Forgiven people are those who once were guilty of an offence, but now, because of the undeserved love shown by the one offended, are treated as if they had never done anything wrong. The shock is that by nature, we are the guilty ones before God. We need to see the reality of our guilt, so that we then see our need for the undeserved love of God in forgiving us.
Yesterday we ended with the thought that only through Jesus' death could God 'offer utter forgiveness, without compromising his perfect justice'. It's that issue that I want to address today as we extend our definition of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is: undeserved love, to guilty offenders,
at personal cost.
Forgiveness as it stood defined previously was unjust. Justice demands that for every wrong act there must be appropriate punishment. Like weighing scales, when once side is weighed down by wrongdoing, punishment must be served to correct the balance.
Cases where a guilty person gets off scott free are not uncommon however, and at first forgiveness appears to be in the same category.
But I want to argue that forgiveness is just, not because punishment is dealt out to the offender, but because the person who forgives must absorb the punishment themselves.
To forgive is no easy thing. To restrain desire for revenge, hatred for the offender, and be content that, even if they never face punishment, you will treat them as if they had never wronged you... there's nothing light and easy about that.
For those who are the victim of serious wrong, there is no such thing as 'forgive and forget'. Yet in true forgiveness, even the most viscious criminals are treated as if the crime was forgotten.
Gordon Wilson, whose daughter was killed in an IRA bomb in 1987, famously gave an interview with the BBC in which he expressed his complete forgiveness to the killers. That cannot have been easy, and it's naive to suggest he was just shrugging off such a tragic loss. But Gordon Wilson was a Christian, and so with God's strength, he was able to forgive, because he knew that he himself had been forgiven much wrong by God.
The only way forgiveness can be just is if the cost of justice is bourne personally. No more so is that true than with God, who is perfectly just. God could not simply brush our sin under a carpet, or try and ignore it. The law and order of the universe would be broken at its very source and core.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness
1 John 1:9 (NIV)No, the Bible promises that God is able to forgive, and be just in forgiving, because the huge cost of wiping our slates clean is paid for by himself.
Ultimately, Jesus died because God desired a relationship with us. This could only be possible if our sins were forgiven, wiped off the record. And that forgiveness entailed a personal cost for God - one that satisfied the demands of his justice. Blood had to be shed. Life had to be taken. In human form - God's own blood, God's own life.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace
Ephesians 1:7 (NIV)It's not possible to grasp the staggering dimensions of what God did that day, when Jesus died on the cross. But we can be thankful and joyful - and delight in our new lives, as children of our great Father God, enjoying the riches of his grace!
