Bible Study Romans Part 67-Paresis

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Now, join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

We are in the middle of a deep discussion regarding the word forgiveness.

Now, you wouldn't think that the definition of such a common term would be so elusive, but that's exactly what we've discovered.

So we decided to go back to the original languages to see if that will help us get a clearer picture of this important concept.

Now remember, it's not that we don't know what forgiveness is, it's just that we want to know what God thinks forgiveness is.

After all, that's all we do around here.

Our only interest in these Bible lessons is discovering the thoughts and intentions of God.

That's what we're after every time we open this book.

We're going through his word with the sole purpose of uncovering his opinions, his desires, his will.

And that's really why he left us this book.

He's aware of how difficult it is for a mortal being who's riddled with sin to communicate with a holy, eternal God.

So he inspired men to write down what he wants for us to do.

And one of the most important tasks he's given us is to seek his forgiveness.

You see, his will is for things to return to their original purpose, and forgiveness is an essential part of that.

Before things can go back to normal, to the real normal, we must seek his forgiveness.

So thus far we've looked at how the word forgiveness is used in the Old Testament Hebrew.

This week, let's move over to the New Testament.

And of course, with the New Testament, we're talking about Greek words.

And the first Greek word I want to talk about is apolu.

Now, this one is not commonly used to communicate the idea of forgiveness, at least not in the Bible, it isn't.

In fact, it's really only translated forgiven in one verse.

In other places in Scripture, this same Greek word is translated released or dismissed or sent or even put away.

But that's a good thing.

Even these translations help us.

They give us a more complete understanding of the word apolu, which leads us to believe it's appropriately translated, forgiven.

Clearly, this word is useful when trying to decipher the core meaning of our word forgiveness, of how God defines forgiveness.

And this becomes even more obvious with this word when we realize it's actually a compound word.

And you know I love compound words because they take us all the way down to the granular level of these things.

So apolupo, apolu, is made up of the Greek word apo, which means off or away, and the Greek word luo, which means to release.

Very often then, apolu is used to communicate the sense of release from a debt or a burden or a difficult obligation.

When our sins are forgiven, we've been freed from a very demanding and crushing debt.

That's why apolu is a good word to use.

Now, let me again point out that the sense of this word apoluo is that it's something that is done to us precisely the way those Hebrew words from last time were interpreted.

Every time the idea of forgiveness comes up in the entire Bible, it's communicating an external process.

It's an action, an action performed on us.

Apoluo is a passive thing from our perspective.

All right, so what's next?

I hate to move through these so fast, but we really have no choice.

Now, the next Greek word we're going to speak about is aphesis, and it's used in a way very similar to apolu, in that it carries with it this sense of being released.

It's a word that's used to communicate a feeling of deliverance from an obligation.

And it also carries the sense of being liberated from a penalty or a sentence or captivity.

Now, when we get to the heart of the words God's picked to demonstrate the effect of his forgiveness, we get a much more detailed view of what forgiveness actually accomplishes for us.

Forgiveness, listen to me, alters our state.

It removes from us a burden, and it feels like it's being done to us because we can't relieve that burden ourselves.

That's the sense the word is giving us.

Remember, we say that the Greek is a very precise language.

It has a lot of nuances when it's being communicated to us.

This happens to be the nuance for all the words God is using for forgiveness.

It is giving us the idea that we're incapable of doing for ourselves what forgiveness does, and that is, of course, to transform our existence from being under something rather onerous to being free.

Forgiveness, to use the ofesis sense, liberates us.

Now, the next Greek word I want to talk about is paresis.

I was back and forth about talking about this one, but in the end, I thought it would be valuable to at least cover.

You see, the reason why I hesitated because it's not actually ever translated into the word forgiveness.

Now, I know that means it sounds like a waste of time to go over it, but it's actually used in a way that helps us to understand the whole concept of God's forgiveness.

And then you'll see what I mean in a moment, I hope.

Now, full disclosure.

This is a word that's actually only used once in the entire Bible.

And I know that means we're really not off to a good start with this, but hang on because we're getting somewhere with this.

Although it's only used that one time, it's still actually quite useful in explaining the shades and meanings of this most important Christian concept of forgiveness.

And that's mainly because of the way Paul uses it in that one instance.

This is fascinating and it demonstrates the apostles' mastery of communicating the gospel.

Now, let me read the verse.

It's actually just ahead for us in our study, but at this rate, we may take some time to get back to the book of Romans.

Anyways, here it is: Romans chapter 3, verse 25.

Romans 3:25

Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission.

There's our currently understudy word, paresis, for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God.

Now, that is a loaded verse that we'll talk a lot about when we get to it, but right now I want to talk about that word remission.

Now, in my opinion, it's actually not a very good translation.

I understand why the King James translators chose to use the word remission, but it's still really not the best choice.

Most of the other English language translations use the phrase passover.

Now that's a little bit better, but not much.

Now, granted, remission and passover hit on aspects of the Greek original, but neither really captures the totality of meaning.

And to be honest, I'm not sure there is a good English alternative.

This happens to be one of those types of words that come to us in the Greek that needs more than a word-for-word swap.

This one is better, like so many.

It's better if we use a summary rather than a translation.

You see, the way paresis is being used in this case gives a less than complete sense of forgiveness.

And that's why the word remission and Passover are used.

Remission communicates the idea of removing the effects of sin while at the same time demonstrating a temporary or a tenuous removal.

You sort of think of it being that the sins are put to sleep.

They're no longer affecting the person.

While Passover, the phrase passover gives us the impression of a fleeting or momentary or even incomplete action.

Paresis has all of that, and that's what makes this such a challenge.

It's a dynamic word, making it really the perfect choice for this application, for this context, but it's just not that easy to interpret.

We get the idea of setting aside sin or even disregarding it rather than doing away with it altogether immediately.

Now, the other words used for forgiveness have a permanent feeling to them, but not paresis.

Now, hang on, don't get ahead of me, or Paul actually.

Paul is using this word masterfully.

With this word being placed here, it's tempting to think that Paul is teaching that God only suspends his hatred of sin, or that he'll wait to a later date to deal with it.

But what Paul is really demonstrating is that for sins that had been committed long ago, God had in reserve the forgiveness that he knew would be available once his son went to the cross.

For example, the sins of Moses were parisus, not fully forgiven.

They were granted an incomplete forgiveness, but made whole once the Savior paid fully for them.

This is paying for sins on credit.

Now, forgive my lowly illustration, but I think it fits.

There's sins that are being paid with the death that would come later.

That's paresis forgiveness.

It communicates the sense that, listen to me, because this is the important part.

It communicates the sense that something very specific must happen before a full forgiveness can be granted.

That's why he was given a paresis.

Moses was given a paresis forgiveness.

God could not, by his word and justice, fully forgive Moses until the time of Calvary.

So he granted him a paresis, a passing over, a sort of setting aside forgiveness.

It's sure to come.

The forgiveness is sure to come, but the transaction isn't complete until the essential action has been performed.

It's sort of like a promissory note.

It is something to hold the place of the action.

Using a word like paresis, and it's important, it tells us that forgiveness is not automatic, that there actually is a requirement before it can be granted, even for those super saints back there.

Paul never wants us to get the idea that anyone could have their sins just waved off.

Not even the likes of Moses.

They sinned, those saints of old sinned like the rest of us.

So what happened to them?

Did they go to hell because they were born too early?

Someone's going to ask how those ancient saints got justified if they died a thousand years before Calvary.

I mean, people are going to say, well, Abraham must not be in heaven because he died long before Jesus could do anything about his sins.

Okay, yeah, we're fine, but what about Noah?

Is he in hell since Jesus wasn't around to pay for his sins before he died?

Same question for every one of the saints of the Old Testament.

Where's Elijah?

Where's Isaiah, David, Daniel?

Well, their sins were forgiven on credit.

God had complete confidence in his son's faithfulness even thousands of years before he came to this earth.

This is what we find in the word paresis.

It's receiving forgiveness on terms, as they say.

I hope I made that one clear.

I'm not so sure.

Now, one more to talk about before moving on to the next aspect of this discussion.

This one happens to be my favorite of the group.

It's pronounced poorly by me, harizomai.

Now, most of you chapel regulars hear the word haris in there.

Haris, in case you don't know, is the Greek word that gets translated into our word grace.

Haris is grace.

Most of the time the word grace appears in the New Testament.

It's translating some form of the word Haris.

Both Haris and Grace mean to grant something without regard to payment.

It's freely given favor or blessing.

This is unearned favor.

You may have done something, you may constantly be doing something wonderful and selfless and moral, all those things, but none of that has anything to do with Haris.

Haris, grace, is the act of receiving something for nothing.

Harizomai is defined very similarly.

The in the word study dictionary, the definition of Harizomai reads, quote, to show someone a favor, be kind to, to give or bestow a thing willingly.

Now, what's interesting is that only Paul and Luke, and by the way, Luke learned everything he knew from the Apostle Paul, only in the writings of Paul and Luke is the word horizomai used in reference to forgiveness.

This is absolutely beautiful.

Herizomine doesn't mean forgiveness, but Paul is using it in that context to communicate the nuanced, gracious nature of God's willingness to make provision for our failures.

Listen, I say this all the time to you.

And yet he's the one who goes to great lengths to shield us from the intense damage our mistakes could have on us.

We sin against him, and he responds with grace.

Clearly, Paul venerates God's loving kindness toward us.

We are all born out of fellowship with God.

We live lives that are rebellious and wicked, and yet God seeks us out to separate us from the deadly results of all of that.

God graciously forgives us, horizomai, so that we can be reconciled to Him.

All right, that very long section spanning the last two weeks was the what is forgiveness part of this discussion.

Now, just as a reminder, we're in the midst of going over the very last section of the third chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans.

We're up to verses 21 and 22.

Let me read them to you.

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference.

There is no difference.

That's where we are in our study in Romans.

These two verses then opened up a very important discussion of the meaning and purpose of this word righteousness.

Now, some of you may think we've gotten distracted because for the last few times we've been together, all we've been talking about is forgiveness.

Well, despite all appearances, we are still indeed within the boundaries of our conversation about righteousness.

Listen to me.

Any biblical discussion on this topic, any biblical discussion on the word righteousness, anytime you're speaking about God.

Righteousness, you must first talk about eliminating sin.

There is no righteousness with sin.

Sin and God's righteousness cannot exist together.

Now that seems obvious, but we silly humans have invented our own version of righteousness that apparently allows for some sinning.

You know, good effort and good intentions are always used as mitigation buffers in human-invented righteousness.

Close enough is really all it requires.

You know, at least you tried is an oft-repeated excuse for constant failure and backsliding.

Some sin is okay in our book of righteousness.

A little bit of sin is allowed.

After all, we're a human, right?

We're expected to make some mistakes, and you know, that's okay.

And don't fool yourself, by the way.

There's a good reason for this baked in leniency.

You see, we human beings would never invent anything that would be impossible for us to use.

That's why the seats in our cars are the perfect height to see out of the windshield.

That's why the size of the doors of airplanes are the right dimensions for the average person to fit through.

That's why the entrance to your house is on the ground floor.

Everything would we design must be possible for people to use.

And that's why our designed righteousness allows for a little sin here and there, because if it didn't, no one could use it.

Like everything else humans conceive of, our righteousness accommodates our human limitations.

Well, the righteousness found in the Bible is not designed by man and therefore does not stoop to our level.

The righteousness found in the Bible is God's righteousness, and it's the right amount of impossible for us to accomplish.

Let me say that again.

God's righteousness, DK Usine in the Greek, makes no provision whatsoever for the shortcomings of mankind.

If you get nothing else from my teachings, get this.

God will never compromise his standards in order to meet ours, even if that means that the standards of God fall outside of man's abilities.

In fact, that's really precisely what this whole thing is meant to teach us.

God revealed his impossible for humans to meet standards to bring us to the realization of our desperate state.

If you want to be righteous as God defines it, this is the impossible standard you must meet.

And in case we think that just means we can ignore his standards just because we can't meet them, he makes those same impossible for humans to meet standards required.

If you are not righteous, then you are damned.

Jesus said, be ye perfect.

Doesn't that blow your mind?

No one knows better than Jesus that we can't be perfect.

I mean, no wonder humans invent their own righteousness because they come across this.

This is what they're facing.

Be ye perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect.

That isn't human perfection, this is heavenly perfection.

And that is what Jesus commands us to be.

But again, that's the point.

God knows it's impossible for you to live up to his standards, and yet he demands those standards.

In fact, that's the entire message that Paul has been communicating in these first few chapters.

God is not going to bargain down his righteousness just to make it easier on us.

I mean, what's the point of having the a standard if you're not going to stick to it?

It goes from being a standard to no more than a guide.

And listen to me.

If God relaxed his righteousness, his word can no longer be trusted.

And to God, his word is everything.

And that leads us to the next question about forgiveness.

Why do we need it?

Now let me remind you that we're not talking about forgiveness of our fellow man.

You know, many who teach this topic are always trying to frame the discussion around those parameters.

I think that's a mistake.

Yes, forgiving each other is a very important part of our Christian lives.

And as a matter of fact, it's a reflection of our commitment to being a Christian.

How often and to what extent we forgive those who have trespassed against us is indicative of our Christian character.

There's no question.

Those who value their own forgiveness, they value the fact that they've been forgiven more freely offer it to others.

But know this: human forgiveness and divine forgiveness look very different in many ways.

For example, divine forgiveness is much more practical than human forgiveness.

When God forgives us, it, as I said earlier, it fundamentally alters us.

It alters our relationship with Him forever.

Human forgiveness, on the other hand, is very often temporary and tenuous.

We are called to forgive and forget, but for we mere mortals, that is very difficult.

Sadly, forgiveness among people is only partially successful in removing the after effects of the wrong we've done one another.

The residual hurt that we feel after being betrayed rarely goes away completely.

With God, that's never the case.

When God forgives, all things are new again between he and I.

Quickly on the day of atonement, when the high priest imposes by placing his hands on the scapegoat, then the sins are transferred to the scapegoat, and a fit man, the Bible says, carries that goat off into the wilderness, never to be seen again.

The picture is the complete and total removal of sin.

We human beings don't do that.

Now I ask you to take my word for this.

There are more scriptures that I can use, but I'm trying to move faster.

God's forgiveness is not like ours.

It's not just something that is designed to restore a relationship to some mutually satisfying emotional level like our forgiveness is.

It's much more important than that.

Listen, each one of us has been created and saved for a very specific purpose.

I believe that we've all been given a specific calling.

I can't prove that from scripture, so you're gonna have to take it or leave it, but I think God has something very specific in mind for each individual.

And unless our sins have been dealt with, we can never realize our God-given purpose.

If God cannot work with us, if the Holy Spirit can't enter our hearts to guide us and teach us, which when we're under sin, he can't, until our sins have been forgiven and set aside, the divine cannot interact with us.

Therefore, our forgiveness is on a very different and important level than our forgiveness of our fellow humans.

Sin disrupts our relationship with God.

A state of not being forgiven disrupts the relationship we have with God.

He will not enter a realm that's under sin.

Likewise, while we're under sin, we can't enter his realm.

Our existence becomes completely worthless to our original purpose while we're tainted with sin.

Forgiveness is practical.

There's a reason behind it.

Forgiveness restores our relationship with God to what it was originally established to be.

And until we've received forgiveness, we remain outside of God's domain.

Stop thinking of forgiveness as just your way out of hell.

Forgiveness is for your purpose, for your life to be realized.

It's much grander and much more important than us sitting in the heavenly bus station waiting for the express to heaven.

And listen, make no mistake, and I hate to say this because it really puts people in a bad mood, but for all intents and purposes, God doesn't forgive you for your sake.

Let me put it this way: the primary reason God forgives your sin is not to make you happy or safe or comforted.

God forgives our sins for his own sake.

And when you look at it that way, then you can say, aha, that's why he goes to so much trouble.

That's why he sent his son for this.

Now, this one I will take up back up with Scripture.

I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and I will not remember thy sins.

That is why forgiveness from God, God's forgiveness, is different than our forgiveness for each other.

God's forgiveness, like everything else God does, is practical.

He's not removing our sins because he wants to be nice to us.

He didn't go through all of that because he thinks we've suffered long enough.

God doesn't separate our sins from our spirits just because he feels sorry for us.

God forgives our sins because they hinder his purposes.

And that's why when he forgives, he forgives forever and completely.

Because without a clean slate, nothing can move forward.

We know nothing about that, do we?

When we forgive, we usually hold on to a little bit of the offense because we figure the wrongs people do to us can be currency.

We hang on to a little bit of the hurt to bring up later on when we need a little boost.

An insult, an angry moment, a careless whisper can all reap dividends long after I've said, I forgive you.

God's not like that because his objectives are vastly different than ours.

God forgives our sins and never brings them back up because our sins block his plans for glorification and must be eliminated permanently.

It is actually works against him to bring our sins back to us because then he's once again bogged down.

I know we think he removes our sins completely because we're just, you know, simple, ignorant victims who never really intended to be sinful, but none of that is true.

We're not simple, we're not ignorant, and you better believe we intend to be sinful.

But when God takes my sins, which were like crimson red, and washes me white as snow, he's doing so for himself.

Now that may disappoint some of you, but you should realize this actually guarantees our peace of mind.

If God did anything based on our value, if his actions were dependent on mine, I'd never be able to rest.

Because he and I both know too well my fickle and unreliable nature.

So for no other reason you should think of your forgiveness in those terms.

All right, much more to talk about, but that's probably enough for now.

We'll continue this next time.

See you then.

We hope this study has blessed you.

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It is our prayer that this will be so for all of our listeners.

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