Stumbling Toward EternitySample

THE GOD WHO FORGIVES

No words haunt me with such paradoxical beauty as the first recorded words that fell from the lips of Jesus as He hung in agony on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:33-34).

Not even the crowd’s derision could silence the two-edged sword that Jesus spoke from His parched and bloody lips. This was His heart of mercy spoken over and against the blinding violence of alienated hu­manity.

It is here we find the God of yes with His reconcilia­tion on display through Jesus, the suffering servant. This is forgiveness not requested but personified and pro­claimed. Jesus’s open and pierced hands are contrasted against the clenched fists of the hateful mob, absorbing the vitriol and violence of human history. Jesus’s glory is revealed in His humiliation. The elective love of God is on display. He chooses—for He alone is truly free—to love sinners in their sin. He is a forgiving God because He is love. Neither forgiveness nor wrath are a part of His essential nature; rather, they are the outcome of His holy character violated.

We have done much, known and un­known, that needs forgiveness. Ignorance is not innocence, but the good news that falls from the forsaken God’s lips is that He is a God of mercy. In the anguish, there was also the joy set before Him, which is you. This is judgment and re-creation. This is the great exchange: Our sin blotted out through His spilled blood. This is the Judge who was judged in our place. The Father's heart is revealed through the Spirit-filled Son’s aton­ing work. He does not need us but is not content to exist without us. To be forgiven is to be embraced by the forgiving God. To be forgiven is to be freed to forgive and love.

The forgiveness of Jesus is not mere pardon; it is His acceptance of us as His beloved. It can be as difficult to receive as it is to define, but there is not a person who has truly experienced it that didn’t know it when it came. Why? Because we don’t just experience forgiveness, we experience the God who forgives.

What is the difference between forgiving sin and overlooking sin? How have you experienced this difference?