God is a Forgiving God

Forgiving: An act of pardon; This is God’s nature.

Ever done anything wrong?  Ever had to ask for forgiveness?  Was that hard to do?  Sometimes it is.  But, isn’t it wonderful when the person we hurt forgives us?  It certainly is!  A weight has been removed from our back, as it were.

This is what happens when we come to God and ask forgiveness for our sins.  The Bible says that “If we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”  (1 John 1:9)

How do we know that?

First, the Bible presents a forgiving God:

5 And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the Lord. 6 Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; 7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations” (Exodus 34:5-7).

“You, Lord, are forgiving and good,
   abounding in love to all who call to you.” Ps. 86:5

“But with you there is forgiveness,
   so that we can, with reverence, serve you.” Psalm130:4

“God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,^[a] through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished” 

Footnotes:

1. Romans 3:25 The Greek for sacrifice of atonement refers to the atonement cover on the ark of the covenant (see Lev. 16:15,16).

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” 

Matthew 6:14

“Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Mark 2:7

In whom we have . . . the forgiveness of sins. —

“Beware of the pleasant view of the Fatherhood of God – God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That sentiment has no place whatever in the New Testament. The only ground on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ; to put forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive sin and reinstate us in His favour is through the Cross of Christ, and in no other way. Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony of Calvary. It is possible to take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and our sanctification with the simplicity of faith, and to forget at what enormous cost to God it was all made ours.

Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace; it cost God the Cross of Jesus Christ before He could forgive sin and remain a holy God. Never accept a view of the Fatherhood of God if it blots out the Atonement. The revelation of God is that He cannot forgive; He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God by the Atonement. God’s forgiveness is only natural in the supernatural domain.

Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is slight. Sanctification is simply the marvellous expression of the forgiveness of sins in a human life, but the thing that awakens the deepest well of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven sin. Paul never got away from this. When once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vice, constrained by the love of God.”

 

November 20.  From My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers

 “Forgiveness unleashes joy.  It brings peace.  It washes the slate clean.  It sets all the highest values of love in motion.  In a sense, forgiveness is Christianity at its highest level.”   John MacArthur