This morning I feel like Peter stepping out of a boat, in a boisterous storm, in order to walk toward Lord Jesus. This is dangerous, but blessed, territory. I may drown without the Lord’s protection. I’m leaving a place of safety entering into a storm, because, perhaps, I can help someone. I don’t really want to be out here alone. I’m not sure any of you disciples will come with me, but I sincerely hope you do.
The slippery path I want to travel begins with a question: “Why does God forgive sin?” Some people doubt that God could ever forgive them, because they know how wretched they are. Assuming the omniscient God knows all those sins which I’ve hidden from everyone around me, why would He forgive and cleanse me? There is no good reason for the Lord to save me. “Why me, Lord?” Experienced theologians have wrestled with this question, along with more common people like us.
Taking one, out of several Biblical examples, let’s consider the woman of Luke 7.
Christ Jesus stepped into the midst of an highly respected religion, sitting down to eat at a Pharisee’s house. The host, in his pride and religious purity, considered himself to be in a position to judge the Lord Jesus. Then along came an infamous, local sinner. How did she get access to this formal dinning room? Doesn’t it seem natural to have an uninvited “sinner” to come in like this? And how she was able to get away with what she did, which certainly took a few minutes? I’m not sure that it was, but this could have been a “sting” planned by the Pharisee to test Christ. In what ever way it commenced, she began her ministry of service. And the Pharisee became convinced that Jesus was a fake, because the true Messiah would have known or sensed the woman’s sinfulness.
But Jesus sprang the trap without being caught by it. “Simon, let me ask you a question. “Yes, sir, ask away.” “Who would you expect to show more love, someone MORE deserving of that love or someone less deserving?” There was only one logical answer. “To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.” Jesus said, “This woman, whom you consider to be a far greater sinner, loves me more than you do. And she treats me with more respect than you do.” “And (Jesus) said unto (the woman), Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him (people who were most likely judgmental Pharisees like the host), began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And (then Jesus) said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.”
Now, go back to my initial question: Why does God forgive sin? Why did Christ forgive THIS woman? Despite her sacrifice and humility, she didn’t deserve forgiveness. Her act of worship could not undo what she had done. Not knowing exactly what her sins had been, I assume that they were committed quite deliberately. They were as deliberate as Adam’s had been in the garden. The Lord didn’t say anything about forgiving her in order to keep her out of hell. He didn’t pardon her sins so the rest of her life would without problems and acceptable to the Pharisees. In fact, without knowing for sure, I can imagine that she had new problems to face. The Lord didn’t forgive and cleanse her in order to deliver her from the clutch of Satan. He wasn’t preparing her for church membership. We don’t hear any definitive statements about any of these things. The Lord had His reasons for forgiving this woman, but we can only guess to what they were.
Now, let’s switch circumstances and return to another sinner – the father of all us sinners. My daughter pointed out that when we looked at Genesis 3, I didn’t spend much time on verse 21. Thinking about it later, I realized she might be right. After God confronted and condemned the serpent, the Eve and Adam, He did something unheard of. “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” He gave them a very special blessing, covering their nakedness and sin, apparently forgiving them.
Why did God forgive Adam and Eve of their sins?
I realize that I’m making an assumption – that God forgave them. I know that in the context we aren’t specifically told that Adam and Eve were forgiven. But, they weren’t immediately cast into hell or the lake of fire, either. They were permitted to continue their physical lives for nearly a thousand years. God, Himself, slew two living, innocent animals, taking and using their warm hides to clothe the sinful couple. Was there blood still resting on the skin and hair? Was that salvation from sin? At the very least that was a picture – a prelude – to God’s forgiveness of us.
What I didn’t do when we were looking at Genesis 3 was emphasize the comparison between the sacrifice of those animals and the eventual sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross. It appears that the first time any of God’s creatures died, it came at Creator’s own hand. Never before had there been any death in this world; here was the first. God slew those animals somehow – perhaps slitting their throats, in the way animal sacrifices came to be practiced later. And later, “God GAVE – He sacrificed – His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish…” “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us…” Those two animals had their blood shed in order to make the necessary covering for sin. “It is the blood which maketh an atonement for the soul.” Whatever kind of creature, they were they must have been large enough to make a human robe. So sheep may have been the animals God sacrificed. And remember the testimony of John the Baptist – “Behold (Jesus of Nazareth), the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
But again, WHY did God forgive Adam, Eve or the woman of Luke 7? Perhaps we need to address the equally difficult question of “why did God create man in the first place?” Certainly, Jehovah didn’t need the universe or humanity in order for Him to be God. He didn’t become God, because now He had something over which to rule. He had been God forever – before the beginning in Genesis 1:1 or John 1:1. We might say that the Lord created man for fellowship, or worship, or friendship, or some other “ship.” But not knowing the mind of God, I don’t think we should be dogmatic. Ultimately, the answer is: “the Lord God CHOSE to create the universe for His own reasons.” And ultimately, He chose to forgive Adam, and many of his descendants, for the same reasons.
We need to remember that Jehovah could not ignore those three people’s sins. He can’t ignore any sin. The holiness of the Holy One will never disregard our sin and our sinfulness. As far as I can see, by His own nature, God has only two options – two ways of dealing with sin and sinners. He must either eternally JUDGE them or eternally FORGIVE them. Those are the two families in which all humanity is found – the forgiven and the unforgiven. It is not enough to be struggling to save oneself and to earn forgiveness, because it can’t be done. The sinner cannot, in his own strength, walk from one camp into the other. Only the Saviour can enable that transformation with His “Thy sins are forgiven.”
Jehovah forgave the man and those two women, because it was HIS WILL to do so. Again, He didn’t pardon Adam in order to take him out of the clutches of Satan. He didn’t save him so that the curse He placed on creation wouldn’t be as severe as it sounded. God was not caught off guard; He was not surprised by Adam’s sin, forcing Him to react with forgiveness. He didn’t feel any compulsion to correct the bad situation the man had created with his sin.
Why does God forgive sin? Providentially, I was reading a biography a day after I started thinking about this message. It was the biography of the Baptist preacher, John Brine, who lived from 1703 to 1765. In that article some of these, and related questions, were mentioned. For example, Brine believed that God permitted Adam and Eve to sin, “in order to render (God’s) free Grace eminently glorious in bringing them to happiness.” To put it more clearly, God forgave them and He still forgives and saves sinners today, to magnify His grace.
Jehovah is so high above all things that He transcends the understanding and even the imagination that any man might have about Him. As I’ve said several times recently, we will be learning more and more about God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit throughout eternity. And some of those things we could never learn without some background. One might be – we could never learn about God’s grace without actually seeing or experiencing that grace. Adam saw the Lord in an entirely different light after God spared him from immediate eternal destruction.
And He has recorded these accounts of Biblical salvation to reveal Himself to you and me. Yes, He is the Creator of all things; He is the King of kings and Lord of Lords. Yes, He is holy, omnipotent and omniscient. And yes, He as commanded us “to preach (Christ Jesus) unto the people and to testify it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead… Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness…” But He is also loving and gracious. We could never have known these last two truths, if He had not “commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”
Look at Adam and Eve after their sin, hiding from God. Their transgression had introduced a new emotion to their hearts. They were in fear; they were terrified at the voice of God. They tried to hide from the presence of God. No sinner goes looking for God before God creates in his heart a yearning for Him and His forgiveness.
In some ways that woman in Luke 7 was a special case. I can’t say definitively, but from what I know of the human heart, I’d say she’d been converted before that meal. Even if the situation around the table had been orchestrated by the host, it was under the complete control of the sovereign God. She had been chosen by the Lord before the foundation of the world, even before Jesus pronounced her “forgiven.” But I hearing the words, “Thy sin are forgiven,” that Pharisee learned something new; he learned a lesson about grace.
Psalm 130, which we read earlier, says something which can be misconstrued without the Bible’s help. Please return to that Psalm. Verse 4 says, “There is forgiveness with thee (O Lord), that thou mayest be FEARED.” Biblical fear is something we need to understand in its context. It can mean terror as in Adam and Eve before their forgiveness. Or it can mean “reverence,” “awe” and “worship.” Let’s read the Psalm again, trying to see if the poet is talking about dread and terror or something else. “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”
Why does God forgive sin? I think the Psalm suggests that it is to recreate sinners into awe-inspired, loving worshipers, like the woman at that feast.
Now, how many people do you know who claim to be “Christians,” but who have no reverence for Him? Aren’t there millions of professing Christians, who rarely ever worship Him, thank Him, or pray to Him? If, as the Psalmist says,”there is forgiveness with God that he mayest be feared,” when that kind of fear is missing, should that person assume his sins have been forgiven? If we never come to the feet of Jesus with our tears, our treasures and our time, will we ever hear Him say, “Thy sins are forgiven?”
Our next Biblical statement may be more complex and problematic. After the Lord Jesus sailed east across the Sea of Galilee to save the demon-possessed man of Gadara, Matthew 9:1 tells us, “He entered into a ship and passed over, and came into his own city. And behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, laying on a bed; and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of palsy, Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.” How can such a joyful scripture be problematic? It is that – despite the relationship of forgiveness and cheer – many true saints of God aren’t as cheerful and joyful as they ought to be. Rather than focusing on the enormous blessing of a cleansed record before God, they are consumed with incidental things and secondary things.
Go back to Adam and Eve. They were filled with fear when they heard the voice of the Lord. Well they should have been at that point; they were in their sins and under condemnation. But then God graciously forgave them, covered them with His blood, and, with limitations, set them free. Forced out of their garden home, into a world upon which they introduced a curse, they could have been extremely depressed. But rather than looking around at the work and pain they created for themselves, they should have looked back at from what God’s grace and forgiveness delivered them. Praise God, we have been enabled to worship the Lord in this new way. Yes, our fellowship is not quite the same as it had been, but we still may speak to the Lord, bringing to Him our prayer requests and our praise. Adam and Eve may have not been able to look the Son of God in face, but they were permitted to wash His feet with their thankful tears.
Conclusion:
There are about a hundred scriptures which use the words “forgiveness,” “forgive” and “forgiven.” They are predicated on God’s love and grace, but also on the death of the substitutionary Lamb. Adam and Eve were spared because a pair of animals shed their blood on their behalf. And the woman at the Pharisee’s meal was forgiven because, in the will of God, the One who was her Sacrifice, sovereignly chose to forgive her. Because they had been forgiven, our first parents taught their children to bring sacrifices of thanksgiving to the Lord. And because of her salvation that woman in the New Testament brought her loving offering.
If you would like the cheer and joy of knowing of your sin’s forgiveness, then you need to turn to the sacrifice which the Lord has prepared. You need to acknowledge your fear of meeting the Holy God in your sinful condition. You need, recognizing you have no right to touch the feet of the Saviour – to cling to the feet of the sacrifice God has ordained for forgiveness. And you may also recognize that no matter how notorious you are as a sinner, the Saviour is greater than those sins.
Do have the kind of humble heart that can say “Lord, you alone can save my sinful soul?” Will you cast yourself down before the feet of the Saviour, by faith asking Him, “Lord, please forgive me for your sake and glory?” The Lord has ordained preachers like me to exhort you to bow before the Saviour, cling to His feet and trust Him alone to save and forgive you. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”