Christian Foundations

Jackie sat fidgeting in her chair, obviously wishing she was anywhere but sitting in the counselling room with me.  She had reluctantly made the appointment and I knew there were deep and painful issues she needed to share. 

After 20 minutes of sidetracking and beating around the bush, she finally let slip one reason for coming to see me: ‘My grandmother died two years ago and, ahhh, I need to find a way to let her go.’ 

Tears come to her eyes and I knew she had stepped across an invisible line to let me into her private world or pain.  …but before I could reflect back to her what I had heard as her need, she quickly changed the subject and put back on her brave face.  Our session closed without her making another appointment but I knew she needed to open that grief and loss box.

Ready for my next client, Tonia sat before me, ready to deal with all the issues the Lord raised and then some.  Her heart was open and all her walls of protection were surrendered before the Lord.  She put in a great session with the Lord Jesus, one that I even learned things about His love and healing.

So what was the difference between these two hurting people?  Why do some people seem willing to run the Lord help their broken heart ….and others want to turn and run behind their walls of protection – away from Him? 

The answer may be something new to you, or even puzzle you.  This is one of those big questions that seems to surface when dealing with the heart and helping people hear from the Lord.  It has to do with an Old Testament word: INIQUITY!   It is so important that we need to unpack the concept and see what iniquity means and if there is any ‘iniquity’ in our own life.

A.  SIN AND INIQUITY ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.

I first discovered there was such a concept in reading Psalms ….where King David asked the Lord ‘to forgive his sins and his iniquities’.  These were two different things?  I hadn’t seen that before.   If we study verses such as Psalm 32:5, 51:5, Deuteronomy 5:9, Leviticus 16:22, we see that God treated the two words as separate and different.

1.  We all have some ideas about what sin is.  However, in our secular culture, ‘sin’ is one of those words often translated as ‘mistake’, wrong choices, other’s actions causing me to ….and so on. Actually Sin means ‘missing the mark’, failing to live up to what God has called us to be and do, sin is failing to following the conviction of the Holy Spirit, sin is………ahhh, another topic for another post.  Let’s get back to the point of our time together – iniquity is different than sin and keeps us from letting God into our life.

2.  So, What is Iniquity?

Maybe we need to start with a definition of ‘Iniquity’?  First off, iniquity is an Old Testament word that means ‘lawlessness’.  So how does that help us?

       a.  There are 5 words in the Hebrew, Old Testament and 5 words in the Greek New Testament listed as iniquity. 

The two most common are ‘Anomia’ – meaning unrighteousness, lawlessness, a state of not being right with God, without following God’s laws.  The second is  ‘Abidia’ – a condition of not being right with God’s standards, holiness or righteousness, or by what a person knows it right by their conscience

       b.   Iniquity is living against God’s laws, either by replacing God’s will with self-will or in flagrant defiance and rejection of the known will of God.   One glaring example is found in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 with the Antichrist, the lawless one, the false prophet. 

       c.  In the New Testament, we find Examples of Iniquity, Matthew 7:21-27:  the story of the two builders.  Jesus’ story was not about the skill or competence of the builders.  Why one would build on sand is somewhat of a mystery but perhaps it was out of ignorance, tradition, a good price, who knows?  This still wasn’t Jesus’ point.

The reason for the story is in found in Matthew 7:22-24, and 26.  Jesus said the point was hearing His word but not applying or living by the Word as a guide in our lives.  It was hearing but replacing His words with our own way of doing things.  We may be doing His way with our head or in a religious manner but it isn’t from a obedient heart attitude.  Our personal  iniquity stops us from doing His way.

B.  INIQUITY MEANS ‘LAWLESSNESS’      

So then, iniquity is a word God uses about us – as seen from His point of view.  He says we have ‘iniquity’ when we follow our own self will.  This is a failure to keep His laws.  Therefore, God calls us ‘lawless’ since we are not following His ways but our own laws.  

1.  Therefore: Iniquity is ….

       a.  ….rejecting His path to find Him, preferring our own ideas of how to find Him,

       b.  ….replacing His word  with our own self-centred versions,

       c.  ….thinking we can live our life without His help or guidance — > pride

       d.  ….selecting our own way to be saved, rather than His way —- > pride

       e.  …trying to gain our own self-rightness outside His way —- > pride

       f.  …that we can gain our way to Nirvana, paradise or heaven our way….

2.  Iniquity the wall that we hid behind so we don’t have to face God.

Iniquity can be called the wall between hearing and doing what God wishes us to do because we are doing our own thing, living by our own laws.  We are not open to following His will, His laws but have set our own laws —– > lawless in God’s eyes!

C.  THE WHOLE WORLD IS FULL OF INIQUITY

1.  Because of the Old Nature, we are all in iniquity until we chose to let down our barriers toward God and listen to Him.

       a.  The world is guilty of living by great ‘lawlessness’ and disobedience to God will.

       b.  We, as Jesus Followers are guilty too.  We have the same tendency is just to do our own thing – any time we make our own laws, decide our own way of doing things without considering God’s ways – we are sitting deep in iniquity. 

2.  So, to do our own self-chosen will is inherent in the old nature.   It is still at work in our own lives in two main ways:  For some, we set the dividing line between what we will or will not allow God to do in our lives.  We struggle with the Lordship of Jesus. 

3.  If we have a reluctance to forgive others, to follow the Holy Spirit’s conviction, to obey His commands as part of the new birth process, such as water baptism, of submission to authority and so on, we have iniquity.  This again is the old nature at work. 

We see this in the counselling rooms in shades of ‘blindness’ or ignorance to out-right hard-hearted defiance to God’s word or to that of subtle self will.  There also are degrees of ‘blindness’ from the long buried areas to the ‘open rebellion’ of following our ancestor’s or other’s ways out of tradition.

D.  HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUR OWN INIQUITY

1.  First of all, we have great news!  Jesus took has broken your iniquity under the terms of His new covenant.  Catch the ‘ahaaa’ of what the word iniquity really means.

       a.  In the Old Testament, each generation ‘took on the iniquity of their fathers’, Deuteronomy 5:9.  Now under Jesus’ Everlasting Covenant, each person bears their own iniquity, Jeremiah 31:29-20, Lamentations 5:7, Ezekiel 18.  Jesus broke the spiritual curse of past inheritance.   He has taken on the curse of our iniquity, Isaiah 55:5-6.  We are free to choose spiritual life rather than be bound to choose spiritual death.

       b.  However, we must learn to judge ourselves by the Word, 1 Corinthians 11:28-32.  Or else?  Father God will bring circumstances into our lives to test, purify and deal with our sin.  He loves us too much to leave us in that sin-sick state.

       c.  Generational curses are another topic for another post but we can still be free from any generational course because of what Jesus did for us.

       d.  Learn to allow the Holy Spirit to break down the walls of iniquity.  Your choice is to set your will to follow the new Creation rather than the fleshly desires of the old nature, Romans 6:12, Galatians 5:16-17.  The choice is ours.  We are freed from the curse of just following our old nature.  We can allow God to work in our lives to bring us freedom – if we begin to let Him tear down those WALLS BETWEEN HEARING AND DOING.

Conclusion:  Iniquity is when we set our own ideas and self will on how to live above what Father God said in His word, following our own laws rather than His.  Then we become guilty of living outside God’s law, therefore ‘lawless’.  However, the good news is that Jesus came to tear down that wall between hearing and doing – if we chose His way!

I trust this has been an interesting and maybe challenging post for you.  However continue to ‘chew it over’ and see what the Word is saying so that you too can be free of iniquity!

Susanne Fengler, Blog Author

www.christianfoundations.jesus-treeoflife.info

PS.  You will also find a copy of this ‘Sunday Cuppa with Susanne’ on:  www.hearinggod.mentorsnotebook.com/blog 

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