Sample Chapter - Forgiveness
Now, God’s forgiveness is a tricky thing to really grasp. It sounds as if it shouldn’t be, but for most of us it is and tricky because, frankly, we are not used to experiencing it. After all, most people that I have met don’t really forgive at all. Some don’t forgive because it’s not their nature and prefer revenge as satisfaction. Others don’t because they can’t, usually because they are too hurt. Some try to forgive, some don’t care about forgiving, and some just ‘need’ to be angry because it is this that sustains them. If you live long enough, all of us, I suspect, will at some time perhaps share all these experiences. I know I have.
The simple fact is that we are not that used to experiencing the type of forgiveness that God offers and as a result, find it hard to understand and accept.
The quality of forgiveness God offers us in Christ is unique, you see, because it is absolutely complete and (in my opinion) not at all linked to the history of our lives. I’ll explain what I am trying to say.
The most basic of Christian beliefs is that when Jesus died on the Cross, he took upon himself all the sin of the world, yes? That is, he ‘paid’ the price due to the world for its sin and corruption.
God was angry and filled with wrath and Jesus absorbed all that anger onto himself. The punishment he suffered acted as a vicarious sacrifice, he died in our place. The result of this act was that God’s wrath and judgement was completely satisfied (done, gone, finite, you get the idea) and because of this God can bestow upon mankind, through Christ, his complete forgiveness and we as individuals can appropriate this gift now if we accept the rule of his Messiah (Saviour) by Faith. OK?
Because this forgiveness
is complete, it follows logically that it cannot contain any element of
personal history. It stems, if you like from the end of time. God has seen
This also means,
by the way, that God will never see us as anything other than a holy person. He
will not be angry with us again; he will not walk away from us, hide from us or
cut himself off from us (all of which I have heard some Christians suggest). WE
Why then, if we have already received forgiveness for the whole of our lives, even that part of our lives we have yet to experience and live through, do we still need to ask for forgiveness?
The immediate question which comes from that is why are we supposed to ask for forgiveness, as we are encouraged to do in the Lord’s prayer? Many assume that because of this the above position is somehow wrong, but how can it be? If there are no more sacrificial offerings needed for sin (a fact which the Apostle Paul clearly states) then why should prayers of repentance, which is an offering after all, be necessary?
The reason, I would suggest, we are encouraged to live a penitent life is tied up in the fact that we are in a relationship with God which involves not God’s need to feel right with us but does involve our need to feel right with Him. Just as with anyone else whom we love, if we do wrong to them then WE need to feel that we have put it right. It is also, of course, important FOR US to re-connect with the truth of God’s forgiveness. It is also, of course, the right thing to do, a natural part of our nature, and if nothing else, at the very least polite. What it definitely isn’t is THE MEANS by which we acquire more forgiveness.
Why not just keep on sinning and not worry about it? Well, we just shouldn’t want to! At the end of the day if we have truly discovered the incredible grace of God in our lives and have experienced his presence and the depth of his Love for us then, as with any other loving relationship, we should want to do the best we can to live in a way that we believe pleases God. Makes sense doesn’t it?
The point is that God isn’t blackmailing us or holding us to ransom. We don’t live in the fear that if we fail, God will reject us. Our failure is already built into the equation, ‘who WE are cannot act as a condition to who God is or how He treats us’. We are clean before God because that is how he CHOOSES to see us. All we can do is try and choose to do the best we can in response to such amazing grace.
Paul explains this whole suggestion most clearly in Romans chapter 6.
Romans chapter 6
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ
6 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
Slaves to Righteousness
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! 16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
OK?