SEEK 39 – Forgiveness
Question: To what extent does God forgive?
Bible Reading: Luke 23:26-43
Text: “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
To know that you are forgiven is one of the greatest things, perhaps the greatest thing you can know. Imagine that you are in great debt – you owe a lot of money. You are worried about how you can pay it off. You fear that you will lose your home, your friends, perhaps even your liberty. You are then taken to court, only to discover that someone has paid every penny that you owe. You are forgiven, you are free.
Jesus taught us to pray – ‘forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”. (Matthew 6:12), although I think it is better translated “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors”. Because sin is a debt against God. But who can pay that debt? Not you. Not the Church. Not any religion. Only Christ.
In ASK question 17 we looked at the how we get forgiveness – and how costly it really is. Forgiveness is not cheap. In fact, the debt we owed is so great that only the blood of the Son of God can pay it.
Why is sin so hard to forgive? Because it is against a pure and holy God – who cannot allow anything evil to spoil his creation or diminish his Glory. His eyes are too pure to even look upon evil and he cannot tolerate wrongdoing (Habakkuk 1:13). God must be faithful to his own standards; he must remain righteous. Yet he loves us and wants to bring peace. How can ‘love and faithfulness meet together’? (Psalm 85:10). How can God remain just and at the same time justify us? (Romans 3:26). Go and read the whole book of Romans, but especially chapters three and four to hear the answer to that question.
The answer is just simply the Cross. Like pilgrim in John Bunyan’s great book, Pilgrim’s Progress, we carry a burden which only comes off at the foot of the Cross. The recommended book below is John Stott’s The Cross of Christ. It is one of the clearest and most beautiful explanations of just how the Cross does this.
When you see the Cross and what it means. When you understand that it turns aside the wrath of God against sin then you have the answer to the question – to what extent does God forgive? There is no sin which you have done which God cannot forgive. Not one. That is why John writes “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us all our sins, and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). To what extent? Later on, John tells us; “If anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2).
In the words of the old hymn: “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel’s veins. And sinners cleansed beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.”
All. All. Every single one of them. There is no sin that you or I have committed which is too much for the remedy of the Cross to deal with.
Of course, as John points out, we have to admit our sin and to repent of . If we don’t accept we have sinned, we won’t ask for forgiveness . If we accept we have sinned, but think we can deal with it ourselves, we don’t understand the depth or horror of our sin, and we commit the sin of seriously overestimating our abilities! And if we go to the opposite extreme of thinking our sin is too great for God, we are seriously underestimating the power of the Cross!
This is beautifully summed up in the simple but profound Gospel song. He Paid a Debt He Did Not Owe – the first verse of which is:
“He paid a debt He did not owe; I owed a debt I could not pay.
I needed someone to wash my sins away.
And now I sing a brand new song: Amazing Grace. All day long.
Christ Jesus paid the debt that I could never pay.”
Or since we are in song mode….
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?
Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?
Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour?
Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?
Consider: To what extent do you think you need forgiven? Ask God to make you aware of your sin. But at the same time make sure that you ask him to show you the extent of his forgiveness and the remedy he has provided. Given that he has forgiven us so much, how do you think that affects our forgiveness of others?
Recommended Further Reading:
The Cross of Christ – John Stott
Forgive – Tim Keller
Prayer: Our Father in Heaven, forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors. Help us to see that as far as East is from the West, so far have you removed our sins from us (Ps 103:12). We praise you for the sacrifice of Jesus – whose death cleanses us, pays for our sin and gives us eternal life. Hallelujah!
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