Beyond the Tomb: What the Bible Says is your second chance.

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It is the kind of pain that does not arise due to what has taken place, but to what you have done. Errors that seem irreversible. Any words you said you would have given anything to take back. A character of yourself, that you are not proud of - and the gnashing unquiet apprehension, that perhaps that is the real character. The thing is that you are what you are worst.

The majority of the citizens have something like this. It is so much borne by some that it makes them what they think of themselves, how they approach God, whether they believe in a really different future that someone like them is even capable of.

And then here comes the bible and tells us something remarkable. Something that goes against all common sense that seems too good to be true is why so many people have a very difficult time accepting it. It declares that there is a second chance. Not through your merit. Not that your mistakes were not that bad. Not that God is a bit weak and does not see the true burden of your actions.

The Tomb Was Not the End To You.

Christian faith revolves around the resurrection of Jesus. Paul tells it so forthright in 1 Corinthians 15:17 - "And whether Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain. He does not dress it or make it soft. The resurrection either did or did not occur, in which case everything turns out to be different, or it did not, in which case Christianity is simply a moral philosophy and we should be frank about that.

It is not just a claim of the resurrection of Jesus. It has something to do with the rest of us. As Jesus got out of that tomb, he was not merely portraying divine mightiness. He was ushering in a new order - what the New Testament speaks of as new creation. He was showing, more literally and more conclusively than even the most visceral demonstration can show, that death, in all its variations, physical, spiritual, literal, metaphorical, does not last.

Your losses are a sort of graveyard. Your actions that you cannot take back, your personality that you are not trying to be, your relationships that you destroyed, your wasted opportunities, your story that it sort of feels is already written and it is already sealed.

The Disciples Jesus Chose to Use Second Chances.

Among the most eye-opening aspects of what God is like, as exhibited in the life of Jesus, what was being even more father through his ministry is whose name he continued to be associated with. Not the individuals who have clean records. Not those who were organized in their lives. Not the spiritually impressive or the morally unstained.

Peter is likely to be the brightest example. He was rash, too full of himself and gave a flamboyant failure at the worst possible moment. Peter who hours before had stated that he would die before he would deny his Lord denied Jesus 3 times the night Jesus was arrested. To a servant girl. Not to a soldier who had a sword at his throat. A servant girl. And he did it in the presence of Jesus himself.

You would think that was all the end of Peter. The man who did so disastrously, so openly, at such a crucial moment, that you would figure you knew, you figured you knew, he was never entrusted to again.

Rather, Jesus resurrected and sought him out particularly. One of the sweetest episodes in the whole New Testament is related in John 21. Jesus did not renew Peter with a speech, with a list of demands, but with a mere repeated question, "Do you love me?," with an invitation in place of the denial in the three instances. Then he assigned Peter what was most important in the early church, which was to feed my sheep.

The most glaring failure was the man who became the greatest leader of the movement. That is no coincidence. It is a statement concerning the way God works.

The Real meaning of the term Second Chance in the Bible.

Being exact here is worthwhile, since the concept of second chances as it is commonly promoted the idea that God simply ignores what you did and sets the re-set button is not what the Scripture does. What the Bible talks of is even deeper and even more demanding than a reset.

The closest New Testament word is metanoia - commonly translated as "repentance" the English translation does not convey the meaning of the word as richly as it is in Greek. It simply translates to a shift of mind, turning round, rearranging the whole being towards a new direction. It's not a regret. Regret is being unhappy about the location to which you found yourself. Metanoia is repenting and moving in another direction.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17, it is stated as follows: "So, when any is in Christ, he is a new creation, The old is dead; the new has come. New creation. Not some refurbished yourself of the past. Not self improved in the least. It is the language of true, in the actual sense of truly new, that is of something that has truly perished and of something truly new beginning.

That is not inspirational language. It tells the account of an actual spiritual reality, which men in two thousand years have affirmed that they have known, not without fault and failure, not without difficulty and disappointment, but entirely. The reality is the transformation. The novelty is actual. And it can be given to anybody, though of any kind.

The Parable That Says It All.

This tale may well have been heard by you, but perhaps not fresher how it came about. It may be the best-built short story in all human literature, and it holds more on the subject of second chances than whole theology books.

One of the sons requests his father to give him his inheritance prematurely in other words to be dead. He gets it all and travels to another land, spending all of it in any manner you can think of. He descends to the point of feeding pigs to survive and many times he wishes he could share their meal. He has taken all unimaginable bad turns. Any reasonable accounting of his story knows of no version that ends well.

Then there is something unexpected in the text, that changed it all, and it is that he came to himself (Luke 15:17). That clarifying point of view. The time when he can get a glimpse of rising above the fog of bad decisions to see where he is. First he does not tidy himself. He does not threaten to apologize in advance. He does not wait till he has something to give. He just turns and starts walking home.

And here is the notice that Jesus makes, which informs you all about who God is: you see that he was far away, yet his father beheld him. The father was observing. I had been watching. And as he beheld the son approaching, he hastened toward him; and this, culturally speaking, was really indignity on the part of a patriarch to do, and would have made the original audience to suppress a shriek.

But What Of the Consequences?

It is a sincere question that everybody is eager to pose and it is a question that should be answered. The latter second opportunity God presents does not cancel the ramification of what you have done on earth. It does not repair the damages, mend all the destroyed relations, and turn back the natural consequences. The three denials by Peter occurred. The victims of Paul still had whatever they went through. The prodigal son used the inheritance also - the reconnecting with the father does not automatically add money to the wallet.

The bible is candid on this. David actually forgave his adultery with Bathsheba and committing the murder of Uriah were truly forgiven, Psalm 51 documents one of the most remarkable supplications of forgiveness amid the Scripture, and God actually forgave them. And the effects extended into the family of David to the end of his life. There is forgiveness and consequences. Goodwill does not cancel the sowing and reaping law.

What grace doth turn about the significance of those consequences. Once you really have been forgiven and turned in the right direction, you do not carry the consequences to show that you are condemned. They belong to your narrative - a narrative which now has a different conclusion than it had appeared to approach. They are what you pass over on the path to the individual that you are becoming and not the ultimate determination of who you are.

This also has a group aspect to consider. The second opportunity that God gives us sometimes involves the intervention of other human beings- and since other people are human they do not always give the second chance as effortlessly as God.

The Second Chance Is Not the Third Excuse.

An essential difference must be pointed out since grace is not the same as permission. The incredible kindly nature of the second chance God gives fails us as an excuse to continue to choose our own destruction and demand the same treatment each and every time with no real change being made.

This misunderstanding is what Paul predicted in Romans 6:1 - What shall we say then? Will we go on in sin that grace should multiply? By no means!" The entire aspect of true second chances is that they transform you. The prodigal son didn't go back to the far country once the party was over. Peter did not continue to reject Jesus. Paul did not continue to persecute Christians.

Actual contacts with grace- real experience of being loved and forgiven at the very core when you had bred the last thing you needed- bring actual change. Not immediate, not flawless, not flawless. But real. The end product of a true second chance is a truly new course, not a new, advanced version of the old same trends.

It is not a menace meant to take away the security of grace. It is an account of what grace does in fact. When unconditional love has met your worst, there is truly no incentive in continuing to decide what made you get down to that point.

Frequently asked questions: Second Chances and the Bible.

Q: Does God does forgiveth such a thing, as unforgivable sin?

According to Jesus, the Holy Spirit has one sin, one that cannot be forgiven - blasphemy (Matthew 12:31). Theologians have argued about what this entails but the most consistent that has been identified is that it is a certain, definite, lasting denial of the redemptive work of God, rather than a sin or some kind of sin.

Q: I have requested forgiveness and then committed sin. May I ask one more time?

Yes. The restoration of Peter did not have a single occurrence of his one great failure, the New Testament is not dense in saying that Peter walked a wavy road and fell along the way to the resurrection as well (Galatians 2 witnesses Paul disciplining him before everybody). The graciousness of God is never an exhaustible resource. MIn the book of Matthew 18:22, Jesus tells Peter that he should not forgive seven times but seventy times seven and what Jesus is asking his children to do is not that, but he himself.

A: How do you compare the forgiveness of God and the feeling forgiven?

These are actually dissimilar things. The forgiveness of God is a declaration--a legal and a relationship fact which is achieved as you truly repent and come back to him. The emotional and psychological understanding of forgiveness may be a long journey that may need counsel or community support, be complicated by shame and depression, and be complicated by the fact that our brains may change our perception of past events.

Q: Does God forgive second chances to those who have wronged others severely?

Yes and this is one of the most challenging things about the gospel when it comes to the one who has been hurt. Paul was a suppressor of Christians. David had a murder done on a man. Moses killed a man. It is not a minor moral malpractice. All of them received second chances by God. This does not imply that the harm they have caused is forgotten and that their victims are not important, it simply indicates that the ability of God to redeem them is greater than the ability of men to get it wrong.

Q: How do I get this second chance actually?

The most basic one: turn, and request. Switch directions that you have been moving in, not merely regret it, but actually point in a new direction. And request God, ask him sincerely and directly, to forgive, to give a new beginning, what the death and resurrection of Jesus realized. There is no particular language or formula that you must have. You require good meaning and good conversion. To peg that in the Scripture, however, a nice place to begin is in Romans 10:9: "You will be saved, if you with your mouth say, Jesus is Lord, and in your heart you believe that God raised him out of the dead.

Q: Can it be too late for me?

The Bible is not the book to provide the answer to that question, but it only says no, not so long as you are breathing. No age prohibits, no sin standards, no waiting time, no failing count, to put the door behind us. The thief on the cross who was with Jesus had no opportunity of living a reformed life but only a few hours to go after admitting his truth and the death of Jesus. Jesus reacted instantly: today ye will follow me in paradise (Luke 23:43). Today. And not after some time of having proven yourself. Today.

Conclusion

The central fact of Christian faith is the empty tomb, which directs other things, and on the other hand, a truth that must lead to a new interpretation of how all individuals who encounter it should intellectually reconsider their own lives and their own future.

Tombs are not the end. Not the symbolic tombs that human misfortune and human suffering build around us, not the actual tomb that is situated outside Jerusalem. The God who brought Jesus back to life is the God who is in the business of bringing things back to life - even to that part of us that we think is most irretrievable. Interpreting the futures that seem most despairingly determined. There are the people who most completely disqualify themselves, and they should be included.

There is nothing minor in the Bible about second chances. They are the theme. Genesis to Revelation, Scripture is the story of how God reaches out to people who have no right to have his attention and that he can provide them a way of returning and that he can do something remarkable with what appears to be irreparable rubble.

 

Written By Hirwa Karake Bertrand

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