Word Baggage

I am struck by how often difficult questions can be cleared up by simply defining words properly. Sometimes words carry more meaning than we realized, sometimes words are used differently in the Bible than in common speech, sometimes words mean less than we think. This last one, attaching too much meaning to words, is very common. Maybe there is a scholarly name for this but I’ll just call it word baggage. This is what makes us confused when we read that God repents or that Abraham was justified by his works.

The word justify could be defined as “to prove righteous.” We normally speak of justification like Paul does: “being officially proven righteous before the Judgment seat of God.” If we carry all that meaning into the book of James, it makes no sense. In James it just means “to prove righteous before the world,” not officially, and not before God as judge.

There has been debate lately about whether repentance precedes forgiveness. Forgiveness, or pardon, could be defined as “releasing someone from that which they incurred by (sin, a loan, etc).” We can speak of the forgiveness that occurs when we first receive faith and are converted, regenerated, justified, and clothed with the righteousness of Christ; at that point we also become repentant and are forgiven. In that context forgiveness means that we are “eternally released from the punishment of hell that was incurred by all of our sins and sinfulness.” This repentance and forgiveness are ongoing, we continue to be repentant by God’s gracious work in us, and God continues to forgive. At no time in his life does the saved man again become an unrepentant and unforgiven man in the sense of being in danger of hell.

But the word forgiveness does not always carry all that meaning with it. Eternal punishment is not the only thing incurred by our sin, the sin of a regenerated man may also incur God’s chastisement. In verses like 2 Chronicles 7: 14 and Psalm 32: 5, the word forgive refers to “releasing us from chastisement incurred by particular sins.” This is also the idea of James 4: 7-10 and Prov 28: 13. This forgiveness does not occur until after we repent of that sin. When David repented and God forgave him, he had already been released from the eternal punishment of hell; forgiveness here means God released him from chastisement, so he again experienced God’s loving fellowship.