The churches in America are becoming prisons of unclean spirits because grace is defined as perpetual forgiveness. The believers are protected by an impervious state of grace, a bubble in which they will live until they go to their mansion in Heaven.

How would you react if I told you we are in error in this viewpoint? This is not what Divine grace is. It is not unconditional forgiveness with the end in view of making our eternal home in Heaven. This definition of grace is not scriptural.

Do you remember the second understanding of God's goal for man—that it is the removing of his old personality and the creating of a new personality in which all things are of God?

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: (II Corinthians 5:17,18—NIV)

Now, if Divine grace is the Presence of God through Jesus Christ to accomplish God's purpose, can you see clearly that grace cannot be defined as perpetual forgiveness with a view to our making our eternal home in Heaven?

If God's intention is to make us a new creation, with nothing being said about going to Heaven, then forgiveness alone is not sufficient. There must be something additional given. Also, total demands on the believer are necessary for such transformation to occur. The perpetual-forgiveness doctrine makes relatively few demands on the believer. However, becoming a new creation requires severe, sometimes painful change.

Can you see also that defining grace as perpetual forgiveness for the purpose of admitting us to Heaven will destroy God's intention (if His intention indeed is to change us in some manner)? And this is precisely what is taking place in our day. God's true plan of salvation through Jesus Christ has been demolished because of a misunderstanding of the actual nature of Divine grace.

Does the new covenant include the forgiveness of our sins that are past, and our sins of the present and the future if we are obeying the Spirit of God?

Indeed it does.

"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."  (Hebrews 8:12—NIV)

But—and here's the point! The forgiveness of sins is not the central issue of the new covenant for it does not accomplish God's goal of the moral transformation of people. It does not bring them into the image of Christ. Rather the purpose of the forgiveness of sins is to make possible the program of transformation. Transformation is the Divine objective. But God could not change our personality if we were blocked from His sight because of condemnation resting on us. Therefore forgiveness is necessary if we are to be transformed

To be continued.