So many times, I've heard people teach this:
When God looks at you, He doesn't see your sin.
All He sees is the righteousness of Jesus, covering you.
It has never settled well with me. I am repulsed by the idea that God could somehow fail to see something that is true, even if it is my sins and shortcomings.
Just recently, I heard another famous, respected preacher say something about this, and I struggled.
God knows everything.
And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. ~Hebrews 4:13
God knows everything.
Psalm 139 tells us that God has searched us and knows everything about us. He sees everything we do, and knows everything we think. Yes, He knows our thoughts. In fact, He knows what we are going to say, before we even say it (presumably even when we do not, when unplanned words slide off our tongues like an avalanche of soiled laundry).
Isaiah 46:10 tells us that God makes known the end from the beginning, or (in other words) from the beginning, He declares what the end will be.
There's a clue there. From the beginning, God knows the end. This is in line with Psalm 139:4, which explains that He knows what we are going to say.
It isn't as though He "doesn't see" our sin. God sees, knows and completely understands everything.
Being creatures who are locked in a time-space continuum, it is nearly impossible for us to imagine an existence outside the boundaries of time. Yet, by the grace of God, He has given us the ability to begin to conceptualize such a thing. God is eternal, and He inhabits eternity, which means that He is eternally present in the past, present and future, all at once. It's mind-blowing, but even so, He can move our minds to try to comprehend these kinds of things about His existence, factors completely outside our experience and framework.
God does not foretell the future. He knows the future.
He knows the future by sight, by experience, because He is in the future, just as He is simultaneously in the present and the past. Yes, He is present in each moment with us, but He is not limited to the present moment the way we are. He is in every moment, and He is able to process everything that happens, right along with everything that will happen in the future, never forgetting all that has happened in the past.
In fact, He does not only perceive and process all that happens. He authors and ordains all events. Therefore, He not only knows by experience, but He knows by design. Back to Isaiah 46:10-11, God says, "I will accomplish all my purpose. I have spoken and I will bring it to pass. I have purposed and I will do it."
God can proclaim these things because from where He stands, unbounded by time, it is already accomplished. He is perfectly faithful, and perfectly trustworthy, because He is almighty and eternal. God can make promises that are altogether certain, because in His realm, He sees them completed. However, He is completely wise and kind, and He knows that we cannot see what He sees; we do not see the completion yet. He knows that we are locked in our present moment, and He has astounding patience for us as we fret and squirm under the bonds of time, wondering if He will come through.
Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt? ~Matthew 14:31
In our experience, we wait and worry and wonder. At the same time, God is contentedly full of peace and joy, because He sees the whole of time and space, history, geography, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, psychology and philosophy in one, big gestalt creation that He has pronounced as very good.
This is amazing.
And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. ~Genesis 1:31
The more I ponder this, the more I think we are still in the sixth day, and the sixth day is the climax of God's story, the part where the evil villain rises against God's good creation, and God prevails over this evil, through the powerful paradox of the cross of Christ, Christ--our eternal Hero and Rescuer. Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior rises up in the sixth day to conquer sin and death forever. It is very good, this epic plot that preceded all epic plots. The best story.
And that would lead us to the Seventh Day, the day of rest.
The writer of Hebrews mysteriously alludes to this in chapter 4, speaking about certain faithless ones who will never enter God's rest on the seventh day.
The Seventh Day: God is already there, and Jesus rejoined the Father there after He completed His work of redemption.
The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. . . when This Priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. ~Hebrews 1:3, 10:12
Jesus mediated the New Covenant in His blood, and then He sat down and rested. All who put their faith in Jesus will likewise rest.
There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. ~Hebrews 4:9
The Biblical writers could write about our anticipated Sabbath rest from the very first chapter of the Bible, because God, who knows the end from the beginning, was already there. However, the mystery has unfolded over hundreds and thousands of years to the inhabitants of earth, and we have only gradually come to understand what it means that all of God's promises find their yes in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20). We will join our Lord in perfect fellowship for that glorious, eternal Seventh Day. Until then, we practice every Sunday we can!
But this is about how God sees us, and what He sees when He looks at us, and whether our sin is hidden by the blood of Christ.
I think our sin is hidden by the blood of Christ, and God does see the glorious perfection of Christ when He looks at us. But it is not as simple as a covering, or a lens, or a shield. It is not about being covered by a veneer of perfection under which we continue to indulge in sin.
When God, who declares the end from the beginning right from the start, when this omniscient, eternal God looks at me, He sees the gestalt me. He sees me as one being, with all my past, present and future, conglomerated into one, glorious, redeemed child who belongs to Him through the atoning sacrifice of Christ, purified and made righteous by His Spirit.
The Apostle John writes, "When He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure," (1 John 3:2). And the Apostle Paul tells us that we are being transformed into the image of Christ from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18).
In our experience, this is a time-consuming process, sometimes an excruciatingly slow one. But from God's point of view, it has already happened, ever since eternity past when He wrote our names in His Book of Life, when He predestined us for redemption through Christ before the creation of the world (1 Peter 1:20).
When God looks at us, He sees what we will be as though we already are, because He is not locked into this present moment with us. Because His ultimate purpose is to perfectly conform us to the likeness of Christ, God even now sees Christ in us. It's not an illusion or a disguise. It's future reality.
When God looks at me, He sees what is absolutely true. He sees the finished work of Christ made manifest in me, while He simultaneously sees my sin, my sorrow, my desperation for a Savior, and my present hope that the Holy Spirit is at work in me. He sees my brokenness, and my restoration process, and my finished perfection by His power. He sees His artistry and His therapy and His power and His completed purposes, all at once. He is glorified because I belong to Him, which demonstrates both His goodness to me, and the all-surpassing glory of His grace.
You too. He sees all these things when He looks at you, knowing that you are His, and you are responding to His grace exactly according to His plan.
Oh Lord, thank you for your sovereign power in our lives. Lead us to consciously, purposefully rest our faith in you, as we find our rest in you, and we look forward to that seventh day of perfect rest.
Related:
The Eyes of God
Righteousness (part 1)
Righteousness (part 2)
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