Past Sins

Humans are sinful (Romans 3:23). God is perfect and holy, and wants humans to be perfect and holy (Matthew 5:48; Leviticus 19:2). Humans have no way to get to God by themselves, to come back into a good relationship with him. If the God-man relationship is broken, it is humanity’s fault. Prophecy points to the past, and in humanity’s past looms sin, like a vulture, shredding the flesh of that which is perishing. We and our world are being eaten alive by our own past wrong decisions. Humans are guilty. Our consciences condemn us. God’s word condemns us. Our memory condemns us. Humans are fallen from grace, unworthy before God, and in utter desparity.

God’s justice and human sin requires death as the penalty for human pride, envy, murder, covetiousness, drunkeness, immorality, and lies. But God reminds humans about past sins not to condemn them, but to lift them from the bondage of sin, to offer hope and a future, to give the invaluable gift of forgiveness. When humans accept God’s forgiveness, God takes away their sins (Psalm 103:12). When God points back to past human sin through prophecy, he does so in order to offer a solution (John 3:17).