If Jesus paid the price for our sin, why do we still suffer the consequences of our sin?

I would, for a few moments, draw the attention of brethren in Christ to a point, as to which I think there has been a good deal of misapprehension in practice, and which, while the joy of known forgiveness seemed to make all plain for a time, has left souls subsequently in distress and difficulty, even when not doubting of their acceptance, though it has sometimes come to that. Forgiveness is not deliverance, and they have been a good deal confounded. It is a very common experience, when a person has found peace through the blood of Christ, that the pardoned and justified soul, filled with joy and gladness to find its sins gone, the conscience purged, the sense of divine goodness filling it, thinks that it has done with sin because it is at the time full of joy, and the Lord's goodness and favour; but thus is not deliverance.

It is deliverance from the burden of sin upon the conscience, but ere long the soul is surprised to find sin still there; yet this deliverance from the sense of guilt, received forgiveness, has very often been taken for the setting free the soul, as in a new position before God. This it is not. It is freedom, compared with the bondage of uncertainty of acceptance in which souls are attempted to be kept. The question of sin in the flesh is yet unsolved. I do not speak of perfection, so-called, which has missed all sound discernment as to the state and hope of the Christian, and invariably lowers the Christian standard of holiness and the judgment of sin, tending to harden the conscience, and lower the state of soul before God. There is no perfection, no goal, for the Christian, but being like Christ glorified Himself. But pardon, in its fullest sense is rarely known by the soul that is happy in the way that I have just spoken of, which only knows the deliverance of the conscience from the burden of sins actually lying on it, and thinks of none else: but even in its fullest conception, that of not imputing sin, forgiveness applies to the sins of which the flesh, the old man, is the source, clears the conscience, but the fruit of Adam life is all that is contemplated by it. It deals with what man has done, as a fallen child of Adam. It leads to the knowledge of divine favour, and, I may add, the hope of glory as revealed in Christ. But, while thus knowing God in His ways of grace, and so far completing my sense of grace, self-knowledge, and the consciousness of a new position in Christ before God, are not yet acquired. That we have sinned, and are guilty, and deserve condemnation, is in such a case fully acknowledged. What we are in the flesh, and what we are in Christ is not yet experimentally known. Hence the soul does not stand in its new position before God, is not delivered, is not freed from confounding the old man and my place before God, nor from the power of sin.

It is a hard thing oftentimes to learn, that while God has power to save His own to the uttermost; while He has got in Christ's sacrifice a full and sufficient satisf ac, tion for our sins, nevertheless the necessities of His holy government oblige Him to deal with us as to the very sins which the sacrifice of Christ has put away as wrath bringing. For instance, in 1 Cor. 11, we find this doctrine: "For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged; but when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world" (ver. 32). Now mark, these are redeemed men. They are those for whom Christ's blood was shed, and to whom Christ's blood had been applied. They were "in Christ" before God, and delivered from the wrath to come. Does it not seem strange to read that, if they were not chastened of the Lord, they would have to be condemned with the world?

Send away, let go, give up, remit, forgive. These words give the true sense of what forgiveness is. It is not, as we sometimes think, a change of attitude. Forgiveness is not merely an abstract concept. It is definite and concrete. The finished work of Christ on the cross has put us in a forgiven position in the sight of God in which the eternal consequences of our sins have been sent away. But our sins also have consequences in our lives here on earth. Examples of these temporal consequences include death (as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira or of the Corinthians), sickness (James 5), debt, a sense of distance in a relationship (including things like reduced confidence and a lack of trust). Scriptures that indicate how forgiveness involves the removal (or sending away) of such consequences include 2 Samuel 12:13; Mathew 6:14-15; 18:21-35; John 20:23; James 5:15.

Forgiveness (also translated remission) simply means `sending away'. The eternal consequences due to us because of our sins have been sent completely away. This is the position in which every believer stands. Of course, the consequences on earth due to us if we sin - including a break in fellowship with the Father - require confession on our part in order to be removed. It is important not to confuse these things.

Still, David's sin produced its own bitter fruits in due time. This must ever be so. Grace does not set aside that solemn word of the apostle, "Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap." Grace may pardon the individual, but the results of sin will assuredly appear, even though the sinner may enjoy the deepest and sweetest experiences of divine love and restoring grace, while actually under the rod. We shall see this abundantly exemplified in David. He was, as we know, fully, blessedly, divinely pardoned, washed, and restored; nevertheless he had to harken to the solemn denunciation, "Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thy house; because thou hast despised Me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife."

All this is deeply solemn. Grace pardons; yes, freely, fully and eternally pardons; but what is sown must be reaped. A man may be sent by his master to sow a field with wheat, and through ignorance, dullness, or gross inattention, he sows some noxious weed. His master hears of the mistake, and, in the exercise of his grace, he pardons it — pardons it freely and fully. What then? Will the gracious pardon change the nature of the crop? Assuredly not; and hence, in due time, when golden ears should cover the field, the servant sees it covered with noxious weeds. Does the sight of the weeds make him doubt his master's grace? By no means. As the master's grace did not alter the nature of the crop, neither does the nature of the crop alter the master's grace and pardon flowing therefrom. The two things are perfectly distinct; nor would the principle be infringed even though the master were, by the application of extraordinary skill, to extract from the weed a drug more valuable than the wheat itself. It would still hold good that "whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap."

Your question is a very interesting and important one. "Is any one, now by God's grace a believer, when suffering the bitter consequences entailed by past sin, entitled to take the comfort of those passages in the Word which speak of trial and chastening as being sent in love from a Father's hand?" Doubtless, in such a case, the Father may use the necessary consequences of past sin as a present discipline for the soul of His child; but we are disposed to view this and such like cases as illustrative of that great and solemn governmental rule, "Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap." (Gal. 6:7) You may see men suffering, all their lifetime, the natural consequences of past folly and excess. True it is that God, in His grace and mercy, overrules, and turns their very consequences to account, by using them for holy discipline; but all the while they are the fruit of past sin.

Repentance and remission of sins refer clearly to the responsibility of man, here of Israel, in his natural standing with God; and clearing that as to man's state relatively to God, morally and responsibly qualify him for the reception of purposed blessing — morally in that he judges the sins in principle as God does, and responsibly by God's forgiving them all. Hence also remission is necessarily a present actual thing. There is a governmental forgiveness as well as a justifying one, but the principle is the same, and the latter is the basis of the former. Only where it is governmental it may be accompanied by various accompanying dealings of God, only the sin is no longer imputed as to present relationship with God, as in justifying, this is eternally true. In justifying forgiveness — as in Romans 4, showing by its use of Psalm 32, the common character of non-imputation — it is founded on the work of Christ, and hence is absolute and unchangeable. Sin is not imputed and never can be, because the work is done and finished which puts it away out of God's sight: that — eternal, absolute, and immutable in itself — is the basis of all God's dealings with man in grace. Grace reigns through righteousness. Hebrews 9, 10 unfolds this, where the conscience and coming to God, and that in the holiest, are concerned. So Romans 3-5, where the question is judicial, a matter of judgment, wrath, and justifying. It is the basis of blessings, not the end, great as it is in itself — peace with God and reconciliation. Here it was the ground of all the blessings Israel will have by the new covenant (founded on Christ's death), but being rejected, those who believed entered into better and heavenly blessings. In Exodus 32:14, 34, we get governmental forgiveness, not justifying. In the case of David's great sin, it was pardoned when owned, the iniquity of it put away, but severe chastisement connected with it because he had given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. God's glory in righteousness had to be maintained before the world (2 Sam. 12:13-14).

Very different to his distress at Ziklag were the exercises of David's soul when fleeing from Jerusalem, his royal residence, and home of all that was dear to David's heart. Then, when fleeing from his rebellious son, he had to leave behind everything that was dear and precious to him. Jerusalem was a place very different to Ziklag. It was God's greatest gift to him; Jehovah's reward for all the persecutions, hardships, and contests which he had had to encounter. Jerusalem had been the goal of David's desires — godly desires.* And now he had to give p all this on account of the deadly hostility and rebellion of his son Absalom. The tenderest and closest ties having been rent, there remained to the deeply abased king nothing but the favour and mercy of his God, whilst David's conscience even then did not fail to assert itself. Nathan the prophet had indeed announced the divine pardon to the king after his penitent confession, but he had added that the sword should not depart from his house, "for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." The grace of God, pardoning the penitent sinner, that he die not (James 5:19-20; 1 John 5:16-17), and which restores him to communion with God, must not be confounded with the righteous government of God, which often makes a fallen but restored child of God during the whole of his after life feel and realise the solemn consequences of sin, not merely in the sense of God's justice, but of His wisdom and grace, in order thus to keep present to the memory of our hearts and consciences the solemn character of sin, often so pregnant with continuous sorrow in its consequences — not in our communion with Himself, but for our practical humiliation and as a constant warning. For He knows how apt we are practically to forget the seriousness of sin, when its serious consequences have passed away.

And "when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." For though the cross is our salvation, God must be consistent with Himself. He must be holy in His ways, — must show that He cannot lightly deal with sin: His government must represent aright His character. Thus the cross cannot excuse from discipline, but secures it; as He says to Israel, "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore will I punish you for your iniquities."