The provision for the sins of God's people, portrayed in the Day of Atonement ceremony, included confession, forgiveness, and removal.

There is a similar pattern in I John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

When the believer maintains he has no sin he is deceiving himself. There is a possibility he is misapplying the teachings of Paul (II Peter 3:16; I John 1:8).

Most of us Christians, if we will think about our deeds, words, motives, and imaginations, must acknowledge there are occasions when we do exhibit a sinful disposition. The question is: Is there provision in the Christian salvation for actually cleansing human nature? We believe there is.

The Christian counterpart of the Day of Atonement works each day in our life as we confess our sins. It is not a case of examining our motives until we turn ourselves into gloomy, despairing souls. Rather it is a matter of living joyously in the knowledge that Christ has forgiven our sins and that we are without condemnation while the process of deliverance is continuing (Romans 8:1).

We are not to refer back to sins we committed before we received the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. All of that guilt has been cast behind God's back and we have been washed as white as snow in the blood of the Lamb.

It is the sins we are practicing now, as Christians, that we must confess. If we will bring our bondages to our Lord He will break them by the authority and power of the Word of God, by the Virtue of His own body and blood, and by the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit of God.

The tendency today is to view deliverance from sin as psychologic healing. The idea is that we have emotional problems of one sort or another and if we will confess them and get rid of them we will have a happier and more successful life.

It is true that if we get rid of our sins we will profit, although not always in a material sense or even in this present world. But sin needs to be treated as sin, as the breaking of God's commandments. We are not in a self-improvement course but in a program of salvation from sin.

When we seek deliverance from sin we do so in order to please God. God will bless us and be pleased with us if we lead a holy and righteous life. But if we as a Christian continue in our sins we are facing the possibility that we will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

It is being stated today that we ought not to threaten people with Divine punishment because to do so brings condemnation. It is not condemnation that is brought when we preach the Word of God, but conviction. Conviction of sin is to be desired because apart from it we continue on, supposing Christ is pleased with us. Any sensible person would certainly want to know if Christ is displeased with him. Ministers of today who are not warning their followers of the terror of the Judgment Seat of Christ will answer to those same followers, in the Day of Christ, for their reluctance to tell their listeners the whole truth of God.

To be continued.