The forgiveness of God knows no bounds
Save those imposed by mortal frowns.
Who, instead of embracing with joy such grace,
Deny the dear Savior who died in their place

Forgiveness.

The very utterance of the word is salve unto the soul.  Forgiveness…  As the syllables tumble softly, reverently, over the lips of the one forgiven, the ache of the heart is caught up in the joy of the Forgiver.  Forgiveness…  To meditate upon the word as it lofts mightily through the mind of the redeemed man or woman who was formerly under sentence of death – both from within and without – is to dare tears of adoration and thanksgiving for Him whose glory it is to forgive.

If I am neither deceived nor blinded by ignorance, the want of forgiveness is my most desperate longing, my greatest need in all of life.  Absent of forgiveness I am smitten in all I do.  I cannot love others rightly nor delight in their love.  I cannot apply myself diligently to any expression of work with the hope of its yielding forth peace and contentment.  I cannot even relax in leisure with expectation of proper refreshment of body and soul.  Without forgiveness, I am a wandering spirit without hope of rest.

Do these words describe your present state?  If so, be of immensely good cheer for your salvation draws near!  “Blessed are the poor in spirit,  for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  (Matthew 5.3)  You cannot see your own need for forgiveness without being poor in spirit, and you cannot be poor in spirit without the Spirit of God giving you such a gift of grace.  For did not the Spirit come into the world to convict of sin?  And did He not also come into the world to be the Comforter?  And will not this comfort come but by the knowledge of the Truth? (John 16.7-15)  Forgiveness is desired only by those who know they have done great wrong.  Unrightable wrong.  Unfathomable wrong so deeply recognized for what it truly is that you can only recoil in raw terror at the sight.  For the sight beheld is this: I have crucified the Christ, Son of the living God, with my own sin!

Yes, you have great reason to fear, for the wrath of God abides on all those who trample under their feet his beloved Son!  Forgiveness seems out of the question, does it not?  For who could pardon such a crime as this?  Who could satisfy the justice such a heinous act demands?  You stand miserably guilty before the Judge with the blood of his Son upon your very hands.  You do not even think to lift your head.

Yet in the unsearchable wisdom, mercy, and love of God there is provided a stay of execution.  There is one who has come forward to plead with God on your behalf.  The plea carries great weight for it satisfies the terrible penalty Justice demands of your sin.  By the merit of the benefactor, God would be pleased to extend you a full pardon.  You have but to receive it to be free ― for the pardon is null and void without your acceptance.  Your mind can hardly grasp the hope before you.  Someone has come to claim you!  To lift the sure sentence of eternal damnation against your soul!  Who would do such a thing on your behalf?  Who would have resources vast enough to satisfy the righteous wrath of God against you?  The one who has done all this surely cannot have heard of your crime!

Your head rises slowly and your eyes, rich with gratitude, search to behold your redeemer.

It is the Crucified One!

The very God incarnate whom you slew with the slough of your sin stands in the gap between you and an all holy God.  In the greatest paradox of them all, the Judge Himself has become your Savior!  The only question that lingers still is your response to these facts arrayed before you.  Will your soul grasp the pardon offered, or will your heart recoil in pride, your chin stiffen with rejection, and your will harden itself to stoically embrace exile from the presence of the Almighty to enter the domain of Hell?

Let us peer more closely into this mystery of forgiveness. In a conversation with a man who was a religious leader of his day, Jesus said,

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3:16-21 NASB)

It seems clear from these words of Jesus, that it is God’s fullest desire that all humanity experience his forgiveness.  By his great love, he sent his Son to tell us so Himself and to make a way by which it might be obtained and us saved from our sins.  The words of our Lord also make it just as clear that the condemnation (judgment) of God comes not by reference to any other sin than that of unbelief!  God does not say that his pardon is granted only to those whose sins are such and such and no more!  His forgiveness is to all who draw near by faith, poor in spirit, who would be made clean from their sins by the blood of Jesus shed at the Cross.  “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God…”  (Romans 3.23)  And again, “For God has shut up all in disobedience that He might show mercy to all.”  (Romans 11.32 NASB) Do not let the devil deceive you nor your own pride stay your salvation; the death Jesus died was in satisfaction of the sins of the whole world.  (1 John 2.2)  Are you greater than God?  Is He limited as to the power of His might to redeem?  Never!

It is the rejection of the means by which forgiveness comes that concludes with condemnation.  Were your sins to reach from earth beyond to the very portals of heaven, yet you believed on the name of Jesus, God would be pleased to forgive you completely and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness, “…but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more…” (Romans 5.20b)  How wonderful is the richness of the mercy and love of God in Jesus Christ, our Lord!

Is not this desire of the Lord to forgive found in abundance in the ministry of Jesus?  To a woman at a well who had had five husbands and who was now living with a man outside the bounds of marriage (by her own admission and the Lord’s confirmation) Jesus spoke not a condemnation but an invitation: “…If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, ‘Give me drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”  (John 4.10)  How glorious the words!  How gracious the invitation!

And again we find in Luke’s record another coming to Jesus of a woman of dark reputation for her many sinful deeds.   In her dearth of spirit she does not even find the courage to speak her sin out loud and beg forgiveness.  No, she merely worships in untainted humility knowing fully that Jesus knows all.  Her very presence and actions confess her sins.  (Luke 7.36-50)  And by faith in Jesus, who is the Christ, she is made righteous – incomparably more justified in the sight of God than self-righteous Simon the Pharisee in whose home this act of true worship took place.

Yes, it is quite undeniable that God delights in forgiveness towards “…him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.”  (Isaiah 66.2)  This is why it is such a good sign when men and women are acutely aware of the burden of their sin and are driven to despair ― not because despair is a pleasant thing but because it is a wonderful doorway by which one may pass through to the unspeakable joy of God’s forgiveness!

Yet, although God delights in the mercy of forgiveness, he delights no less in justice; forgiveness does not rise from the ash-heap of justice forsaken.  No, they are kindred waters of the same blessed Fount!  Forgiveness came forth from God on the outstretched hands of Justice.

In the ninth chapter of the letter to the Hebrews we are given a reminder that the pattern of the temple of God given to Moses was but a shadow of heaven’s likeness.  In the earthly temple there was to be no forgiveness without an offering atonement of blood by a priest appointed for the task.  Even the approach to God was limited to but once a year and was in need of annual repetition as its efficacy was constrained by the corrupt nature of the priest himself, who, like us all, was a sinner.

By the will of God and in his perfect time, Jesus Himself became our permanent High Priest and entered into the true Holy of Holies in the heavens with an offering of His own blood ― not for the sins of Himself and the people, but for our sins only.  Justice was fully satisfied and the perfect righteousness of God upheld ― no, made even more glorious! ― and a way into the presence of God was made for all through Jesus Christ.  ”…I [Jesus] am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.”  (John 14.6)

What does it mean then, for us to reach out and grasp the forgiving pardon extended by the mercy of God?  Surely, it cannot mean an arrogant, greedy snatching of something that has come at such a dear cost to the Father as the life of his only Son.  No, it comes by way of sober agreement with God as to our true situation: I am a guilty sinner and am in need of Your forgiveness and cleansing.  God is pleased to hear us speak such truth and promises, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  (1 John 1.9)  For just such a purpose and time did Christ come dying for the ungodly when we were without strength!  (Romans 4.5, 5.6)  Jesus Himself said,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because he anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those that are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.  And he [Jesus] closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down;  and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him.  And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.  (Luke 4.18-21)

My friend, is it not again fulfilled “Today” in your own ears?

It is faith, and even this a gift given us by God, that makes it possible for the soul to grasp and thereby accept the forgiveness of God by agreeing with the Holy Spirit concerning our terrible state of wretchedness and rebellion!  And with the blessed forgiveness comes such long awaited peace.  Peace with God and an end to condemnation!  (Romans 5.1, 8.1)  Where there was once only the stinging, fearsome death-chant of the devil there emerges the shining promise of an invincible Savior!

What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who is against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?  Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?  God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns?  Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God who also intercedes for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  Just as it is written, “For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”  But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (Romans 8.31-39 NASB)

Neither does Jesus leave us to remain in our helpless state, for it would be a dampened joy to be forgiven but without the power to live unto God as we ought, and indeed, as He commands.  We are given a new nature and a new beginning.  ”Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”  (2 Corinthians 5.17)  We are born of the very seed of God and cannot remain slaves to sin as we once were.  (1 John 3.9)

Even when confronted with all of this marvelous gospel some hesitate, thinking it not God’s intention to include them in such a precious salvation.  This is the condition of the very timid and the very proud ― and it is hard to know the difference at times between the two.  But God does know!  Clearly, He calls:  “For whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”  (Romans 10.13)

Are you not a “whoever” that does now call?  God is no liar!  His invitation is for you!

“Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.  If you consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land: but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken.  (Isaiah 1.18-20)

© M.D.  Kimball 1993, 2011  (This writing may be freely copied in its entirety without prior permission from the author.)