Hidden Secrets - Amazing Grace!

John and I went to see the movie Hidden Secrets tonight. It had some good moments, but I wonder why Christian films aren’t very good. They seem a little fake and not very quality. I once heard a Christian performer say that our movies, songs, books, etc. should be the best given whose on our side.

So I’m always a little disappointed.

But, there was one thought in this one that struck me. One of the characters couldn’t forgive herself for something she had done. She was a Christian and believed Jesus died for our sins, but she still felt that she was under His judgment and everytime something bad happened it was punishment for what she had done 10 years earlier. She said if she had committed a crime she would have had to go to jail; here on earth, in this lifetime; to pay for the crime, and she was in jail now because she couldn’t forgive herself.

I think many people are going through the same thing. In our minds we accept He forgives us because He chooses to. But, in our hearts we feel we need to pay for it ourselves.

At the end of the movie, the pastor at the church that was showing the movie prayed and then played the song Amazing Grace. And I thought – of course! It doesn’t make any sense! That’s why it’s amazing!


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1st John 2:1-2

1st John 2:1-2 “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.”

A commentator once wrote that there are hardly any other two verses in the New Testament, which so succinctly set out the work of Christ. We don’t treat sin lightly even though we know God will forgive us because we’ve already learned that to know God goes hand in hand with obedience to Him. We know that God doesn’t want us to sin and we know that an obedient life follows the example of Christ and He was sinless.

The work of Christ that is spelled out in these verses is: He is our advocate with the Father. There is a story that what Christ does can be likened to a courtroom, where Satan, the great accuser is telling God all of our sins and demanding the death penalty. Christ is our defender who tells God that the punishment was already taken care of. The price has been paid and we aren’t eligible to be tried again. That would be double jeopardy.

But, even more than that the word advocate comes from the Greek word parakletos, which also translates as comforter, counselor, helper and supporter. It was such a common word that other languages back then didn’t translate it. It was the same word in Syriac, Egyptian, Arabic and Ethiopic. The Jews adopted this word and used it for someone to plead another’s cause. They used it as the opposite of the accuser. They even called their sin offering “a man’s parakletos before God” meaning that the sin offering pleads a man’s cause with God.

The word came into the Christian’s ordinary vocabulary and sometimes was used as “one who lends his presence to friends.” And that’s what Jesus is. Our friend.

He is also the propitiation for our sins. Propitiation comes from sacrifice and the Jews understand this better then the Gentiles. The great aim of all religions is fellowship with God. To know God as a friend and to come into His presence without fear. It is a personal relationship with God.

The great problem is sin and the fact it breaks our fellowship with God and it makes it impossible to enter the presence of God. It is to meet this problem that all sacrifice arises. By sacrifice God allows fellowship to be restored. The Jews offered sacrifices morning, noon and night. Over and over again. The idea is that God is placated by the sacrifice. Pacified. Some deed is performed that what Jesus did, placated God. Satisfied Him, so that He, Jesus, is our propitiation. What He did took away our guilt and our defilement and allowed us to come into God’s presence clean and pure.

And John says Jesus did this for the whole world. There is no limit to the grace and love of God or to the effectiveness and the work and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

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