Thoughts On God's Forgiveness #4

Kasham asks, So, if I am forgiven by Jesus of all my sin then I can do anything I want and it won't matter, I'll still enter Paradise.

Some of the first Christians also were confused on this very matter and actually claimed what you say to be true. They were severely chastised and rebuked for this. In Romans 6:1-6 we read,

1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

"5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--

This is very simple for a Christian to understand. It is what our faith is built on. This why the New Testament declares of Jesus, "that there is no other name in heaven and on earth by which we must be saved."

A good, sincere and faithful Christian will, by their free choice, try to please God in all things....to be obedient to his commandments (especially the command to Love God and Love Neighbor)...and to avoid the things that might tempt them to turn astray.

Christians need not do this in order to enter Paradise....but because they have already received the promise of God that Jesus Christ has saved them from their sin. Christians live good lives out of gratitude for what God has already done for them.

This is why Christians are not "fatalists" (at least not as regards salvation). Christians are, or ought to be, optimists as regards to their eternal destination because, as the Bible tells us, our hope is "certain." Why? Because,

"God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?" (Numbers 23:19)

Through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, God has promised me eternal life. (John 3:16) I, for one, am happy to hold God to his Word!