Forgiveness

Passage: Ephesians 1:7

In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace 

Just what is the “Forgiveness of Sins”?  What does it involve?  It is a word that is thrown around a lot in the normal course of language, so much so that it has largely become meaningless to the average person.  What I mean is that it has come to mean something so broad and so very inclusive that it can mean almost anything, and hence, truly, means little or nothing in and of itself.  This is not so of the Biblical word(s) used for the subject.  It is a rich and meaningful word, full of spiritual and theological significance.

Forgiveness can be defined as “An act of God’s grace to forget forever and not hold people of faith accountable for sins they confess; and to a lesser degree the gracious human act of not holding wrong acts against a person. Forgiveness has both divine and human dimensions.

In the divine relationship, it is, first of all, the gracious act of God by which believers are put into a right relationship to God and transferred from spiritual death to spiritual life through the sacrifice of Jesus and the imputation of His righteousness. It is also, in this divine dimension, the ongoing gift of God, or more properly, the ongoing expression of this gift of God, without which our lives as Christians would be “out of joint” and full of guilt. In terms of a human dimension, forgiveness is that act and attitude toward those who have wronged us which restores relationships and fellowship.

Everyone Needs Forgiveness The basic facts of the Bible are God’s creative power and holiness, human rebellion, and the efforts of our merciful God to bring us back to an intended relationship of sonship and fellowship. The need of forgiveness is first seen in the third chapter of Genesis, as Adam and Eve willfully disobeyed God, choosing rather to satisfy their own self-will. The result was guilt (Gen. 3:8, 10), separation from God, loss of fellowship (Gen. 3:8, 23-24), and a life of hardship, anxiety, and death (Gen. 3:16-24) lived under the wrath of God. David expressed this terrible condition of the unforgiven sinner graphically in Psalm 51. He spoke of being unclean (v. 2, 7, 10), of being sinful by his very nature (v. 5), of his grief and sorrow at being separated from God (v. 8, 11, 12), and of his guilt (v. 14). Sinners cannot live rightly without God, and yet as a sinner a person is cut off from the holy God. Only through the mercy of God can one find peace and forgiveness.  The need for forgiveness is rooted, then, in our sin guilt and the justice of God’s wrath upon that sin guilt.

Forgiveness in the Old Testament The primary means or mechanism of obtaining forgiveness in the Old Testament is through the sacrificial system of the covenant relationship, which God established when He brought His people out of Egypt. The sacrificial system expressed the dynamics of the sinful human condition. The bringing of the sacrifice showed the sense of need; the laying of the hands on the living sacrifice symbolized identification of the person with the sacrifice, as did the releasing of the life of the animal through the sacrificial slaughter. Emphasis on an unblemished sacrifice stressed the holiness of God contrasted with human sinfulness. The forgiveness of God, channeled through the sacrificial offering, was an act of mercy freely bestowed by God, not purchased by the one bringing the offering.

An emphasis upon God’s demand for a repentant heart as the basis for forgiveness, while not totally absent earlier (see Ps. 51), gained its full expression in the prophets (Isa. 1:10-18; Jer. 7:21-26; Hos. 6:6; Amos 5:21-27). This element does not negate but rather deepens the understanding of the sacrifice. The Old Testament sacrificial system, because nit was human, and only pointed to the full Christological provision God would make at the cross, could never give once-for-all forgiveness. It had to be repeated over and over (Heb. 10:1-4).