Abba’s Heart: Rediscovering The Truth About Sin, Righteousness, and Judgment

“And when he comes, he will expose sin and prove that the world is wrong about God’s righteousness and his judgements.” John 16 8 The Passion Translation

Jesus warns his disciples of his departure from the world he had been living in. The disciples had gotten so comfortable living with Jesus, the Messiah, the One whom they thought would never abandon them.

But this wasn’t abandonment... What was about to happen was to their absolute advantage.

Let’s back up a bit and see what was about to take place:

But when the close Companion comes, who I shall send to you from the immediate presence of the Father, the Spirit of the truth who originates and proceeds out of the Father, this One will confirm everything about me. You also will confirm everything about me since you are with me from the beginning. (You now know your joint I-am-ness together with me from the beginning.) John 15 26-27 Mirror Bible

Jesus was preparing them for something. He was preparing them for what was about to happen, no only to him, but to them also. This wasn’t just about a

departure.

“Because of your association with me, they will kick you out of their churches, meetings and there will even be moments where those who kill you will think they are doing God a huge favor.” “They do these things because they don’t know anything about my Father.”

Jesus isn’t trying to frighten these boys, but he is trying to explain to them about what their future could look like if they truly embrace what was about to happen. Three things were about to happen. One, Jesus was departing from them to be face-to-face with his Father. Two, he was sending the Companion, Holy Spirit to be face-to-face with them as he was with his Father. And three, the Holy Spirit will persuade them concerning sin and prove that the world has been wrong about his Father’s righteousness and judgements all along.

We’ve been wrong about those three things for a long time and it’s high time that we see the truth about Abba and His heart for the cosmos. I believe that sin, righteousness, and judgement are the three things that could be impactful in our world if we begin to throw off our misconceptions of them and get on board with how the Father sees them. I want to invite you to come along with me as I break down these three mistaken beliefs and why they have wreaked havoc in our lives and how a new understanding of them can change our world and open the eyes of those who have longed to be invited to the feast. It’s time to wake them up to the Trinitarian Circle Dance (Perichoresis).

Sin as Hamartia: Redefinement of our identity

In the Western church world, it is often, if not constantly preached from the pulpits with its emphasis on making sure that we are constantly focused on how bad we are. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace.” Well that’s not even biblical.

The Bible doesn’t even mention us as sinners. All throughout the New Testament we read verses such as, “And now there is nothing between you and the Father, for he sees you as holy, flawless, and restored.” “For the same love he has for the Beloved, Jesus, he has for us.” “If anyone is in Christ, he has become a new person.” “You are the beloved of God (Col. 1:22, Eph. 1:6, 2 Corin. 5:17, 1 John 3:1).” I could go on!

It wasn't until about four and a half years ago that I first heard someone teach sin as "hamartia," the Greek term and the correct definition of sin. Because we’ve been taught for so long that sin is an action, we’ve convinced people to constantly focus on that. But we’ve neglected the true significance of etymology in our gospel. If you don’t know what that means, it’s the study of the origin of words in order to help one understand their history and original meaning.

If we view sin as hamartia, we are saying that we are living out of the context of our design, or behave in such a way that is out of step with who Abba says we are. But if we view sin as just an action or some breach of contract that we’ve made with God, we are saying that we plain ol’ dirty rotten sinners were born depraved and will always struggle with sin (Romans 7).

So let’s revisit what Jesus said regarding the Father’s revelation of sin. He’s not exposing our actions. He’s not even exposing our behavior. Because at the root of our behavior is a distorted identity. We do because we believe we are not. He’s not into behavior modification.

I believe what Jesus is saying is that the Holy Spirit is exposing how we see the Father and how we see ourselves. I heard Baxter Kruger say once that Jesus disagrees with how we see ourselves. Jesus has a much bigger view of the Father than we do because only the Father knows about the Son and only the Son knows about the Father and Jesus shares the knowledge and revelation of his Father with anyone he chooses (Matthew 11:27).

Sin has no dominance in our lives because we died to sin through our union with Christ (Romans 6:12, Colossians 3:3).

Paul said this to the Romans:

“The content of teaching that your heart embraced has set a new standard to become the pattern of your life; the grace of God ended sin’s dominance (Mirror Bible).”

Whatever model of doctrine that you have inherited will permeate from your life. I say this with the utmost confidence because I, myself have seen areas in my life that have revealed corrupted and unhealthy thinking patterns that needed to be weeded out with the Father’s love.

When we embrace grace and the righteousness Abba has brought us into, we will begin to live free from the dominance of sin-consciousness.

Will you let the Holy Spirit expose your thinking of how you see the Father? Will you allow Jesus to share the knowledge of his Father with you? Will you allow Jesus to uncover the righteousness that we’ve inherited through his faith?

Righteousness Revealed

We often think of righteousness in legal terms such as a moral standing before God. But when we throw moral standards into it, we deprive ourselves of the true reality of what righteousness means. Righteousness has nothing in common with the philosophies of performance-based approval. You cannot balance righteousness and self-effort together. That’s not the gospel.

The etymological meaning for righteousness is rooted in the Greek term “dikaiosune”, which means in a broad sense the state of him who is as he ought to

be. In simpler terms, one who is acceptable to God. But we have been taught that righteousness is something that must attain by own efforts in order to be closer to or with God. This kind of view of righteousness puts us in a perpetual state of trying to earn acceptance from God through our behavior, but here is the kicker... no matter how much we try to earn Abba’s approval, we will never get there because we are already there!

We have an inferior view of righteousness today because many still teach that “God is too holy to look on sin.” Last time I checked, He isn’t even looking at my sin, He is too focused on how He sees me and the entire human race.

We’ve got to stop seeing righteousness as a reward to be earned. Francois du’ Toit beautifully illustrates the righteousness i’m speaking of:

“Righteousness as God’s free gift, takes the idea of reward right out of the equation - faith not our toil celebrates the innocence of the ungodly!”

(Romans 4:5 Mirror Bible)

The groundwork of rediscovering the true meaning of righteousness is having the assurance of how Abba feels about us and then reflecting that. It has never been about what we can do in our efforts to get back into His good graces. When the approval, acceptance, and opinion of God begins to rub off on you, you will live in such a way that reflects the loving nature of God.

So, the Holy Spirit’s role in convincing us of righteousness is the revealing of our redeemed innocence through the finished works of Jesus. Every single living, breathing person on this earth possesses the perfect righteousness of God, but some just don’t believe or refuse to participate in it, therefore it lies dormant within them.

Righteousness restores us back to how God feels about us: loved, holy, perfect, accepted, clean, whole, and in union with the Trinity.

If Adam’s one offense condemned the entire human race, then in principle, the righteousness of Jesus proves the innocence of the entire human race. I think we’ve preached Adam so much that we’ve put too much of an emphasis on sin and unrighteousness that we have bypassed what Jesus has actually accomplished for us and as us.

Will you wake up to true righteousness?

Jesus' View on Judgment: From Condemnation to Conviction

What did Jesus say about judgement? Here are a few of verses to help you understand:

“Then the world will be convinced that the judgement that was their due was accomplished when the ruler of this world system was judged

(John 16:11 Mirror Bible).”

“God has no intention to condemn anyone - he has sent his Son, not as Judge, but as Savior of the world. The kosmos was rescued because of him! Faith not flesh defines you. In the persuasion of your authentic sonship there is no separation or rejection. For someone to prefer not to embrace this is to remain under their own judgement sustained by their futile efforts to define themselves through personal performance (John 3:17-18 Mirror Bible).”

And last, but not least:

“For the Father judges no-one but has given all judgement to the Son (John 5:22 Mirror Bible).”

Now, I could be wrong here, but from what we’ve just read it seems as though the Holy Spirit is here to convince us rather than condemn us. And any condemnation or judgement that we experience in this life isn’t because we received it from Jesus-it’s because we bring that onto ourselves through our unbelief.

Jesus said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father (John 14:9).” God cannot appear any more visible than what he did in Jesus, the incarnate Word. Any thought that we have about Abba that doesn’t look like Jesus, is not the Father. The Son is the dazzling radiance of God's splendor, the exact expression of God's true nature–his mirror image (Hebrews 1:3).

Everything about Jesus reflects the Father. So, if God doesn’t judge and He has handed over all judgement to the Son, then what have we ended up with?Judgement still? No! We’ve ended up with the very Spirit of Christ here to convince us of our redeemed likeness in the Son and our rescuing not just from hell, but more importantly from a life delusion.

This is the judgement that we live in:

In this very moment, the light is present, yet we are so attached to our own darkness—our way of perceiving the world—that we often choose a life of frustration, struggle, and hardship. Yet, that light reveals the darkness within us.

From now on, let's see Abba's judgment as His way of removing anything that hinders you from fully experiencing His love.