The Forgiveness of Sins – Acts 13:38-39

I’d like to begin this morning with an old, old story, some form of which you may have heard several times.

A man, while on vacation, couldn’t sleep one night and decided to go for a moonless, mid-night walk.

Although he carried a good flashlight, he couldn’t see the trail very well.

As he walked along, he stepped too close to the edge of a cliff.

The ground under his foot gave way and tossed him into the darkness.

As he fell, he dropped his light and reached for the cliff face, tearing up his fingers on the jagged rocks.

But he managed to slow his fall and finally grabbed on to a small bush that was protruding out of the rock.

So he was dangling over what he thought was sure death, hanging on to a dangerously weak hand-hold.

After he caught his breath he began to scream for help, but he held little hope of rescue.

After what seemed to him to be hours, he heard a man’s voice below him.

A nearby camper had heard his screams and had come to investigate.

The second man told the other fella to calm himself and that he would help.

But instead of going to the top and dropping a rope, he told the man to let go of the bush.

The fallen man was petrified with fear and refused to let go.

He was sure that his rescuer was not strong enough to catch him.

He wanted someone with ladders and ropes or parachutes.

Despite all the rescuer’s encouragement the fallen man refused to let go.

After hours of hanging there, the sun started to come up and the man could begin to see his predicament.

He was only about ten feet from the canyon floor.

All he had to do was let go, fall onto some soft sand, and walk on home.

That story is a crude illustration of what Paul and Barnabas were attempting to do in Antioch.

The people in that synagogue were struggling for clean consciences before man and God.

They were trying to obey the laws of Moses and their Jewish traditions.

They were magnifying their personal righteousness, not realizing that it was only an illusion.

They were dangling by a feeble hope.

The people in that synagogue were no different from the vast majority of church-going people today.

Many of our neighbors are clinging to straws, believing in dreams and blind to the actual facts.

Paul said, “Through Jesus of Nazareth is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins:

And by him all that believe are justified from all things,

From which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.”

As I have been trying to say for months now, our message is no different from Paul’s: “A Saviour has come.”

His name is Jesus.

He came to save His people from their sins.

His purpose wasn’t to make it possible for people to be saved; His purpose was to actually save them.

Through Him is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.

Let’s permit these two self-explanatory verses explain themselves.

Notice the BLESSINGS to which Paul refers.

He speaks of three things; the first not quite as obvious as the rest.

Forgiveness of sins and justification from all things are obvious.

But did you notice the first thing?

“Through Jesus of Nazareth is PREACHED unto you the forgiveness of sins.”

It appears that Paul and Barnabas were the first gospel preachers to ever visit the city of Antioch.

And there were literally thousands of cities and towns all over the Mediterranean region which had never heard or seen one of these strange creatures.

As we read in I Corinthians, “In the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God BY THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING to save them that believe.”

In the wisdom of God, personal righteousness, worldly wisdom, human strength, and religious doctrines in themselves are all incapable at bringing men to the Lord.

But “it pleased God by the foolishness of PREACHING to save them that believe.”

Where would the people of Antioch have been without the preaching of the gospel?

They would be lost in the impenetrable swamp of hopelessness.

Or more precisely they would be forever lost in the Lake of Fire.

The first blessing that God gave to those people was the preaching of the gospel.

“For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!”

The second, and more obvious blessing was the FORGIVENESS OF SINS.

SIN is Biblically described in several different ways:

An act of sin is committed in TRANSGRESSING or stepping beyond the will of the Lord.

Sin is depicted as MISSING THE MARK that the Lord has set.

It is FALLING SHORT of the glory of God.

Sin can be a ACTION or just a THOUGHT which is contrary to the holiness and glory of the Lord.

And our lives are filled from stem to stern with these transgressions.

But according to the Bible sin is not confined to acts and thoughts;

Sin is also a state – a state of contrariness and rebellion.

People don’t have to think and plot about ways in which they can sin against the Lord.

They sin without thinking – because by nature they are sinners.

Prior to the blessings which Paul was preaching, all of us “walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath.”

We need forgiveness from sin, because we are all wretched sinners.

“There is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not.”

“For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

FORGIVENESS is also Biblically described in a number of different ways:

Sometimes it is said to be the NON-IMPUTATION of sin.

“Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute (or reckon) sin” – Romans 4:8.

Forgiveness is when God refuses to charge our sin to us.

Sometimes forgiveness is described as God’s NON-REMEMBRANCE of our sin.

“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” – Hebrews 8:12 and 10:17.

In the Book of Micah, it is said that God casts the sins of the forgiven into the depths of the sea.

Sometimes forgiveness is described as sin being ERASED from the Lord’s books.

“I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee” – Isaiah 44:22.

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” – Acts 3:19.

Forgiveness is the act of god whereby the sinner no longer is charged with his sins.

And “who can forgive sin but God only,” because sin can only be committed against God.

I might be able to forgive you for crimes or hurts that you committed against me,

But I cannot forgive you for the sins that you have committed against the Lord.

Nor can any other man, whether he calls himself a priest or not.

But there is one very special exception:

“Through Jesus of Nazareth is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins:

And by him all that believe are justified from all things.”

The second blessing that Paul preached that day was JUSTIFICATION.

I wonder if the people to whom he was preaching, knew what he was saying?

When a stranger walks off the street and into a good Baptist church and he hears the preacher use the word “justification,” quite often his eyes glaze over and he starts looking for an escape route.

But this is not such a strange word.

It should be used by at least one member of your household at least once a month.

If you have a checking account, you should JUSTIFY that account every time that you get a statement.

Someday you will regret it if you don’t periodically find out exactly what your account contains.

According to the dictionary, to justify is to demonstrate or prove that something is just, right or valid.

If you have a checking account you need to justify your check book to the bank statement.

You need to make sure that every check and every deposit has been properly recorded and that the balance has been properly adjusted.

And justification is not confined to banking.

Whenever you type a letter you use justification.

Usually you justify each line to the left margin; you make the words on the left side of your letter all line up straight, but the right side the end of the line is jagged..

Or with your computer you might use full justification and make sure that both sides of the paper are even.

The columns in our church bulletin are only left justified, but the columns in your Bibles are fully justified, both on the left side and the right side.

Biblically, justification is the act of God, whereby he declares a sinner to be righteous.

You might say that He squares up the margins of our lives and by His grace and power declares that the sinner conforms to His perfect standards.

“Through Jesus of Nazareth is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins:

And by him all that believe are justified from all things.”

In Romans 4 Paul brings forgiveness and justification into theological harmony.

“For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,

Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”

I hope that you realize how important this justification is.

If we, who are sinners are not perfectly righteous, there will be no alternative but for God to cast us into the Lake of Fire for all eternity.

Your sin must be, and will be, punished.

But if there was a means by which God could justify the sinner – declare him righteous – then there would be a way of escape for us.

And “through Jesus of Nazareth is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins:

AND BY HIM all that believe are justified from all things.”

This was the great blessing that Paul was commissioned to bring to those people in Antioch.

And the AUTHORITY upon which he based this blessing was THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.

As Paul had said, Jesus was born the son of David, as promised by God the Father.

He was then introduced and baptized by John the Baptist as prophesied by God the Holy Spirit.

Jesus, the Messiah, was rejected by the leadership of Israel, and crucified and slain.

But after spending three days and three nights in the grave, He arose victorious over sin, death and hell.

“Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that THROUGH THIS MAN is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.”

It wasn’t THROUGH the apostles, Paul & Barnabas, that forgiveness of sin and justification were preached.

The gospel was only preached BY the apostles.

It wasn’t THROUGH the priests of Israel, or any Christian priests, that justification was preached.

It was THROUGH the MAN, Jesus of Nazareth.

But Jesus was no MERE man.

He was, and is, the Son of God as well as the son of David and the son of Mary.

“In the fulness of the time, God sent forth HIS Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”

The Holy Ghost came upon Mary and the power of the highest overshadowed her and the baby which was born to her was properly called the Son of God (Luke 1:35).

Paul made sure that his hearers were not confused about this:

Jesus is the Saviour.

Isn’t it interesting that Paul didn’t confuse matters by calling Jesus “the Christ” or “the Messiah”?

He certainly is the Messiah,

But that word would have lead those Jews into thinking about the Millennial Kingdom, and Paul wanted them to concentrate on personal salvation.

Paul then went into a few words about the CONFUSION.

“And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.”

I heard an interesting lecture the other day on the subject of printing in all its various forms.

And the speaker brought up the subject of the Bible of Johann Guttenburg.

As far as we know, Guttenburg was the first man to print a book using moveable letters,

And in many ways it was one of the best examples of printing ever made by any man in any century.

I think that it is absolutely fantastic that the first book printed in the modern era was an equivalent to the King James Bible.

Anyway, our speaker showed a slide of two pages of the Guttenburg Bible.

I hadn’t noticed until Tuesday night that all four columns of text were fully justified.

That means that Johann had to put a variety of spacers between the words to make the end of every line come out perfectly even.

And those letters and lines didn’t look like typewriter text, with the letter “i” taking as much space as “w.”

The Guttenburg Bible was an almost unbelievable work of art.

I mention that in the hopes that some of you will realize how difficult full-line justification was before computers.

And when it comes to spiritual justification, the task is infinitely harder.

No sinful human being can file, or round, or space the corners of his life to make it perfectly conform to the holy standards of God.

No matter how strictly someone complies with the commands of Moses’ law, justification is impossible.

No sinner’s morality or strength of character are sufficient to satisfy the demands of God.

No quantity of good works can undo the effects of our sins before the Lord.

The Book of James reminds us “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”

Forgiveness of sin and justification are things which only God can accomplish,

And when He does a such thing it is purely out of His grace.

There is no logical reason for the Lord to justify any sinner.

There is no cause in man for the Lord to justify any sinner.

In the Book of Galatians Paul compared the false idea of justification to of the true:

“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ,

Even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law:

For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified and defraud, and that your brethren.”

In I Corinthians Paul showed us our condition as sinners forgiven and justified:

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

All of the Apostles and early disciples taught that justification is sole work of God.

“But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;

That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

Those are the words of Titus.

We’ve looked at the cause, the authority, and the confusion of forgiveness and justification…

Now let’s briefly think about the RECIPIENTS of these blessings.

Let’s forget about ethnic distinctions, because Jews, proselytes and regular, old Gentiles like us heard this gospel, and some of them believed this gospel.

The Jews had the blessing of possessing the Law of God – the revelation of the Lord’s holiness.

But that possession in itself didn’t make them the friends of God.

In fact when they refused to listen to the scriptures, they were that much more in the gun-sights of God.

The grace of the Lord then commissioned Paul and Barnabas to preach the gospel to ALL the sinners of Antioch despite their ethnicity or nationality.

The thing which set some of these sinners apart from the rest of the populace was that they believed.

They believed that Jesus was the Saviour, and that he died, was buried and rose again to provide the grounds for forgiveness and the means for their justification.

It is Biblically proper to encourage sinners to believe the gospel and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,

Provided that their faith isn’t just as intellectual exercise.

To believe on Christ is to trust what He did on the cross to save them from the effect of their sins.

But there is a very important thought raised here which is reiterated and emphasized later in this chapter.

Listen again to the language of verses 38 and 39: “Through Jesus of Nazareth is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by him all that believe are justified from all things.”

“And by him all that believe are justified from all things.”

Notice that these verses don’t say that when sinners believe they become justified.

It says that believers are justified, as in the sense that they are ALREADY justified.

We might be accused of splitting hairs, so I’m not going to press the issue this morning,

But I believe that the Bible teaches that faith in Christ is impossible to someone dead in trespasses & sins.

I believe that the Bible teaches that the sinner is made spiritually alive by the grace of God and every one of THOSE regenerated souls, repent of their sins and believe the gospel, trusting Christ Jesus.

As I said two Sunday’s ago, it is not wrong to exhort sinners to repent of their sins and to believe on the Saviour, but as verse 48 says, only as many as are ordained to eternal life believe.

What was Paul telling those people of Antioch?

He was saying that the Saviour has come and made the sacrifice necessary to save the souls of sinners.

He said that the law of Moses can’t save or justify those sinners; only Christ can do that.

And all that believe are justified from their sins.

And now our question is: are YOU trusting Christ and believing the message of the gospel?

Has the grace of God brought you to your knees in repentance before the cross of Christ?

Is your love and trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus on the cross?

What is to keep you from prostrating yourself before the cross this morning?