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Pray that this pandemic will end soon and the resumption of the postal service.
Subject 3 : The Gospel of the Water and the Spirit
[3-23] What Is the Original Sin of Humans? (Mark 7:20-23)
(Mark 7:20-23)
“And He said, ‘What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.’”
“And He said, ‘What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.’”
When we really understand humans, we realize humans are all a mass of sin. Humans are the seeds of lewd sin that cannot but commit sin throughout the entire life. Therefore, humans commit sin filled with lewdness, pride, evil thoughts, hatred, murder, theft, and all kinds of evil sins. Would you believe if I told you humans are beings who do such things? Do you believe that humans are beings that swindle and steal much? Would you believe if I told you that humans are beings that commit adultery? Would you believe if I told you that you were such people?
All such people are humans. Do you believe in the Word of the original innate sin according to the Scriptures that says all humans are born with evil sins and commit a tremendous amount of evil sins? Human flesh only commits sin throughout the entire life. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the body of a human is a factory producing sin. The human body lives on sin that God hates as a daily meal. The flesh of a human likes to commit sin; it enjoys committing adultery, the sin of lewdness, and going against God.
A human body commits sin from birth until the moment of its death. Not only does a human body like to commit sin, but it also likes to follow only its carnal desires. Isaiah 1:4 records that humans are “a brood of evildoers,” and Isaiah 59 records that there are all kinds of filthy and disgraceful things inside a human heart. Hence, a human is a mass of sin. Then, if we could deduce conclusively from God’s Word that “A human is a mass of sin,” then, we must receive this Word of God in our heart. And we must acknowledge before the presence of God that we are such sinners and then wait for the teaching of Jesus.
Humans are lewd. When a person looks at himself clearly, he can conclude that he is lewd and that lewdness is the person himself. A person who is honest with himself would accept that a human possesses the twelve kinds of sins God speaks of. Even so, there doesn’t seem to be many persons who acknowledge that he himself is lewd, that he is a mass of sin. Many people live a life like beasts in this world because they do not think they are lewd.
Humans make the culture of lewdness themselves because humans are “a brood of evildoers.” One would be embarrassed if he was the only lewd person in the world doing lewd behaviors, but they have made such a lewd culture so that they are not embarrassed because everyone else is also lewd. However, everyone’s heart feels embarrassed in one’s conscience about his behaviors of sin. It’s because God has given conscience to humans. The human conscience is the servant of God that He has sent as His deputy.
Adam and Eve hid themselves between many trees after committing sin. Many trees imply a human society that is covered with lewd culture. However, they could not hide the evil in their heart. Even now, many who are a mass of sin go in the midst of many people and hide themselves behind the culture of evil sins and go on living like a prisoner waiting for execution.
Everyone Lives with Misunderstanding of Oneself
Humans go on living with the misunderstanding of themselves. When a shocking and depraved incident occurs, there are people who question how a person can do such things and how a son or a daughter can do such horrible things to one’s parents. And they insist that they are not like that originally even if all the other people are like that. But, humans are beings that we cannot really understand. And for one to understand oneself accurately, he or she must come before the original gospel and be born again by the original Word of the gospel of wisdom.
There are many people on this planet who die without knowing their true selves even after living their entire life. When we look at this world carefully, there are so many bizarre events. When we look at people carefully, we can see that there are some people who pretend to be very righteous. Even when someone speaks vulgarly, they say, “What in the world is that! How can an educated person say such a thing?” They say one should not say such a thing even when the person is pointing out something that is wrong. They say that we should call a thief “Mr. Thief.” That is hypocrisy and arrogance.
There are many people on this planet who die without knowing their true selves even after living their entire life. When we look at this world carefully, there are so many bizarre events. When we look at people carefully, we can see that there are some people who pretend to be very righteous. Even when someone speaks vulgarly, they say, “What in the world is that! How can an educated person say such a thing?” They say one should not say such a thing even when the person is pointing out something that is wrong. They say that we should call a thief “Mr. Thief.” That is hypocrisy and arrogance.
God Says, “Know Yourself.”
When we look at such a person, I come to know that this person does not know himself. Even though Socrates said, “Know thyself,” people really do not know themselves at all; they do not know what sins are stored inside them. The Gospel of Mark chapter 7 verses 21-23 records that there are 12 kinds of sins inside the heart of a person originally. The heart of committing murder, the heart of lust, the heart of envy, the heart of thievery, the heart of evil thoughts, the heart of foolishness and many other sins are inside them, but I see them living without knowing that they themselves are hypocrites and that they are merely speaking the disguised words of goodness even though they have the poison of a serpent inside their hearts. That’s because they do not know themselves.
There are so many people in this world who do not know themselves. Therefore, there are many people who fall into hell after deceiving themselves and living their entire life being deceived by themselves and not believing in the salvation of the original gospel. There are many people who go to hell deceived by themselves originally and fundamentally. When some people go to hell after living in this world, the Prince of Hades would ask, “Why have you come to hell?” And those people would reply, “I thought I would at least go to Heaven even though I thought Mr. so-and so who lived next door should have come here. It is not fair that I have come here.” They would probably think, “I thought I was at least a little better than the other people. I don’t know why I came here.” All people who do not know themselves and do not know and believe in the gospel of the original salvation have gone to hell.
What is a human? As I have said in the introduction, a human is a lewd being. A human is an offspring of “a brood evildoers.”
It seems to be okay to say that everyone is lewd, but if I singled out a person and said, “You are a lewd person,” he would pack up and leave from this place immediately. But, even if I had pointed out any certain individual and said, “You are a mass of sin and you are a lewd person,” it would be totally true. We are all like that before the presence of God. When a person hears that man is originally an offspring of evildoers, he just thinks, “Oh, is that so,” and hears it nonchalantly like it is about the other people. However, if you reply, “Yes, I am,” when you are told, “You are precisely such a person,” then, you are an honest person. However, there are many people who make excuses and blame the other people. Such a person is a basically ignorant person who cannot see himself yet. He himself, you yourself, and me myself are all a mass of sin. We are “a brood of evildoers” who cannot but be lewd originally. We needed the wisdom of the original gospel of Jesus because we are lewd offspring of sin, otherwise, if we just had some shortcomings and we were not of lewd offspring, why would we need the wisdom of the original gospel of Jesus? Jesus would not have had to come to this world if we were not evil originally.
There are so many people in this world who do not know themselves. Therefore, there are many people who fall into hell after deceiving themselves and living their entire life being deceived by themselves and not believing in the salvation of the original gospel. There are many people who go to hell deceived by themselves originally and fundamentally. When some people go to hell after living in this world, the Prince of Hades would ask, “Why have you come to hell?” And those people would reply, “I thought I would at least go to Heaven even though I thought Mr. so-and so who lived next door should have come here. It is not fair that I have come here.” They would probably think, “I thought I was at least a little better than the other people. I don’t know why I came here.” All people who do not know themselves and do not know and believe in the gospel of the original salvation have gone to hell.
What is a human? As I have said in the introduction, a human is a lewd being. A human is an offspring of “a brood evildoers.”
It seems to be okay to say that everyone is lewd, but if I singled out a person and said, “You are a lewd person,” he would pack up and leave from this place immediately. But, even if I had pointed out any certain individual and said, “You are a mass of sin and you are a lewd person,” it would be totally true. We are all like that before the presence of God. When a person hears that man is originally an offspring of evildoers, he just thinks, “Oh, is that so,” and hears it nonchalantly like it is about the other people. However, if you reply, “Yes, I am,” when you are told, “You are precisely such a person,” then, you are an honest person. However, there are many people who make excuses and blame the other people. Such a person is a basically ignorant person who cannot see himself yet. He himself, you yourself, and me myself are all a mass of sin. We are “a brood of evildoers” who cannot but be lewd originally. We needed the wisdom of the original gospel of Jesus because we are lewd offspring of sin, otherwise, if we just had some shortcomings and we were not of lewd offspring, why would we need the wisdom of the original gospel of Jesus? Jesus would not have had to come to this world if we were not evil originally.
Humans Spill Sins Every Moment Because They Are Originally Sinners
Sins have filled up the heart of a human, inside a human soul. Let’s say the water inside this cup is the sin of a person’s soul, and then, the sin inside this cup would spill over whenever the person is wavering while living in this world, wouldn’t it? It would spill over. It spills over whether one is shaken from side to side. People go all around the world dripping sins like that throughout their entire life. Humans commit sin while living in this world because they are a mass of sin.
People do not know well what kind of sinner they are. Although we are the people who harbor the heart of sin as a mass of sin and commit sin throughout our entire lives, we think, “I am not originally lustful. I have become like this because someone pushed me to be lustful. I am not originally a lewd person. I just need to wipe away the lewd sins I have committed actually. They say, “I am not originally lewd!” and they constantly wipe it away with good deeds or the prayers of repentance whenever their sins spill over outwardly. Doesn’t the sin spill over again when you wipe it away? It does spill over. Because the inside of a person’s heart is a mass of sin, he commits sin behaviorally as well. It does not matter how much a person wipes away the outside of a person. No matter how much a person wipes the outside (works) ethically or morally, it is useless if he has sin inside his heart. One commits sin throughout the entire life with the heart of murder, the heart of adultery, the heart of thievery and so on. Hence, humans commit many sins here and there throughout their entire lives.
People do not know well what kind of sinner they are. Although we are the people who harbor the heart of sin as a mass of sin and commit sin throughout our entire lives, we think, “I am not originally lustful. I have become like this because someone pushed me to be lustful. I am not originally a lewd person. I just need to wipe away the lewd sins I have committed actually. They say, “I am not originally lewd!” and they constantly wipe it away with good deeds or the prayers of repentance whenever their sins spill over outwardly. Doesn’t the sin spill over again when you wipe it away? It does spill over. Because the inside of a person’s heart is a mass of sin, he commits sin behaviorally as well. It does not matter how much a person wipes away the outside of a person. No matter how much a person wipes the outside (works) ethically or morally, it is useless if he has sin inside his heart. One commits sin throughout the entire life with the heart of murder, the heart of adultery, the heart of thievery and so on. Hence, humans commit many sins here and there throughout their entire lives.
Humans Try Hard to Cover Themselves When They Do Not Know Themselves
People try hard to cover themselves when they do not know that they are originally a mass of sin. Let’s say for example, the sin inside a person’s heart spilled out a little. He spills out more sin after wiping it away, and he has to wipe it off constantly with a handkerchief and a towel. Then, when that is not enough, he has to wipe it again and again even with a carpet, and it would be great if one did not have to drip sin after somehow resolving to not commit sin, but it just doesn’t become clean no matter how many times one wipes away the flowing sin. We drip sin until the moment we die. Humans are beings that commit lewd behaviors until the moment of death. Therefore, a person who commits sin must receive Jesus as the Savior who has saved him from his sins in order to receive salvation. And to receive the remission of sins, one must first know his original self as it is.
Let’s say there are two certain individuals who have same sins inside them like two same cups here full of water. One person looks at himself and thinks, “I am of lewd offspring originally,” and therefore he gives up trying to improve himself and seeks to find the Savior. The other person cannot look at the mass of sin inside himself and thinks, “I am somewhat decent.” A person who believes that he is a decent person wipes away his sin throughout his entire life. And he is careful that his sins do not overflow and spill out, and throughout his entire life he tries hard to hide that he is originally a mass of sin covering this sin spilling over here and covering that sin spilling over there.
Like this, there are people who consistently live carefully in fear of sin overflowing while living their entire life with full of lewd sins inside their heart. Living so cautiously would not be of much help in going to Heaven since they already have a mass of sin inside them, but they don’t even know that living cautiously like that has become the footsteps to hell. They just go to hell after living cautiously. A person living cautiously is actually a sinner who commits all kinds of sins in hiding although the mass of sin does not spill out as much.
Do you admit that a person has the lewd heart, the evil thoughts, the heart of thievery, and the prideful heart inside a person’s heart? We can know that a human is of lewd offspring by seeing people committing all kinds of lewd sins well even though no one has taught them. A person does not know it well when he is young because it does not show up much, but there is no way to hide the person’s mass of sin as he becomes older. One cannot but spill out his sins constantly. He drips sin a little here and a little there, and then he regrets. He regrets, saying, “I should not have done so,” but continues to spill out sin throughout the entire life even though he regrets everyday like that. He is like that because he has been born as a mass of sin.
I am saying that one can receive the perfect remission of sins the Lord gives only if he knows that he is originally an offspring of evildoers. A person who knows himself as a mass of sin before the presence of God would believe without hesitation if someone told him that Jesus blotted out all his sins by doing such and such righteous work. However, a person who says, “I have only committed this much sin until now and not committed that many sins,” would fundamentally reject and not believe in the fact that Jesus took all his sins upon Himself by receiving the baptism and carried all the sins to the Cross. However, a person who deserves to be saved receives the remission of sins by believing that he is a total mass of sin and by believing in the Word of the Truth that the Lord has resolved all the sins on the Cross perfectly after receiving the baptism at the Jordan River.
I am saying that we are living with gross misunderstanding of ourselves regardless of whether one has received the remission of sins or not. We do not have sin if our Lord has blotted out all the sins of us humans by His baptism and the blood and we receive the remission of sins if we believe in it.
Therefore, God made a new covenant, saying, “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Jeremiah 31:31). It means that God will establish a new covenant instead of the old covenant. The new covenant was of God’s will that the Lord Himself would come to this world and save the treacherous sinners by taking upon Himself and blotting out perfectly all the original sins and the personal sins, the sins of the lewd offspring who commit lewd sins throughout their entire life. It was with the new covenant that God would save these people and become their God. He said, “I will blot out all the sins of the lewd people and become their God and they will become my people.” The new covenant goes on saying, “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:34).
The new covenant of God is that we cannot become the righteous by keeping the Law for we cannot become the righteous by trying to keep the Law. Legalists are committing this many sins again and ask the Lord, “Lord, cleanse my sins. I have done some wrong today. Cleanse me, Lord, cleanse me, please” This is legalistic faith. In the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, one had to pass over the daily sins by laying his hands on the head of a goat or a lamb and also pass over the yearly sins by laying on of the High Priest’s hands, and they therefore continued offering up the sacrifices, but one still was a sinner if he committed sin again. Therefore, the pardon of sin is not possible by the Law. Thus, the new covenant of God was necessary to every sinner, as the Lord said, “For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
God had decided to have such lewd people like Hosea’s wife as His wife. As in the example I have given before, both two individuals are full of sins. They were born with same flesh with same sins. But one lives carefully in order not to spill sins; he even believes in Jesus very cautiously. It means that some people are very cautious about their sins overflowing. And when a drop of sin spills out somehow, they offer prayers of repentance to wipe out this sin, saying, “Lord, I have committed a sin today. “Please forgive only this sin.” They cleanse and believe only as much as they have confessed. They are always sinners inside and they are always depressed although they pretend to be good Christians in hypocrisy on the outside.
Dear fellow believers, we are the lewd people. You and I must know that we were the people going to hell. Only then, we are thankful that the Lord has blotted out all our sins and we are also grateful after receiving the remission of sins whenever our sins spill out and whenever we remember the fact that the Lord has saved such lewd offspring like us. We can always be thankful then.
There are so many treacherous prisoners among the people who are imprisoned. Among them, some were sentenced to death while others were sentenced to life imprisonment. And there are many kinds of sinners who are imprisoned for robbery, who are imprisoned for theft, and who are imprisoned for many strange offences. And when I go there to preach the Word, they say, “Pastor, haven’t you ever committed sin? We are imprisoned because we were unlucky and we got caught, but you, the pastor, are living out there now because you sin in hiding very well and you have not been caught. Do you think you are much better than us? Why do they lock us up like this? What sin have we committed when we are compared with the average people?” Like this, the prisoners never think that they have committed sin.
Strictly speaking, they are actually correct. Although we have not beaten someone to death, we have hated people in our heart. Then, it is same as committing murder from God’s perspective. It means that whether one has actually killed a person or just had hatred toward a person, they are all considered same sin in God’s eyes. It says that God looks at the center of a person’s heart, not the outward appearance. Then, we also should have been imprisoned.
When we used to go to a farm long ago, there were manures covered with straw mats. Unless one uncovered the straw mats, the manures could not be revealed. Humans also are so filthy like that; when we take off the coverings of human goodness and the pretentious acts of righteousness, there is no creature as filthy as humans with so many sins. There are all kinds of sins inside a person when he takes off the coverings completely and looks inside before the presence of God. But the Lord has made the person who admits honestly, “I am such a person,” as a righteous person by the salvation of original gospel according to His new covenant.
We must know that we have received the remission of sins because of the righteousness of God. We have received the remission of sins because the righteousness of the baptism that brings us the original salvation of Jesus. No one can receive the remission of sins by his own righteousness. A person who shows off his good deeds and does not believe in the righteousness of God cannot receive the remission of sins. A person who does not have any righteousness of his own receives the remission of sins by going before the presence of the Lord and believing in the righteousness the Lord has given.
Let’s say there are two certain individuals who have same sins inside them like two same cups here full of water. One person looks at himself and thinks, “I am of lewd offspring originally,” and therefore he gives up trying to improve himself and seeks to find the Savior. The other person cannot look at the mass of sin inside himself and thinks, “I am somewhat decent.” A person who believes that he is a decent person wipes away his sin throughout his entire life. And he is careful that his sins do not overflow and spill out, and throughout his entire life he tries hard to hide that he is originally a mass of sin covering this sin spilling over here and covering that sin spilling over there.
Like this, there are people who consistently live carefully in fear of sin overflowing while living their entire life with full of lewd sins inside their heart. Living so cautiously would not be of much help in going to Heaven since they already have a mass of sin inside them, but they don’t even know that living cautiously like that has become the footsteps to hell. They just go to hell after living cautiously. A person living cautiously is actually a sinner who commits all kinds of sins in hiding although the mass of sin does not spill out as much.
Do you admit that a person has the lewd heart, the evil thoughts, the heart of thievery, and the prideful heart inside a person’s heart? We can know that a human is of lewd offspring by seeing people committing all kinds of lewd sins well even though no one has taught them. A person does not know it well when he is young because it does not show up much, but there is no way to hide the person’s mass of sin as he becomes older. One cannot but spill out his sins constantly. He drips sin a little here and a little there, and then he regrets. He regrets, saying, “I should not have done so,” but continues to spill out sin throughout the entire life even though he regrets everyday like that. He is like that because he has been born as a mass of sin.
I am saying that one can receive the perfect remission of sins the Lord gives only if he knows that he is originally an offspring of evildoers. A person who knows himself as a mass of sin before the presence of God would believe without hesitation if someone told him that Jesus blotted out all his sins by doing such and such righteous work. However, a person who says, “I have only committed this much sin until now and not committed that many sins,” would fundamentally reject and not believe in the fact that Jesus took all his sins upon Himself by receiving the baptism and carried all the sins to the Cross. However, a person who deserves to be saved receives the remission of sins by believing that he is a total mass of sin and by believing in the Word of the Truth that the Lord has resolved all the sins on the Cross perfectly after receiving the baptism at the Jordan River.
I am saying that we are living with gross misunderstanding of ourselves regardless of whether one has received the remission of sins or not. We do not have sin if our Lord has blotted out all the sins of us humans by His baptism and the blood and we receive the remission of sins if we believe in it.
Therefore, God made a new covenant, saying, “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Jeremiah 31:31). It means that God will establish a new covenant instead of the old covenant. The new covenant was of God’s will that the Lord Himself would come to this world and save the treacherous sinners by taking upon Himself and blotting out perfectly all the original sins and the personal sins, the sins of the lewd offspring who commit lewd sins throughout their entire life. It was with the new covenant that God would save these people and become their God. He said, “I will blot out all the sins of the lewd people and become their God and they will become my people.” The new covenant goes on saying, “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:34).
The new covenant of God is that we cannot become the righteous by keeping the Law for we cannot become the righteous by trying to keep the Law. Legalists are committing this many sins again and ask the Lord, “Lord, cleanse my sins. I have done some wrong today. Cleanse me, Lord, cleanse me, please” This is legalistic faith. In the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, one had to pass over the daily sins by laying his hands on the head of a goat or a lamb and also pass over the yearly sins by laying on of the High Priest’s hands, and they therefore continued offering up the sacrifices, but one still was a sinner if he committed sin again. Therefore, the pardon of sin is not possible by the Law. Thus, the new covenant of God was necessary to every sinner, as the Lord said, “For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
God had decided to have such lewd people like Hosea’s wife as His wife. As in the example I have given before, both two individuals are full of sins. They were born with same flesh with same sins. But one lives carefully in order not to spill sins; he even believes in Jesus very cautiously. It means that some people are very cautious about their sins overflowing. And when a drop of sin spills out somehow, they offer prayers of repentance to wipe out this sin, saying, “Lord, I have committed a sin today. “Please forgive only this sin.” They cleanse and believe only as much as they have confessed. They are always sinners inside and they are always depressed although they pretend to be good Christians in hypocrisy on the outside.
Dear fellow believers, we are the lewd people. You and I must know that we were the people going to hell. Only then, we are thankful that the Lord has blotted out all our sins and we are also grateful after receiving the remission of sins whenever our sins spill out and whenever we remember the fact that the Lord has saved such lewd offspring like us. We can always be thankful then.
There are so many treacherous prisoners among the people who are imprisoned. Among them, some were sentenced to death while others were sentenced to life imprisonment. And there are many kinds of sinners who are imprisoned for robbery, who are imprisoned for theft, and who are imprisoned for many strange offences. And when I go there to preach the Word, they say, “Pastor, haven’t you ever committed sin? We are imprisoned because we were unlucky and we got caught, but you, the pastor, are living out there now because you sin in hiding very well and you have not been caught. Do you think you are much better than us? Why do they lock us up like this? What sin have we committed when we are compared with the average people?” Like this, the prisoners never think that they have committed sin.
Strictly speaking, they are actually correct. Although we have not beaten someone to death, we have hated people in our heart. Then, it is same as committing murder from God’s perspective. It means that whether one has actually killed a person or just had hatred toward a person, they are all considered same sin in God’s eyes. It says that God looks at the center of a person’s heart, not the outward appearance. Then, we also should have been imprisoned.
When we used to go to a farm long ago, there were manures covered with straw mats. Unless one uncovered the straw mats, the manures could not be revealed. Humans also are so filthy like that; when we take off the coverings of human goodness and the pretentious acts of righteousness, there is no creature as filthy as humans with so many sins. There are all kinds of sins inside a person when he takes off the coverings completely and looks inside before the presence of God. But the Lord has made the person who admits honestly, “I am such a person,” as a righteous person by the salvation of original gospel according to His new covenant.
We must know that we have received the remission of sins because of the righteousness of God. We have received the remission of sins because the righteousness of the baptism that brings us the original salvation of Jesus. No one can receive the remission of sins by his own righteousness. A person who shows off his good deeds and does not believe in the righteousness of God cannot receive the remission of sins. A person who does not have any righteousness of his own receives the remission of sins by going before the presence of the Lord and believing in the righteousness the Lord has given.
God Has Not Saved “Little Sinners”
God does not save “little sinners.” It means that God does not even take a look at a person who says, “God, I have a few sins.” Then, who does God care for? God looks at the people who have become complete sinners that say, “God, I am going to hell. I am a complete mass of sin. God, please, save me.” The Lord saves a person who entrusts himself to the Lord completely praying, “Lord, I will receive salvation when You save me, and I will go to hell if You do not save me. I cannot offer the prayers of repentance anymore. I will sin again even after offering the prayers of repentance. Lord, please, save me.”
A person cannot escape from sins by offering the prayers of repentance. A person who professes, “God, have mercy on me and save me from sins,” can receive salvation by believing that Jesus has atoned for all his sins completely by taking sins upon Himself through the baptism received from John the Baptist.
It is written in the Book of Isaiah chapter 59 verse 1,
“Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened,
That it cannot save;
Nor His ear heavy,
That it cannot hear.”
God cannot consider humans as acceptable because they are originally a mass of sin. God might have considered someone acceptable if he just had one or two sins, but God could not look at any person like that because every one is a complete mass of sin. The Word in the Book of Isaiah says that God’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, and that His ears are not heavy that they cannot hear the crying words that are yelling, “Please forgive my sins.” God said, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2), and it means that even though God has opened the blessing of Heaven, the door of Heaven, no one can enter it because humans have too many sins in God’s eyes.
If a person who is a mass of sin were just forgiven of a certain wrongdoing that he has done each time by offering the prayers of repentance, then, God would have to kill His Son each time the person prays for forgiveness for his sins. However, God did not want to kill His Son over and over again. Therefore, God said, “Do not come to Me with the sins you commit every day. And I will instead send My Son to save you from all your sins by blotting out all your sins. Therefore, understand how My Son took all the sins you commit and see whether this is true or not and receive the remission of sins by believing in the gospel of salvation that My Son has fulfilled for you. This is the greatest love.” He said, “Receive salvation by believing in My Son. I, the Jehovah God, will send My Son and blot out all the masses of sins, all the personal sins, and all the iniquities of all you people. Believe in My Son and receive salvation from your sinful selves which are a mass of sin.”
The Scriptures record what kind of sins are in the heart of a person. Let’s read the Word from the Book of Isaiah chapter 59 verses 3 to 8.
“For your hands are defiled with blood,
And your fingers with iniquity;
Your lips have spoken lies,
Your tongue has muttered perversity.
No one calls for justice,
Nor does any plead for truth.
They trust in empty words and speak lies;
They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.
They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web;
He who eats of their eggs dies,
And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out.
Their webs will not become garments,
Nor will they cover themselves with their works;
Their works are works of iniquity,
And the act of violence is in their hands.
Their feet run to evil,
And they make haste to shed innocent blood;
Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
Wasting and destruction are in their paths.
The way of peace they have not known,
And there is no justice in their ways;
They have made themselves crooked paths;
Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.”
It is written, “For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity.” This means that a person commits sin throughout his or her entire life. Everything that a person does is sin. Next, it is written, “Your lips have spoken lies.” It means that whatever one speaks is a lie. The Lord said, “When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources” (John 8:44). The people who have not been born again say things like, “I am saying this honestly,” or “Truly I say to you.” They attach the word “honestly” or “truly” to whatever they say, but they are all lies whether they have said them honestly or not. The recorded Word witnesses to this, as it says, “When he[a devil] speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources.”
Not only a special person, but also everyone is like that. The sins overflow out of a person recklessly. It’s because everyone is a mass of sin. However, the power of God is so amazing; it is by the power of God that a person who is such a mass of sin receives salvation from sins. The sin overflows when one is irritated and frustrated, and sin also flows out uncontrollably even when one’s heart is at peace and flesh is comforted. The sin overflows like that no matter what the situation is. But what is amazing is that even such a sinner whose sin is overflowing can receive salvation from sins from our Lord. The Lord came to save such sinners. I want you to know yourself and receive salvation from all sins by believing in Jesus who has come by the water and the Spirit.
The Word in the Gospel of Mark chapter 7 tells us what the original sin of a person is. People have their own individual bias concerning the original sin. Some people think that their wrongdoing is the original sin. Because humans have their own individual theory of sin, people have fallen into confusion without knowing the original sin of humans and their personal sins. Therefore, we must discuss again about how individuals have fallen into confusion.
Let’s look at an example by comparing the standard of sin about filial duty in Papua New Guinea and of that in Korea. In Korea, when parents die, it is considered a filial duty of their sons and daughters to bury them under ground and cut the grass on the grave a few times a year and take care of the grave while they are alive. But, in Papua New Guinea, when parents die, certain tribes consider it the filial duty of their children to gather around the corpse and eat the flesh of the corpse. They do so in order not to render the corpse to wild animals or bugs. Hence, we can see that even people’s concept of filial duty of children and the concept of sin vary.
However, God says in the Scriptures about the original innate sins of a person like this: the twelve kinds of sinful nature which are the tendencies to commit sin that a person has inherited from the ancestors and the sins a person commits while living in this world are fundamentally the sins of a human.
A person cannot escape from sins by offering the prayers of repentance. A person who professes, “God, have mercy on me and save me from sins,” can receive salvation by believing that Jesus has atoned for all his sins completely by taking sins upon Himself through the baptism received from John the Baptist.
It is written in the Book of Isaiah chapter 59 verse 1,
“Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened,
That it cannot save;
Nor His ear heavy,
That it cannot hear.”
God cannot consider humans as acceptable because they are originally a mass of sin. God might have considered someone acceptable if he just had one or two sins, but God could not look at any person like that because every one is a complete mass of sin. The Word in the Book of Isaiah says that God’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, and that His ears are not heavy that they cannot hear the crying words that are yelling, “Please forgive my sins.” God said, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2), and it means that even though God has opened the blessing of Heaven, the door of Heaven, no one can enter it because humans have too many sins in God’s eyes.
If a person who is a mass of sin were just forgiven of a certain wrongdoing that he has done each time by offering the prayers of repentance, then, God would have to kill His Son each time the person prays for forgiveness for his sins. However, God did not want to kill His Son over and over again. Therefore, God said, “Do not come to Me with the sins you commit every day. And I will instead send My Son to save you from all your sins by blotting out all your sins. Therefore, understand how My Son took all the sins you commit and see whether this is true or not and receive the remission of sins by believing in the gospel of salvation that My Son has fulfilled for you. This is the greatest love.” He said, “Receive salvation by believing in My Son. I, the Jehovah God, will send My Son and blot out all the masses of sins, all the personal sins, and all the iniquities of all you people. Believe in My Son and receive salvation from your sinful selves which are a mass of sin.”
The Scriptures record what kind of sins are in the heart of a person. Let’s read the Word from the Book of Isaiah chapter 59 verses 3 to 8.
“For your hands are defiled with blood,
And your fingers with iniquity;
Your lips have spoken lies,
Your tongue has muttered perversity.
No one calls for justice,
Nor does any plead for truth.
They trust in empty words and speak lies;
They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.
They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web;
He who eats of their eggs dies,
And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out.
Their webs will not become garments,
Nor will they cover themselves with their works;
Their works are works of iniquity,
And the act of violence is in their hands.
Their feet run to evil,
And they make haste to shed innocent blood;
Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
Wasting and destruction are in their paths.
The way of peace they have not known,
And there is no justice in their ways;
They have made themselves crooked paths;
Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.”
It is written, “For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity.” This means that a person commits sin throughout his or her entire life. Everything that a person does is sin. Next, it is written, “Your lips have spoken lies.” It means that whatever one speaks is a lie. The Lord said, “When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources” (John 8:44). The people who have not been born again say things like, “I am saying this honestly,” or “Truly I say to you.” They attach the word “honestly” or “truly” to whatever they say, but they are all lies whether they have said them honestly or not. The recorded Word witnesses to this, as it says, “When he[a devil] speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources.”
Not only a special person, but also everyone is like that. The sins overflow out of a person recklessly. It’s because everyone is a mass of sin. However, the power of God is so amazing; it is by the power of God that a person who is such a mass of sin receives salvation from sins. The sin overflows when one is irritated and frustrated, and sin also flows out uncontrollably even when one’s heart is at peace and flesh is comforted. The sin overflows like that no matter what the situation is. But what is amazing is that even such a sinner whose sin is overflowing can receive salvation from sins from our Lord. The Lord came to save such sinners. I want you to know yourself and receive salvation from all sins by believing in Jesus who has come by the water and the Spirit.
The Word in the Gospel of Mark chapter 7 tells us what the original sin of a person is. People have their own individual bias concerning the original sin. Some people think that their wrongdoing is the original sin. Because humans have their own individual theory of sin, people have fallen into confusion without knowing the original sin of humans and their personal sins. Therefore, we must discuss again about how individuals have fallen into confusion.
Let’s look at an example by comparing the standard of sin about filial duty in Papua New Guinea and of that in Korea. In Korea, when parents die, it is considered a filial duty of their sons and daughters to bury them under ground and cut the grass on the grave a few times a year and take care of the grave while they are alive. But, in Papua New Guinea, when parents die, certain tribes consider it the filial duty of their children to gather around the corpse and eat the flesh of the corpse. They do so in order not to render the corpse to wild animals or bugs. Hence, we can see that even people’s concept of filial duty of children and the concept of sin vary.
However, God says in the Scriptures about the original innate sins of a person like this: the twelve kinds of sinful nature which are the tendencies to commit sin that a person has inherited from the ancestors and the sins a person commits while living in this world are fundamentally the sins of a human.
The Sin the Lord Has Spoken About to the People Who Believe in the Lord
To the people who believe in God, the Lord says that not believing in the Word of God and throwing it away is sin. The Lord warns and rebukes sternly the believers in Jesus who are like the Pharisees, saying, “You must believe in My Word of the water and the Spirit, the Word of salvation from sins, without omitting single fact from it.” All the Christian sinners including the religious believers and the sectarians of various denominations do not really believe in the Word of God because they prefer to believe in the words of such forerunners of faith and the theologians of their denominations, the words of elder pastors who have respectable character and integrity more than the recorded Word of God. They are saying that their words are the orthodox doctrines. The Lord rebuked such religious believers.
Like this, the Lord regards such misbelieving as fundamental sin. So, when He saw the Pharisees, they were absolute sinners who were the specialists in hypocrisy. Therefore, the Lord rebuked them as hypocrites and said, “What kind of god do you believe in? Do you really admire, believe, and revere Me? You boast of Me, the Jehovah God, but what do you really believe in Me as? What is honoring Me? You believe in Me only outwardly.” We must understand that God rebuked it as a great sin from God’s point of view.
The greatest sin that exists in the universe is the sin of rejecting the gospel Word of the original wisdom of being born again by the water and the Spirit that is written in the Scripture Word God has spoken to the people. In other words, it is the sin of not believing in the Truth of salvation with heart. Among all the sins, the Lord said that the most treacherous and hell-bound sin is the sin of not believing the gospel of the water and the Spirit that blotted out all the sins of all the sinners of the world; this gospel was completed by the Lord receiving the baptism, dying on the Cross, and being resurrected from death. To the person who believes in Jesus, not believing in the Word of God and instead throwing it away is the hell-bound sin, not something else. And the wrong things we have done out of weakness, the mistakes we make, are called the sins of iniquity in the Scriptures.
God divided the original sins of humans and the personal sins, and our Lord rebuked the Pharisees and the scribes as the hypocrites because not acknowledging the Word of God makes them great sinners before the presence of God even if they had not offended the Law itself before the presence of God. In the Pentateuch of the Old Testament, we can see there are many commandments of “do’s and don’ts.” All these Words are commands God has commanded to humankind. Although we cannot keep the Word of God 100% because of our inability to keep the Word, we must acknowledge the Law of God as God’s Word realizing, “This is the Word God has spoken to us,” and we must acknowledge all the recorded Word in the Scriptures as the Word of grace and the command of God because they all are the Words God has commanded us. And we must believe that “God’s Word is the very law, command, and life.” God made His servants record the Words God had spoken and told us humans to believe in it.
Who recorded the Scripture Word? God recorded His Word through His servants who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. As God said, “I am Jehovah.” This means that God is the self-existent God and He was not created by someone.
God created the heavens and earth as it is written, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). After that, there was light when God said, “Let there be light,” and He created the entire universe and all things in it, established the law of salvation by the Word of sacrificial system He Himself spoke, and the Word became flesh and manifested in the midst of us, and this Jesus was originally God. Jesus manifested Himself exactly according to the Word He spoke in the Old Testament, and Jesus who is God codified the Words He spoke and taught us all the law of salvation and the law of grace and blessing. Therefore, we believe in the Scripture Word as the Word God had spoken.
It is written in the Gospel of Mark chapter 7 verse 8, “For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men,” and there are 613 statutes of commandments God has spoken to us humankind. They are recorded as two kinds of words: do’s and don’ts; and believe and do not believe. It tells us to believe in all the blessed Words such as “Honor your parents; do not commit murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not testify falsely,” etc. God has given 613 statutes of commandments telling humans what to believe and what not to believe and what to do and what not to do. They are the commandments in God’s Law. We must obey the do’s and don’ts by faith because they are not the words of humans but God’s commandments. We must believe the recorded Word of God and follow it although we do not have ability to live by the Word of God; we must believe in our heart that His Word is righteous and live by faith in the Word.
Is there anything that is unrighteous in the Word of God? No, there isn’t. However, the Israelites threw away the Word of God and did not believe in Jesus even when Jesus came to them but instead rejected Him. And they placed more authority in the words of their leasers of that time than the Word of Jesus and the words their elders spoke had greater authority than the Word of God to them. Therefore, even during the time that Jesus was in this world, the people believed and revered the inherited words of elders more and lived accordingly, as it is written, “For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders” (Mark 7:3). Therefore, Jesus said that not believing the Word He Himself spoke and throwing it out, not acknowledge in their heart the Word of Jesus as the Word of God, is the greatest sin.
We must know the purpose of the Law. In other words, we must know why God has given us the 613 statutes of commandments that provide “do’s and don’ts” in detail. First, the Word of the Law God Himself spoke is the truth and He gave the Word in order to establish the absolute criteria of the truth, and that Word became the law God has spoken to humankind. Humankind came to receive salvation from sins by distinguishing the truth from the untruth by the Word of the law God has spoken and receive salvation from sins by believing in the truth. Secondly, the Lord said that it is right to believe in the Word Jesus has spoken and live accordingly as God’s people. Therefore, we must live by faith. However, all of us who believe in God have become sinners before the presence of God because we could not live according to the recorded Word of God, and therefore, it was necessary for us to receive salvation by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit God has fulfilled by sending Jesus to us.
Nonetheless, humans became distant from God and became close to the Devil because they did not acknowledge the Word Jesus spoke and instead disrespected it. Therefore, not believing in the Word of Jesus constitutes the greatest sin of a human. Although not keeping the Word of God and having shortcomings are also sins, not believing in the Word of God but instead rejecting it is the greater sin of fighting against God that makes one deserves God’s hatred, and all such people are bound to hell because of the sin of not believing in His Word. The most treacherous and hell-bound sin before the presence of God is the sin of rejecting the Word of God and not believing in it.
What do you think is the purpose of the Law that God personally has given to humankind? It is precisely to make people realize all their sins and make them return to God. It was God’s will for the Law which is the command of God to make the people who have departed from God because they did not believe in the Word return to God, and the rules and commandments of do’s and don’ts that appear in the Law. The Law was our tutor to bring us to Jesus (Galatians 3:24-25). God gave the 613 statutes of commandments in order to make all people realize their sins by the Law and return to God and become the righteous by receiving the remission of sins through the faith of believing in Jesus.
A born-again saint knows well the reason God has given the Law to humans because the Book of Romans chapter 3 verse 20 says that God has given the Law to make humans realize sin. Then, what do we realize through the Law of God? The Law makes us realize the human weakness; we realize through the Law that it is impossible for us to keep the commandments of God, the Law.
What else do we realize through the 613 statutes of the commandments of God? We realize the ethical sin of humans. And we also realize the correct truth about God. We realize the shortcomings of one’s deeds, the self who cannot keep and follow the Word of God, and the helplessness of one’s flesh. In short, we realize that we are bound to hell due to our sins.
Then, what must we do after realizing one’s own helplessness and sins? Should one try hard to change his helplessness by the faith of believing in the perfect faith as soon as possible? No, he should not. Instead, one must acknowledge his own helplessness first. Then, he must receive salvation by believing in the original gospel of the water and the blood of Jesus who is the Savior and give thanks to Him. The people who believe in the Word of the water and the Spirit must realize that God has made humans realize that they really are sinners and made them accept the salvation that Jesus Christ has delivered them from all the sins of the world, from hell, by the water and the blood.
The purpose of God giving the Law to humans was to teach them to realize absolutely that they are sinners. And we must know that God sent His Son Jesus to give us the remission of all our sins by making Jesus take the sins of humankind upon Himself by the baptism He received. Like this, God has given the Law to make us His children through His salvation from all our sins in Jesus Christ. God gave the Law of God to us who are the descendants of Adam in order to make you and me His children. We must realize what sin is and know that we are absolutely treacherous sinners and become the children of God by being liberated from sin by believing in the baptism Jesus received the blood He shed. And we must live a life of returning glory to God.
We must think of the Scripture Word as the Word of God and believe in it as the Word of God. Otherwise, that is, if we believe in the Word with the confused evil thoughts that come out of ourselves, we fall into error and fall into destruction. Therefore, we must learn and believe in the recorded Word of God based on the Word of the water and the Spirit. Brothers and sisters, even the Israelites, the Pharisees and the scribes, could not have rebuked the disciples of Jesus for eating bread without washing their hands if they had seen it in the light of the Word of God. It’s because the Lord said a person is defiled by the 12 kinds of sins that are inside the person.
What kinds of sins are inside a person? In the Gospel of Mark chapter 7 verse 21-23, the Lord said that humans become filthy due to 12 kinds of sins, as it is written, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.” He was saying that humans have originally these 12 kinds of sins that make themselves, the other people, and the world filthy.
It is recorded in the Book of Psalms 8:3-4,
“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?”
Why does God admonish humans to be born again of the water and the Spirit? It says that God admonishes humans because He loves them. And the Lord had created humans and had mercy on them and loved them unilaterally by God’s love and the salvation of the water and the Spirit, and thereby blotted out all the sins of humans unilaterally and saved them. And He said that He would make them His true people.
It is also written in Psalms, “O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth” (Psalm 8:1). This is the psalm that the writer of the Book of Psalms wrote after realizing that Jesus is the Savior who saved him from all his sins. And the Apostle Paul speaks of the same faith here in the New Testament. He is saying that salvation is the greatest and the most wonderful work among the works God has done for us, and that a creature has reached the status of deity has been established as the truth because of God’s mercy and compassion.
We must believe in all the blessed Word of Jesus. The salvation of the water and the Spirit is the crystalloid of God’s love toward humans. The Lord taught us that it is foolish to try hard to keep the Law although we are lacking and that such thinking came out of human ignorance. Hence we must understand that it is vain to try hard to defeat sin while dwelling under the Law. God wants the people like us who are treacherous and hell-bound sinners to come to realize what sin is through the Law and become born again by believing in the gospel Word of the Truth that Jesus saved us by coming by the water and the blood and the Spirit.
Like this, the Lord regards such misbelieving as fundamental sin. So, when He saw the Pharisees, they were absolute sinners who were the specialists in hypocrisy. Therefore, the Lord rebuked them as hypocrites and said, “What kind of god do you believe in? Do you really admire, believe, and revere Me? You boast of Me, the Jehovah God, but what do you really believe in Me as? What is honoring Me? You believe in Me only outwardly.” We must understand that God rebuked it as a great sin from God’s point of view.
The greatest sin that exists in the universe is the sin of rejecting the gospel Word of the original wisdom of being born again by the water and the Spirit that is written in the Scripture Word God has spoken to the people. In other words, it is the sin of not believing in the Truth of salvation with heart. Among all the sins, the Lord said that the most treacherous and hell-bound sin is the sin of not believing the gospel of the water and the Spirit that blotted out all the sins of all the sinners of the world; this gospel was completed by the Lord receiving the baptism, dying on the Cross, and being resurrected from death. To the person who believes in Jesus, not believing in the Word of God and instead throwing it away is the hell-bound sin, not something else. And the wrong things we have done out of weakness, the mistakes we make, are called the sins of iniquity in the Scriptures.
God divided the original sins of humans and the personal sins, and our Lord rebuked the Pharisees and the scribes as the hypocrites because not acknowledging the Word of God makes them great sinners before the presence of God even if they had not offended the Law itself before the presence of God. In the Pentateuch of the Old Testament, we can see there are many commandments of “do’s and don’ts.” All these Words are commands God has commanded to humankind. Although we cannot keep the Word of God 100% because of our inability to keep the Word, we must acknowledge the Law of God as God’s Word realizing, “This is the Word God has spoken to us,” and we must acknowledge all the recorded Word in the Scriptures as the Word of grace and the command of God because they all are the Words God has commanded us. And we must believe that “God’s Word is the very law, command, and life.” God made His servants record the Words God had spoken and told us humans to believe in it.
Who recorded the Scripture Word? God recorded His Word through His servants who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. As God said, “I am Jehovah.” This means that God is the self-existent God and He was not created by someone.
God created the heavens and earth as it is written, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). After that, there was light when God said, “Let there be light,” and He created the entire universe and all things in it, established the law of salvation by the Word of sacrificial system He Himself spoke, and the Word became flesh and manifested in the midst of us, and this Jesus was originally God. Jesus manifested Himself exactly according to the Word He spoke in the Old Testament, and Jesus who is God codified the Words He spoke and taught us all the law of salvation and the law of grace and blessing. Therefore, we believe in the Scripture Word as the Word God had spoken.
It is written in the Gospel of Mark chapter 7 verse 8, “For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men,” and there are 613 statutes of commandments God has spoken to us humankind. They are recorded as two kinds of words: do’s and don’ts; and believe and do not believe. It tells us to believe in all the blessed Words such as “Honor your parents; do not commit murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not testify falsely,” etc. God has given 613 statutes of commandments telling humans what to believe and what not to believe and what to do and what not to do. They are the commandments in God’s Law. We must obey the do’s and don’ts by faith because they are not the words of humans but God’s commandments. We must believe the recorded Word of God and follow it although we do not have ability to live by the Word of God; we must believe in our heart that His Word is righteous and live by faith in the Word.
Is there anything that is unrighteous in the Word of God? No, there isn’t. However, the Israelites threw away the Word of God and did not believe in Jesus even when Jesus came to them but instead rejected Him. And they placed more authority in the words of their leasers of that time than the Word of Jesus and the words their elders spoke had greater authority than the Word of God to them. Therefore, even during the time that Jesus was in this world, the people believed and revered the inherited words of elders more and lived accordingly, as it is written, “For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders” (Mark 7:3). Therefore, Jesus said that not believing the Word He Himself spoke and throwing it out, not acknowledge in their heart the Word of Jesus as the Word of God, is the greatest sin.
We must know the purpose of the Law. In other words, we must know why God has given us the 613 statutes of commandments that provide “do’s and don’ts” in detail. First, the Word of the Law God Himself spoke is the truth and He gave the Word in order to establish the absolute criteria of the truth, and that Word became the law God has spoken to humankind. Humankind came to receive salvation from sins by distinguishing the truth from the untruth by the Word of the law God has spoken and receive salvation from sins by believing in the truth. Secondly, the Lord said that it is right to believe in the Word Jesus has spoken and live accordingly as God’s people. Therefore, we must live by faith. However, all of us who believe in God have become sinners before the presence of God because we could not live according to the recorded Word of God, and therefore, it was necessary for us to receive salvation by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit God has fulfilled by sending Jesus to us.
Nonetheless, humans became distant from God and became close to the Devil because they did not acknowledge the Word Jesus spoke and instead disrespected it. Therefore, not believing in the Word of Jesus constitutes the greatest sin of a human. Although not keeping the Word of God and having shortcomings are also sins, not believing in the Word of God but instead rejecting it is the greater sin of fighting against God that makes one deserves God’s hatred, and all such people are bound to hell because of the sin of not believing in His Word. The most treacherous and hell-bound sin before the presence of God is the sin of rejecting the Word of God and not believing in it.
What do you think is the purpose of the Law that God personally has given to humankind? It is precisely to make people realize all their sins and make them return to God. It was God’s will for the Law which is the command of God to make the people who have departed from God because they did not believe in the Word return to God, and the rules and commandments of do’s and don’ts that appear in the Law. The Law was our tutor to bring us to Jesus (Galatians 3:24-25). God gave the 613 statutes of commandments in order to make all people realize their sins by the Law and return to God and become the righteous by receiving the remission of sins through the faith of believing in Jesus.
A born-again saint knows well the reason God has given the Law to humans because the Book of Romans chapter 3 verse 20 says that God has given the Law to make humans realize sin. Then, what do we realize through the Law of God? The Law makes us realize the human weakness; we realize through the Law that it is impossible for us to keep the commandments of God, the Law.
What else do we realize through the 613 statutes of the commandments of God? We realize the ethical sin of humans. And we also realize the correct truth about God. We realize the shortcomings of one’s deeds, the self who cannot keep and follow the Word of God, and the helplessness of one’s flesh. In short, we realize that we are bound to hell due to our sins.
Then, what must we do after realizing one’s own helplessness and sins? Should one try hard to change his helplessness by the faith of believing in the perfect faith as soon as possible? No, he should not. Instead, one must acknowledge his own helplessness first. Then, he must receive salvation by believing in the original gospel of the water and the blood of Jesus who is the Savior and give thanks to Him. The people who believe in the Word of the water and the Spirit must realize that God has made humans realize that they really are sinners and made them accept the salvation that Jesus Christ has delivered them from all the sins of the world, from hell, by the water and the blood.
The purpose of God giving the Law to humans was to teach them to realize absolutely that they are sinners. And we must know that God sent His Son Jesus to give us the remission of all our sins by making Jesus take the sins of humankind upon Himself by the baptism He received. Like this, God has given the Law to make us His children through His salvation from all our sins in Jesus Christ. God gave the Law of God to us who are the descendants of Adam in order to make you and me His children. We must realize what sin is and know that we are absolutely treacherous sinners and become the children of God by being liberated from sin by believing in the baptism Jesus received the blood He shed. And we must live a life of returning glory to God.
We must think of the Scripture Word as the Word of God and believe in it as the Word of God. Otherwise, that is, if we believe in the Word with the confused evil thoughts that come out of ourselves, we fall into error and fall into destruction. Therefore, we must learn and believe in the recorded Word of God based on the Word of the water and the Spirit. Brothers and sisters, even the Israelites, the Pharisees and the scribes, could not have rebuked the disciples of Jesus for eating bread without washing their hands if they had seen it in the light of the Word of God. It’s because the Lord said a person is defiled by the 12 kinds of sins that are inside the person.
What kinds of sins are inside a person? In the Gospel of Mark chapter 7 verse 21-23, the Lord said that humans become filthy due to 12 kinds of sins, as it is written, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.” He was saying that humans have originally these 12 kinds of sins that make themselves, the other people, and the world filthy.
It is recorded in the Book of Psalms 8:3-4,
“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?”
Why does God admonish humans to be born again of the water and the Spirit? It says that God admonishes humans because He loves them. And the Lord had created humans and had mercy on them and loved them unilaterally by God’s love and the salvation of the water and the Spirit, and thereby blotted out all the sins of humans unilaterally and saved them. And He said that He would make them His true people.
It is also written in Psalms, “O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth” (Psalm 8:1). This is the psalm that the writer of the Book of Psalms wrote after realizing that Jesus is the Savior who saved him from all his sins. And the Apostle Paul speaks of the same faith here in the New Testament. He is saying that salvation is the greatest and the most wonderful work among the works God has done for us, and that a creature has reached the status of deity has been established as the truth because of God’s mercy and compassion.
We must believe in all the blessed Word of Jesus. The salvation of the water and the Spirit is the crystalloid of God’s love toward humans. The Lord taught us that it is foolish to try hard to keep the Law although we are lacking and that such thinking came out of human ignorance. Hence we must understand that it is vain to try hard to defeat sin while dwelling under the Law. God wants the people like us who are treacherous and hell-bound sinners to come to realize what sin is through the Law and become born again by believing in the gospel Word of the Truth that Jesus saved us by coming by the water and the blood and the Spirit.
Humans Originally Were Born As a Mass of Sin and Their Hearts Are Dotted with Sins They Commit throughout Their Entire Lives
Jesus said that the sins that come out of the heart of a person defile the person. The Lord said that all the food couldn’t defile a person, but the 12 kinds of sins that come out from a person defile the person. We commit sins because we were born with various kinds of sins as the descendants of Adam. If a person who was born with sin knows the purpose of the God-given Law, he must give up the notion of trying to keep the Law of God with his own effort and believe in the Word of the Truth of being born again. If one wants to receive the remission of sins, he must believe that Jesus was baptized to take the sins of the world, that He shed blood to atone for all those sins, and that Jesus is God Himself and the Son of God the Father, and the Savior of all humanity.
All the Law and the commandments of God are righteous but humans are a mass of sin due to the sin they have inherited since they were conceived in their mothers’ wombs. When we look at the twelve kinds of sins that are totally opposite of the commandments of God, we can understand that we are the people who must receive mercy and salvation from God. A sinner comes to seek the salvation of the remission of sins that is given only by the Word of the water and the Spirit of Jesus.
We can look at David through the Scripture Word in Psalms chapter 51 verse 4. David confessed,
“Against You, You only, have I sinned,
And done this evil in Your sight—
That You may be found just when You speak,
And blameless when You judge.”
This means that David acknowledged totally that he was a mass of sin and that he was a sinner if the Lord said he was a sinner and that he was a righteous person if the Lord said he was righteous, and that he would receive salvation if God would save him and that he could not but go to hell if the Lord would send him to hell. Such faith is the upright faith and such disposition of heart can receive the remission of all your sins.
Because all we humans are the descendants of Adam, we have the lewdness in our hearts, the heart of committing murder inside the heart, and the heart of disobeying parents, and many other sins besides these sins. The truth we must understand here is that all the Words of God are the righteous truths and that we acknowledge that we humans are absolutely an evil mass of sin. But, do humans acknowledge the Word of God? The notion that insists, “I was not a sinner yesterday because I did some good deeds, but I am a sinner today because I have done something wrong,” is not the truth, but it’s only a human thinking. So, it was necessary for a human to have the disposition of heart of obeying the Word of truth that a human cannot but go to hell because he is a complete mass of sin from his birth before the presence of God even if he has not violated any statute of the Law of God. A person who admits the Word of the truth God has spoken like this is the person who knows himself as a mass of sin.
Humans are a brood of evildoers not because they commit adultery, commit murder, steal, and cannot love the others, but because they were born as a mass of sin originally from birth; they cannot but go to hell because they were born with the nature of sin that is totally opposite of holiness; and, therefore, they must confess that they are a mass of sin and acknowledge and believe in the Word of the gospel of the water and the Spirit the Lord has given because they absolutely cannot do any righteous work.
Would a person who was born with the heart of committing murder become a righteous one without sin before the presence of God just because he has not committed sin? Humans are originally sinners, a mass of sin, hypocrites, and the unrighteous ones who are bound for hell. Jesus told the Pharisees and the scribes that they would not be able to avoid the judgment of hell, saying, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” Humans cannot but commit sin throughout their entire lives because they were born as a mass of sin. Do you commit sin throughout your entire life? Is this true? If this is correct, believe in the gospel of atonement of sins. I want you to believe in it and receive salvation. May God be with you always!
All the Law and the commandments of God are righteous but humans are a mass of sin due to the sin they have inherited since they were conceived in their mothers’ wombs. When we look at the twelve kinds of sins that are totally opposite of the commandments of God, we can understand that we are the people who must receive mercy and salvation from God. A sinner comes to seek the salvation of the remission of sins that is given only by the Word of the water and the Spirit of Jesus.
We can look at David through the Scripture Word in Psalms chapter 51 verse 4. David confessed,
“Against You, You only, have I sinned,
And done this evil in Your sight—
That You may be found just when You speak,
And blameless when You judge.”
This means that David acknowledged totally that he was a mass of sin and that he was a sinner if the Lord said he was a sinner and that he was a righteous person if the Lord said he was righteous, and that he would receive salvation if God would save him and that he could not but go to hell if the Lord would send him to hell. Such faith is the upright faith and such disposition of heart can receive the remission of all your sins.
Because all we humans are the descendants of Adam, we have the lewdness in our hearts, the heart of committing murder inside the heart, and the heart of disobeying parents, and many other sins besides these sins. The truth we must understand here is that all the Words of God are the righteous truths and that we acknowledge that we humans are absolutely an evil mass of sin. But, do humans acknowledge the Word of God? The notion that insists, “I was not a sinner yesterday because I did some good deeds, but I am a sinner today because I have done something wrong,” is not the truth, but it’s only a human thinking. So, it was necessary for a human to have the disposition of heart of obeying the Word of truth that a human cannot but go to hell because he is a complete mass of sin from his birth before the presence of God even if he has not violated any statute of the Law of God. A person who admits the Word of the truth God has spoken like this is the person who knows himself as a mass of sin.
Humans are a brood of evildoers not because they commit adultery, commit murder, steal, and cannot love the others, but because they were born as a mass of sin originally from birth; they cannot but go to hell because they were born with the nature of sin that is totally opposite of holiness; and, therefore, they must confess that they are a mass of sin and acknowledge and believe in the Word of the gospel of the water and the Spirit the Lord has given because they absolutely cannot do any righteous work.
Would a person who was born with the heart of committing murder become a righteous one without sin before the presence of God just because he has not committed sin? Humans are originally sinners, a mass of sin, hypocrites, and the unrighteous ones who are bound for hell. Jesus told the Pharisees and the scribes that they would not be able to avoid the judgment of hell, saying, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” Humans cannot but commit sin throughout their entire lives because they were born as a mass of sin. Do you commit sin throughout your entire life? Is this true? If this is correct, believe in the gospel of atonement of sins. I want you to believe in it and receive salvation. May God be with you always!
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