Under what conditions will God forgive your wrongs?
Have you ever had a relationship with someone you care about end because the person was not willing to forgive a wrong? It’s painful. You want the relationship. You reach out and apologize and ask forgiveness, but the person holds on to the grudge, and the relationship dies.
Just think; it could have been that way with God. He could have said, “Sorry, you’ve sinned against me. You’ve ignored me. You’ve disobeyed my commands. I’ve had it with you. I will never forgive you.” And when Judgment Day comes, as it surely will, you could stand before him guilty. He would hold you accountable for every way that you have fallen short of loving him and other people, and you would be condemned forever.
But thankfully, that is not the way it is with God. If we meet his conditions, he is willing to forgive. Psalm 86:5 says, “For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.”
The prophet Micah asks, “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance?” (Micah 7:18) The answer to Micah’s question is, there is no other God who forgives like the Lord. J. K. Grider writes in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology: “No book of religion except the Bible teaches that God completely forgives sin.”
Obstacles to complete forgiveness
That’s why the Bible is good news, why it is gospel. We need complete, not partial, forgiveness. When one person in a relationship wrongs the other, it can harm the relationship in many ways:
1. Emotions: The person who is wronged can feel ongoing resentment, anger, and bitterness.
2. Punishment: The person who is wronged will often want to retaliate, to exact vengeance.
3. Recompense: The person who is wronged may have a legitimate claim that the wrongdoer should make things right by correcting the harm done. If the resident of a college dorm, for example, broke or stole something from a roommate, the offender obviously ought to pay it back.
4. Favor: The person who is wronged not only needs to let go of negative emotions, but also to return to positive feelings of favor and enjoyment of the relationship.
5. Remembrance: People who are wronged need to let go of the desire to remember the wrong. If it comes to mind, they must choose to turn away from the memory. They must refuse to talk about it ever again or to use it against the other as a weapon in arguments.
With all these potential obstacles, it is no wonder that broken relationships do not mend easily. All these factors come into play when we want to mend our relationship with God.
Desperately needed forgiveness
The forgiveness that God offers to us through faith in Jesus Christ extends to all these obstacles and more. For, there is more to fix between God and us than a broken relationship. There is also the matter of divine justice. God, as creator and sustainer of every living thing, and as the owner of the universe, is the righteous judge of every person. He will hold court someday and dispense to every person what they deserve for how they have lived on his earth, based on whether they have followed or ignored his righteous commands. As is obvious by looking into our own souls and looking at the lives of all around us, no one has fully kept these commands (Romans 3:23). Because God’s standard is perfect justice, every person deserves to be condemned (Revelation 20:11–15).
But, because God is love, he has made a way to forgive us. He wants to restore the relationship. He does not want to condemn us. And so, he sent his Son Jesus Christ to the earth to become a man, to live a perfectly righteous life and then to die as a substitute for our sins, thus making a way for us to receive his forgiveness.
“In him [that is, in Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7). God made a way to forgive us because he loves us (John 3:16).
Complete forgiveness in Christ
When God—in love—forgives you because of your faith in Jesus Christ, he solves each of the five problems noted above that come with broken relationships and laws:
1. Emotions
Romans 5:1, 8–10 says: “1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. … 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”
2. Punishment
Romans 8:1, 31–34 says: “1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…. 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”
3. Recompense
Colossians 2:13–14 says: “13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”
4. Favor
Romans 8:31–32 says: “31 If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”
5. Remembrance
In Isaiah 43:25 God says: “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”
Psalm 103:12 says: “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
Hebrews 10:14 says: “By a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
Ready to forgive, or reluctant?
One sweet truth about God’s forgiveness is that he is not reluctant to forgive. He does not forgive us grudgingly. When we meet his conditions, it is his nature to forgive gladly.
In the verse that I turn to again and again because it is God’s self-definition, we read: “ 6 The LORD passed before [Moses] and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation’” (Exodus 34:6–7).
(I’ll talk about the last half of verse 7 in my next post, for it seems to cancel the first half of verse 7 and much of what I’ve written in this post.)
Jesus perfectly portrays God’s readiness to forgive in his portrayal of the gracious father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son:
“17 But when [the prodigal son] came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.” (Luke 15:17–24 ESV)
Your Father in heaven is not reluctant to forgive you, but ready, willing, and able through Jesus to joyfully welcome you home.
Our way and God’s way
Our way: Pride makes fallen people slow or unwilling to forgive others who wrong them. We may think God is equally unwilling to forgive.
God’s way: Because of his great love, God wants to forgive sinners. Because of his perfect justice, he cannot forgive sinners—unless they come to him through faith in the substitutionary death on the Cross of the Savior Jesus Christ.
Life principle: The condition that God requires you to meet to receive his gladly offered forgiveness is simple but earth-shaking. The apostle Paul summarized it this way: he preached “of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). If you will repent of straying from God and ignoring his commands, and if you will have faith in Jesus Christ and the saving power of his death for you on the cross and the reality of his resurrection from the grave and the authority he has been given as Lord of God’s creation, God will forgive you of every sin you have ever committed—every single sin, no matter how heinous.