Gnosticsm & the Proclamation of Christianity with special reference to John's Gospel (Cont)
Forgiveness Through Redemption
1 John 1: 8,9 (NIV); 1 John 2: 1-3 (NIV); John 8: 36 (AV)
'The Bible maintains that man, (though he continually denies this), desperately needs forgiveness due to the appalling act of sin, [59] i.e. man's red-handed mutiny against God and blatant rejection of all His ways. After man spurned the Fatherhood of God, claimed the right to himself and went his own way, he found he needed to worship something.
Isaiah says that a man takes a tree and cuts it in two. He uses part on which to cook his food, and the other part he carves into an idol to worship. 'None of us do that !' we say.
But we do. We worshp our idols.
Idols come in different forms, such as possessions, a particular person, power, information technology especially the internet, evolution. All these things have a place in man's thinking and acting. It is the worship of them as gods that is wrong and if we are honest with ourselves this is what we do. The list is endless but the GREATEST IDOL of all is ONESELF. [60].
In the face of this, how does God forgive sin? The Bible tells us that, due to sin, the human race is a ruin of what it was designed to be.
God Himself has taken the responsibility of sin and the proof that He did so is the Cross through which we are forgiven. God holds me responsible if I refuse to let Him deliver me from sin'. [61] (See Explanatory Note 4 at end of this document.)
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