Today we come to the question of how a person deals with his past after believing in the Lord. After believing in the Lord, a person still carries many things of the past with him. How should he terminate these things?
The entire Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament, but especially the New Testament, shows that God does not pay attention to what a person does before he believes in the Lord. Try to find a verse from Matthew 1 to Revelation 22 on how believers should terminate their past, and you will see how hard it is to find something on this subject. Even the Epistles, which touch on our wrongdoings in the past, mainly tell us what we should do hereafter, not what we should do about our past. The books of Ephesians, Colossians, and 1 Thessalonians all cover something about our past, but they do not tell us how we should terminate our past; they only tell us how we should go on.
You may recall that someone asked John the Baptist, "What then shall we do?" John answered, "He who has two tunics, let him share with the one who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise." He did not talk about their past but about their future. Some tax collectors came to John and asked what they should do. John answered, "Exact nothing more than what you have been ordered to." Some soldiers also asked, "What shall we do?" John replied, "Extort nothing from anyone by force, nor take anything by false accusation, and be content with your wages" (Luke 3:10-14). This shows us that John, who preached repentance, emphasized the things that we should do hereafter, not the things of the past.
Let us also consider Paul's Epistles. He always emphasized what we should do in the future, not what we should do regarding the past, because everything of the past has been covered under the precious blood. If we err a little in this matter, we will corrupt the gospel; we will corrupt the way of the Lord, the way of repentance, and the way of restitution. We must deal with this subject carefully.
"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be led astray; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals nor thieves nor the covetous, not drunkards, not revilers, not the rapacious will inherit the kingdom of God. And these things were some of you" (1 Cor. 6:9-11a). Here Paul speaks of the believers' past conduct, but he does not say how they should deal with it. "But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11b). The emphasis here is not on dealing with the past, because we have a Savior who has already dealt with all our past. Today the emphasis is on what we should do hereafter. A saved person is already washed, sanctified, and justified.
"And you, though dead in your offenses and sins, in which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, of the spirit which is now operating in the sons of disobedience; among whom we also all conducted ourselves once in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest; but God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in offenses, made us alive together with Christ" (Eph. 2:1-5). These verses do not tell us how we should terminate the things of the flesh. There is only one termination—our Lord's termination of everything for us based upon the great love with which God loved us and the rich mercy of God.
Ephesians 4:17-24 also speaks of our past condition. "This therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance which is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness in greediness...that you put off, as regards your former manner of life, the old man, which is being corrupted according to the lusts of the deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man, which was created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the reality."
"Therefore having put off the lie" (Eph. 4:25a). This refers to the things hereafter. It does not tell us how to deal with our past falsehood but that henceforth we should no longer remain in falsehood. Today we must "speak truth each one with his neighbor...Be angry, yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your indignation, neither give place to the devil" (Eph. 4:25b-27). These verses do not refer to the past but to the future. "He who steals should steal no more" (Eph. 4:28a). Paul did not say that he who steals needs to return what was stolen. His emphasis is still on hereafter. What was stolen in the past is another matter. "But rather should labor, working with his own hands in that which is respectable...Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but only that which is good for building up, according to the need, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God...Let all bitterness and anger and wrath and clamor and evil speaking be removed from you, with all malice" (Eph. 4:28b-31).
"But fornication and all uncleanness or greediness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints, and obscenity and foolish talking or sly, filthy jesting, which are not becoming, but rather the giving of thanks" (Eph. 5:3-4). These words are still in the same principle. They speak of things after one believes in the Lord. They are not about the termination of things done before one believes in the Lord.
After reading all the Epistles, we find a marvelous truth: God pays attention only to what a person should do after he has believed in the Lord. He does not pay attention to the things he has done in his past. He does not tell us what to do with them. This is a basic principle.
Many people are in bondage because they have accepted a wrong gospel. Such a gospel places too much stress on dealing with one's past. This does not mean that we do not need to deal with our past. Certain things of our past must be dealt with, but such a dealing is not the foundation of our going on. God always draws our attention to the fact that our past sins are under the blood. We are fully forgiven and saved because the Lord Jesus has died for us. Our salvation is not based on how we deal with the past. Man is not saved by repentance for his past bad deeds, just as he is not saved by trusting in his past good deeds. Man is saved through the salvation accomplished by the Lord on the cross. We should hold fast to this foundation.