After a person is saved, his old way of living and his old conduct should come to an end. Before he was saved, he was a sinner living a life in sin. He was also a man of the old creation, conducting himself in the old creation. But now that he is saved, he should terminate the things of the past because he is a new person, having the life of the new creation.
Once a person is saved, there is a change in his being. Consequently, it is natural that he should have a new beginning. Therefore, he must terminate his former life and conduct.
In the Old Testament, immediately after the Israelites were saved by keeping the passover, they left Egypt. They forsook all the Egyptian ways of living and fully terminated the Egyptian things. From that day forward they lived a new life and walked a new way; everything they did was new. The things of the past and their former way of living came to a complete end. This is a very clear type.
After we are saved, we need to be baptized. Baptism, which is a burial, shows that we need to be terminated. A burial is the biggest termination. As soon as a person has died and is buried, everything of his past is over. A person who has been buried cannot continue his old life and the things he once did. Whether one is ready to be baptized or has already been baptized, he should know that baptism is a termination. What we bury in the tomb is everything of our past and our old way of living. Baptism is like the crossing of the Red Sea. In baptism we go into the water on one side and come out on the other side. The water signifies the termination of all the things in our past. Therefore, now that we have been saved and baptized, we should follow the leading of the Holy Spirit to practically terminate all the things of our past and our former manner of living. Every person who is saved and wishes to follow the Lord must take this step.
If a person does not terminate his past after he is saved, he will be unable to advance as he should as a Christian. Although he desires to go forward, he will still long for the things of Egypt. On the one hand, he wants to be a Christian, and on the other hand, he still lives the life of the old creation. He wants to follow the Lord, but he still holds on to old sinful things. Such a person seems as if he is both a Christian and a person in the world. He seems to be both a child of God and a person belonging to the devil. This is wrong.
We must realize that once a person is saved, he is completely changed. Therefore, all aspects of his living, including the things in his living, should be completely changed. Everything of his past should come to an end.
When we terminate the past, we should never try to search through and examine all the things of our past. We should not do this. Our past is under the precious blood of the Lord; God has forgiven us. It is finished. There is no need to expose and examine what the precious blood has covered. This is a common practice in many revival meetings. Some revival meetings place special emphasis on a believer’s need to search through all the things of his past, even to the point of asking a person to openly confess his past mistakes and sins, revealing them to everyone.
Some people were touched by the Holy Spirit and confessed their sins before men (Acts 19:18). However, it is not a rule that every person must do this when they are saved. This is not a principle. To take this as a principle is rather dangerous and extreme. When we were in northern China, some in the Pentecostal movement were always promoting such an open confession. They encouraged Christians to speak concerning all their offenses before men. Some of the confessions sounded ridiculous, and those who made these confessions often ended up in trouble. We cannot do this, and the Bible does not require us to do this. There is no portion in the Bible that teaches a person to search through all the things of his past after he repents and is saved. Receiving this as a teaching or principle, to search through the things that happened prior to our salvation in order to deal with each one of them, is beyond the teaching of the Bible. It is also incompatible with the focus of the gospel. The focus of the gospel is that everything in our living, including the things of our past, has been forgiven by God and has been placed under the precious blood of the Lord Jesus.
There is no verse in the entire Bible that says to search through our past. The Bible, however, does present numerous examples of things that believers did after they were saved. For example, some serving in the military and tax collectors went to ask John the Baptist what they should do (Luke 3:12-14). Before hearing John’s preaching on repentance, they had taken things from others by false accusation and had cheated others. However, John the Baptist did not tell them to repay what they had taken. He did not care about their past; he only cared about what they did from that point onward. He told them to be content with their wages and not to collect more tax than was required. John told them only what they should do from that point forward. This is the gospel. We do not need to add anything to the gospel of God. All our previous failures and sins are under the precious blood. God does not want us to uncover and examine the things that have been covered by the precious blood. These things have been forgiven, washed away, and covered. What is over is over!
Since they are over, why do they still need to be terminated? Termination is not searching the past. Termination is putting an end to the things in front of us. We should leave the things of the past in the past but conclude anything related to our present involvements. Even though the offense of a person who worshipped idols in the past is washed away by the blood of the Lord once he believes in the Lord, he may presently still have an idol in his home. We should tell him that he needs to remove the idol. The sin of worshipping idols in the past is over. No matter how much he worshipped idols in the past, there is no need to speak of these experiences. We should not even repeat the name of the idol. However, from the day of his salvation, the idol in his home and in his life must be removed and terminated. This is the meaning of termination. Termination is not searching through the past. It is to put an end to the things of the past that remain with us. No matter how bad or wicked we were, no matter how much we offended God and how many filthy things we did in the past, everything has been taken care of by the precious blood. However, if certain things of the past remain with us, we need to terminate them and stop their further influence. This is what we call termination.
Thus, the first thing we need to realize is that God’s salvation is complete, and no matter how serious, how deep, how numerous, or how gross our sins were, they were all taken care of under the precious blood. We do not need to do anything additional to take care of our past sins. In order to obtain God’s forgiveness, we do not need to search our past and deal with each item in a thorough way. The gospel is the gospel of grace. Searching through all the items of our past is against the focus of the gospel and offends the grace of God. We do not need to do what the grace of God has already done. God in His grace has completely forgotten our past. God’s forgiving is the same as His forgetting (Heb. 8:12). We should not remember what God has forgotten. We should not expose and examine what God has terminated. This is not right. This is not termination. Termination involves ending the living of the old man. We should put an end to everything in our life that is a continuation from the past. It is critical that we do not allow these things to continue.