Why forgiveness isn’t easy

We human beings find it hard to forgive; it means accepting to suffer whatever it was we had to forgive, giving up any desire to get even, and acting towards the offender as if it hadn’t happened. Our hurt pride finds that hard to stomach!

With God, forgiveness is not easy either – but for different reasons. Let me explain. First of all, God is, by his very holy and righteous nature, the upholder of all justice in the universe that he has created. He cannot be guilty of injustice; he loves righteousness and hates iniquity (Psalm 45.7). His justice rightly reacts with holy anger at the sins of human beings and that means he punishes the guilty “according to their deeds” – a biblical affirmation 9 times repeated, indicating the exact justice of any divine punishment.

This being so, how can God wipe anyone’s slate clean without betraying his justice? That is, as it were, God’s problem. To forgive is essentially an unjust act. When we forgive our enemies, we may yet think that they will have to face Justice. When God forgives, he himself is the guarantor of justice, and he knows full well that Justice must be honoured. He had to find a way to forgive sinners while still upholding the righteous demands of Justice.

The great message of the Bible is God’s willingness to forgive and that he promises forgiveness. How can a just God forgive? Only on the basis of justice somehow being done. God’s absolute wisdom found the way to do that: this is the heart of the good news of the Gospel. Because he has done so, we may be forgiven.

So, what has God done? J.B. Phillips translates 1 John 4.9-10 very well here: “The greatest demonstration of God’s love for us has been his sending his only Son into the world”; that is the first step. The Son of God became like us so as to represent us, as it were, before the Judge. It was “not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to make personal atonement for our sins”.

This means several vital things: first, that we did not love God as we ought, so we didn’t deserve his mercy. We can’t earn our forgiveness; it comes by his generous grace. Second, there needs to be atonement. What does that mean? It means justice has to be satisfied. It can only be satisfied by the inflicting of the just penalty. But that penalty can be borne by a willing sinless representative. Thirdly, it was Jesus, God’s Son, who made atonement for our sins. How? By standing in our stead and suffering death upon the Cross, out of love for us who deserved judgment. God is immensely kind to hell-deserving humans! He sent his Son who willingly came to seek and save the lost. God thus provided the atoning sacrifice which had to be made. This was the only possible basis that allows him to forgive while fully honouring the obligatory demands of justice. This is no mere theoretical solution; it happened in history.

This was the way that the infinite wisdom and the extraordinary love of God united to find a way to make our forgiveness possible. This is the good news of the Gospel, summed up by the apostle Paul when he wrote “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15.3). If you have never seen that before, take time to take it in. It is the most stupendous news mankind could ever hear! Since we all need forgiveness from God, it is a wonder that he found the way – at considerable cost, the Cross – to offer us full and free forgiveness.

Clive Every-Clayton