It is difficult to find a more powerful passage in Scripture than Ephesians 2. “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins. . .” Somewhere in our youth we lose our innocence. Does it happen at birth, or when we first disobeyed our parents or at puberty when passion rages through our almost every thought? I don’t know. That is a theological debate filled with theory and isms. For those of us who are adults it doesn’t matter when it occurred, what we know is we are not innocent. Just as God cares for us so he will care for children; with buckets of mercy. The point is we were dead in our sins. We earned death. We cannot compensate for our behaviors and attitudes. The only answer for us is grace; lots and lots of grace.
Grace removes our guilt. God looks at us as if we had never sinned. However, as wonderful as that is we still remember our sins. It is fascinating that we remember things God doesn’t remember. I haven’t yet figured that one out. But I rejoice in the fact. God declares us innocent but our brains are not yet erased. The feelings, the emotions, the memories are all still there. And they stay there until as Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15, “this corruptible shall have put on incorruption . . .”
One of my students told me he often deliberately sinned because he knew God was a God of mercy and would forgive him. Really? Well, that’s another discussion. My concern was that even if in God’s great love He did forgive him, the fruit, the scars, his lost innocence would mar the rest of his life on earth. He would not be the man he could have been.
Written by Roger Bothwell on March 2, 2012
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org