian? It’s the mark of the Christian, which is love.
Loving unity in the Bible doesn’t mean uniformity, where everyone looks and thinks alike. The biblical idea is certainly not to be confused with unanimity, which is complete agreement about every petty issue. Christians can have robust political disagreements.
By unity, the Bible means first and foremost a oneness of heart—a relational unity.
In other words, being kind to one another, gracious to one another, and forgiving of one another instead of assuming the worst or being quick to be suspicious. Biblical unity is about working through conflicts, avoiding slander and gossip, and being generous in spirit.
Love embodied by unity is the mark of the Christian. It is not just a feeling or acknowledgment of love but rather a demonstration of love.
You want to know what should happen?
I should be able to get a few Christians together—one Republican, one Democrat, and one Independent—to go to a brewery and put a flight of good craft beers in front of them. Then, they should be turned loose to talk politics.
You know what else should happen? A group of people near them who are not Christians should be able to overhear that discussion and, in the end, walk over and want to say, “We were listening to you, and we’d really like to hear more about this Jesus because we’ve never heard anything like the love you have for each other in the midst of disagreement.”
That’s the hope of a political Christian marked by love: that the world overhears us and wants to be like us.
And, more importantly, wants to be like Jesus.
Sources: The Apology of Tertullian.
Photo Courtesy: ©Unsplash/PartTimePortraits
Originally published by James Emery White. Used with permission.
James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on X, Facebook, and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.
In an interview with LBC in London, famed atheist Richard Dawkins offered two startling admissions: first, that he mourned the loss of much of what reflects the Christian faith in the world, and second, that he would consider himself a “cultural” Christian. He stated:
I do think we are culturally a Christian country. I call myself a cultural Christian. I’m not a believer, but there is a distinction between being a believing Christian and a cultural Christian.... I love hymns and Christmas carols and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos, and I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense.... [I] would not be happy if, for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches.
Dawkins even added that if he had to choose between Christianity and Islam, he would choose Christianity every single time: “It seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion, in a way that I think Islam is not.”
After this came another lament, written by the self-described agnostic Derek Thompson for The Atlantic:
As an agnostic, I have spent most of my life thinking about the decline of faith in America in mostly positive terms. Organized religion seemed, to me, beset by scandal and entangled in noxious politics. So, I thought, what is there really to mourn? Only in the past few years have I come around to a different view. Maybe religion, for all of its faults, works a bit like a retaining wall to hold back the destabilizing pressure of American hyper-individualism, which threatens to swell and spill over in its absence.
He adds that rituals of religion bring that which is “embodied, synchronous, deep, and collective.” His final words are haunting: “It took decades for Americans to lose religion. It might take decades to understand the entirety of what we lost.”
Strange that a famed atheist bemoans the loss of what Christianity has brought to culture, and an agnostic the loss of what Christianity brought to the dynamics of human community. They both reject the faith itself but also mourn the loss of its influence. Neither considers that what they mourn may, in truth, be a powerful argument for reconsidering whether there might be truth in its tenants. After all, as its founder has already suggested, such things should be judged by their fruit. But at the very least, the world is beginning to see the cultural importance of the “Keeper of the Springs,” a story often told by the late Peter Marshall.
The “Keeper of the Springs” was a quiet man who lived high above an Austrian village in the deep forests of the Alps. He had been hired many years before by a town eager to see debris cleared from the pools of water that fed the spring that flowed through their town. The man did his job well, faithfully patrolling the hills, removing branches and leaves. The clear water made the village a popular attraction, with graceful swans gliding across the spring, creating rich farmlands and picturesque views. As time went by, the town council faced budgetary challenges. They saw a line-item for a “Keeper of the Springs.” Who was this? What did he do? Surely such an obscure role wasn’t needed. By unanimous vote they released the man from his duties.
At first, nothing changed. The water flowed as clear and free as ever. The town council felt reassured in their decision. Then autumn came and the leaves began to fall. Wind blew and branches fell into the pools. Soon the flow of water began to lessen. Then a yellowish-brown tint appeared in the spring. Soon the water grew even darker. Before long, a film covered the water along the banks and a stank odor filled the air. Millwheels ground to a halt, the tourists left with the swans, and soon disease and sickness began to permeate the village.
The town council called another meeting. Realizing their mistake in judgment, they brought back the old “Keeper of the Springs.” Within a matter of weeks, the waters began to return to their pristine state. Marshall’s point then, even more pressing today, is that what the spring meant to the village, the Christian faith means to the world. Christians know this from the teaching of Jesus about the importance of being salt and light. Now atheists and agnostics are seeing it too through the loss of cathedrals and community.
James Emery White
Sources
Derek Thompson, “The True Cost of the Churchgoing Bust,” The Atlantic, April 3, 2024, read online.
LBC video post of Richard Dawkins on X, posted March 31, 2024, watch here.
Walter Sánchez Silva, “Famous Atheist Richard Dawkins Says He Considers Himself a ‘Cultural Christian,’” Catholic News Agency, April 3, 2024, read online.
Catherine Marshall, Mr. Jones, Meet the Master.
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/ThitareeSarmkasat
James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on X, Facebook, and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.
