Jan 25
“Go in Peace”…
Posted by Jody | Posted in God Stuff | Posted on 25-01-2010
Ok I know, "Live Long and Prosper", but it means the same thing.
- The following was the post I wrote for our Jesus website this week. Check out the link on the side of the page for more info.
When looking this past week at the story from Luke 7: 50 Jesus looks at this woman that washed His feet, with a years worth of wages, and says, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”…
One of the unusual things here that we talked about was that in the previous verse he tells her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Which blows everyone away. Why? Because no one on earth has the ability to forgive sins. Only God could forgive sins. But, here is this Rabbi that is traveling through the country-side, doing miracles, forgiving people of sins. This was the calling card of the one destined to come, the Messiah. Kind of like the Jewish Superman.
But there is also this cool, underlying meaning, behind another phrase that only the Messiah could have gotten away with…”Go in Peace”.
You see, everyone in the world is at odds with God until they confess sins, repent (to turn away from there sins), and believe that Jesus died for them and accept that sacrifice. Scripture states that we cannot serve two masters. The world is in direct defiance of its creator. Because of this we are against God and He cannot be for us, nor turn His wrath away, until we come to His terms. By the way I do not think that God is out to get you until you become a Christian but we cannot live with God, neither now or in eternity, until we surrender to Him.
To, “Go in Peace.” Means that Jesus was stating to this woman that she was no longer at odds with God. She was safe and now in His care. She didn’t have to think about an eternity away from Him. She could live the rest of her physical existence in peace.
As someone that has experienced this I would urge you to seek God and make this peace with Him. At Oak Leaf we are here to talk about this with any one but we want you to know you can do this on your own. But if you want to talk you can contact me and we will talk about how you too can have the peace that this lady had.
I agree with you that the woman in Luke 7 had peace because her sins were forgiven and God had given her eternal life. But she received this forgiveness not because she turned from her sin, but because of her faith. The passage never says that she turned from her sin, it says she had faith and her faith had saved her.
Repentance doesn’t mean to turn from sin, it means to have a change of mind, and thank goodness, because no one has ever turned from sin. We all sin. But believers are saved in spite of their sin by the grace of God. Our salvation is 100% by grace through faith in the blood of Christ, and 0% by our own efforts to stop sinning or to turn over a new leaf.
If our salvation was dependent, even to the smallest degree, on how we live our lives, then no one could have peace. How would she have peace if her salvation was dependent on her own efforts at turning from her sin? If she prostituted herself again, would she lose her salvation? What if she committed only “small sins,” and if so, which ones are the “big” ones? What if she got out of church? Got drunk? Coveted? Lusted? Told a lie? How would she know, when she sinned again in the future, if she had made enough effort to turn from her sinning? That doesn’t sound like peace at all.
Born again believers have peace, though, because we are saved as a gift through the blood of Christ. While God commands us to live holy lives and to forsake sin, our salvation has nothing to do with our efforts at living a holy life or forsaking sin. We are either saved by faith alone in the finished work of Christ, or we’re saved by faith in Christ AND faith in our own efforts.
You are so right Josh.
Her peace wasn’t based on her living ’sinless’. It was a granting from Jesus ‘grace’.
thanks for the comment