Christian Living

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WHEN GOD FORGIVES
By Oyinlade Abitogun

Forgiveness is one of the things that readily come to mind when we think about the characteristics of God. The scriptures have it that God is slow to anger and abounding in mercy and forgiveness is an act of his mercy. Different passages of the bible make reference to God’s forgiveness.
The first mention of the word forgiveness in the bible is found in Genesis 50:17, there Jacob’s message to Joseph was being delivered. It reads thus (Please take note of the way the Amplified Bible elaborates on the word forgiveness.)
So shall you say to Joseph: Forgive (take up and away all resentment and all claims to requital concerning), I pray you now, the trespass of your brothers and their sin, for they did evil to you. Now, we pray you; forgive the trespass of the servants of your father's God. And Joseph wept when they spoke thus to him.

Going by this translation, to forgive means to take up and away all resentment and all claim to requital concerning, in other words, to do away with all accusations and the punishments that might come with such.
The next mention of the word came up in Genesis 10:17, where Pharaoh told Moses to entreat God to forgive and take away the plague from Egypt, the plague being a sort of punishment. Another place where the word is used is in the book of Daniel 9:19 and it is the Hebrew word ‘Calach’, which according to The Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible means to pardon and spare.
Webster’s defines it as to cease to feel resentment against a person; to pardon. Pardon means the excusing of an offence without exacting a penalty.
Summing it all up, forgiveness then means to overlook an offence without exacting a penalty, to completely wipe off all record of wrong done. What we are saying then is that when God forgives, he wipes away all record of sin or offence and He does not visit the penalty of such sin against the one who sinned.

He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
Psalms103:10
This is supported by various biblical passages both in the Old and New Testament, Here are a few of them
"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." Jeremiah 31:34. (NIV)

“For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." Hebrews 8:11-13. (NIV)

“Then he adds: "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more."
Hebrews 10:16-18”. (NIV)
If He does not remember them any more, then it follows that they are completely forgotten alongside their corresponding punishments.

In God’s records the forgiven individual does not have a past of sin, such is a new person entirely, The Bible attests to this in 2 Corinthians 5:16-18 when it says:
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.

One of the free gifts that comes with salvation is forgiveness,

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Colossians 3:13

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

Forgiveness is a free gift from God, an act of His mercy. He said to Moses that I will have mercy on whom I chose and compassion on whom I choose too. Yes we receive forgiveness if we acknowledge our wrongs, but we should know that what brings about the forgiveness is not the mere acknowledging of sins that we do, but God’s mercy. The devil knows his sin, yet he is not forgiven by God, he will pay for all his rebellions against God.

PAUL AND PETER’S SINS WERE NOT VISITED

When Stephen was being stoned to death, the Bible records that those who were stoning him did so under the authority of a man called Saul. This Saul who later became the Apostle Paul was everything anti Christian; in fact he was going from house to house arresting Christians and putting them in jail. In his ignorance which is no excuse before the law, he was persecuting Christ and thereby sinning against God. He was a sinner who deserved to be heavily punished if not killed and condemned to a life of torment in Hell.

In spite of this he got saved and it is not on record that God visited his sins on him. Yes, He became blind on the road to Emmaus, but this was not a punishment it was God’s way of getting his attention. Neither could we call the shipwrecks, tortures nor various trials he went through as punishments, he was simply going through the trials which every one who professes Christ must experience in this world. If we call suffering as a Christian the punishment for sins, then did Jesus suffer because He was a sinner? No, he suffered to save us from sin, in His suffering he took our sins on Himself and not the other way round.

Consider the Apostle Peter too, in Acts of the Apostles, it was recorded that to satisfy some clique of Jewish Christians, he betrayed the trust the young gentile church had in him as an elder in the faith. This was a man that Jesus gave express instruction to watch over the flock, but because of some legalists he nearly sacrificed the early church on the altar of racism. The surprising thing is it is not written that God punished him.
For the benefit of those who might ask how I came to arrived at this conclusion I will like to give this answer ‘as New Testament believers, we are to believe only what is revealed in the written word of God, and only what is in line with it.’ It is in the light of this that I conclude that God forgave Peter and did not visit the sin. I know God forgave him because Paul rebuked Peter and Peter repented, and repentance leads to forgiveness (also remember He later acknowledged the teachings of Paul to be true.)
I will like the reader to please go through the books of Acts chapters 6 vs. 57-60, 8 vs. 1-3, and 9 vs. 1-31. Finally study read the book of Galatians Chapters 1 and 2 to get the full story of Peter’s reaction towards the Gentile Christians at Antioch, and 2nd Peter 3 vs. 15 & 16 for Peter’s acknowledgement of Paul.
From these 2 examples, it can be deduced that when God forgives He does so totally without visiting the sin on the offender.

BUT MOSES DID NOT MAKE THE PROMISED LAND, AND DAVID SUFFERED FOR KILLING URIAH!

On several occasions in the Bible, we see God meting out the punishment for sin after the sinner had asked for forgiveness and has been forgiven by God. The case of King David, Beersheba and Uriah easily comes to mind here. Not only did the king sleep with Mrs Beersheba Uriah, He killed the Husband, and later married the woman, 2 Samuel chapters 10 to 12. This displeased the Lord who then sent the prophet Nathan to pronounce judgement on the king.

The law says He that kills by the sword shall die by the sword, so David ought to die, but he repented and asked for forgiveness. God forgave him and did not pass the death sentence on him. However because of the effect the sin will have on the gentiles’ perception of God, and in order not to pass the wrong information to the Israelites, King David was still punished, but with another set of lighter punishments which were as follows,
(1) God took the child and
(2) A pronouncement was made that the sword would not depart from David’s house.
Both of which are nothing compared with the original Capital punishment, the possibility of the crown being taken from His lineage, and eternity in hell which he could have suffered.

At this point, I will like us to look at the word Punish, according to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, it means to make someone suffer because they have done something wrong or broken the law. When God forgives, he does not normally punish (especially in the New Testament when Christ has been made our sacrificial lamb), but there are certain cases where He brings a lighter punishment to teach the offender a correcting lesson.
All men possess the sin nature, though when we become Christians Christ gives us the power to overcome it; however we still see this evil nature rearing up its head in our lives from time to time. In order to make us see the urgency and need to not obey the lusts of this nature, God looks for ways to inflict us with pain as a result of this nature. Please note that God is not wicked, but He understands the fact that pain is a good teacher and He uses it. By pain I mean constructive and not destructive pain. God would not cause you to fall from a 24 storey building just to teach you a lesson, He is not a sadist. Whatever things He uses to teach you are things which would not be harmful to you at the long run.

As a young child, I used to enjoy riding my cousin’s tricycle; on a certain occasion I remember I was riding towards some set of steps. Instead of stopping and riding back, I rode on and attempted to descend down the steps with the tricycle, since there was no adult in sight to correct me, I went on and needless to say, the bike and I fell off the staircase. I sustained a deep wound on my knee leaving a big scar which till today is still clearly visible on my right leg, and it reminds me of the incident. I no longer feel any pain there now, but I learnt a lesson, never attempt to ride a bike on structures not conducive for riding.

I used the above example to show us about the benefit of pain, in my case the pain was caused by me; in David’s case God purposely inflicted him with pain in order to teach him and others a lesson. It would not have cost God anything to pardon David and not bring the consequence, however in all He does God wants all men to learn. He also wants us to know that no man is above the law, no matter how close such is to God, and he always uses His friends as models to the world.

The other event which actually happened before David’s time was with Moses. Here is the story as recorded in Numbers 20
1 In the first month the whole Israelite community arrived at the Desert of Zin, and they stayed at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried.
2 Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. 3 They quarrelled with Moses and said, "If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the LORD! 4 Why did you bring the LORD's community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here? 5 Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!"
6 Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and fell facedown and the glory of the LORD appeared to them. 7 The LORD said to Moses, 8 "Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink."
9 So Moses took the staff from the LORD's presence, just as he commanded him. 10 He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?" 11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
12 But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honour me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them."

Moses and Aaron did what was displeasing in the sight of the lord and it so made Him unhappy that He punished them. After all they had seen God do, they still did not trust Him enough to respect Him before the people and hence encourage the people to respect Him as God. As a result of which God had no choice than to punish them in order that the people might fear and respect Him.

Let me stress something here, the fact that God punishes as a result of sin does not mean He hates the one being punished or that such will go to hell because of the punishment. In fact one of the reasons he forgives and yet punishes is to save the offender from hell fire, for it is better for the flesh to suffer than for the soul to burn in hell.
The Bible makes us understand that it is him who the father loves that He chastises, if you are being chastised by God, it is because he loves you. The punishment is to set you in the right path. No parent who loves a child will watch the child go towards making life-damaging mistakes and will not use any measure necessary to check the child. The body responds to things in different ways, but it responds to pain in amazing ways, and when God inflicts pain, it is to correct and not damage the person involved.
However in the 2 cases we have considered, it should be noted that these men were people in authority, and the way God deals with those in authority is always stricter than with those who are followers.
The apostle Paul Said teachers will receive stricter judgements from God.

The rule is when God forgives; He pardons and does not visit the punishment on the offender. Nonetheless there are exceptions, one of which is in certain cases God does punish the offender in order for such to learn, avoid making the same mistake and be saved from eternal damnation in hell. In all he does, God has our good in mind.
Forgiveness saves the sinner from hell, and where God still chooses to punish the sin, He would do it on earth in order for the offender not to go to hell. We can therefore say that where applied, punishment for sins is also God’s way of saving the offender from eternal death.

IN ALL THESE, IS GOD STILL MERCIFUL?

Let us understand that as a result of the sin nature, all men are supposed to go to hell. Nonetheless, God sent His son Jesus to save us from sins. This is the height of mercy; Jesus satisfied the need of Justice. He became the sacrificial lamb that took our sins away. Because of Him, we do not have to go to hell. As a result of his death and resurrection we are welcomed into the family of God.
Punishments where administered as a result of sin does not push us out of God’s family, they only certify that we are still in that family. They also act as a check for us, in order for us not to go out of God’s family. When God punishes His children, he does so to reform them. This is different from eternal punishment in Hell which is not reformatory. Reformatory punishment when administered follows repentance, and is administered to be a corrective measure, an act of mercy.

Biblical Mercy is defined as God not treating us as we deserve, nor leaving us in our state of helplessness, but coming to our aid despite our filth and cleaning us, all because of His nature.
This is clearly seen in the case of Lot in Genesis 19:16. God being set to destroy the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah sent His Angels to Lot to tell him to leave the city. Lot was reluctant to leave but God had mercy and took him and his family out of the city. The Angels probably forced them. The normal thing would have been for God to leave Lot and go ahead with burning the city and its inhabitants including Lot, after all this was a man who was eating and dinning with sinners. Even so, God had mercy on him. Mercy is not a result of our goodness, but of God’s good nature.

Still talking about Lot, I used to think that God saved him because of Abraham’s prayer in Genesis 18:23-33, but I am afraid the answer is NO. Abraham stopped at asking God to save the city if it contains at least 10 righteous people. Sadly this requirement was not met, so the city had to be destroyed including Lot. On the contrary God’s mercy prevailed in his case. God had sympathy on him. It was in this Genesis 19:16 that the word Merciful (show mercy to) was first used in the English Bible.

In conclusion, when God corrects His own after they have sinned, He does not do it because he hates them; he does so in order for them not to suffer in Hell. God corrects out of His mercy, if he were to treat us as we deserve, He ought to let us continue in sin and end up in hell but we are thankful He did not.

FORGIVESS AND THE BLOOD OF JESUS

The book of Hebrews 9 vs. 22 has it that under the Old Testament law, almost all things were purified by blood and that without the shedding of blood, there can not be forgiveness of sin. Let’s look at it from the Amplified Bible
[In fact] under the Law almost everything is purified by means of blood, and without the shedding of blood there is neither release from sin and its guilt nor the remission of the due and merited punishment for sins.

The Amplified Bible explains it well, it sheds light on the fact that release from sin and its guilt, and also that the remission or taking away of the due and merited punishment of sin is possible.
Again it is possible for a person who sins against God to go unpunished. However, a condition must be met, that of the blood of a substitute being shed. In the old covenant animals were sacrificed and their blood used by God to symbolically (and actually) take away the sins of the people. But, as noted by the Apostle Paul, the effects of such sacrifices only last for a little while. The people needed to offer sacrifice for sin every year.

In the process of time, God sent Jesus His son to be our final and perfect sacrificial lamb; He died for our sins, took away all the punishment for sin and prepared the ground for those who would believe in Him to be righteous. Going back to the amplified version of Hebrews 9 vs. 22 we can therefore say that
The shedding of Jesus’ blood brings about release from sin and its guilt to the person who believes in Jesus as God’s son, it also takes away the due and merited punishment of sins. Notice that the bible says sins and not sin, by the plural word sins it means our everyday sins, and by sin (singular) it means the sin nature. Jesus brought freedom from the punishment due for every sin man can commit.

If you pray to the father for forgiveness of sins in Jesus name, the blood of Jesus steps into the scene forgives, and washes away the consequence of your sins. In the spiritual court of law, the blood of Jesus which speaks better things that that of Abel transforms you from a potential condemned criminal to an innocent man who is discharged and acquitted.

GOD’S COURT ROOM

Picture a court in session with you being the accused, Satan the accuser and God the judge. Satan comes forward and presents his case to the judge, it goes as follows

‘Most high, you say in your word that the soul that sins shall die. The accused has been sinning all his life, in fact he has the very nature of sin in him. He belongs to me satan the father of lies because he tell lies’

Then he goes on and on to present his carefully prepared case before God, backing it with quotations after quotations from the bible. He brought forward many witnesses to prove his case; the people you lied to, the lady you raped, the money you stole, the babies you aborted and so on. After what seems like a lifetime of presenting his case against you, he finally turns to you and says ‘you see your soul is mine there is no escaping now’

Now facing the judge with his head bowed, unable to look into the light of God’s glory he says,
‘Creator I rest my case’.
Then from what seems to be nowhere, a creature that appears to be a slain lamb suddenly emerged and said
‘Father, I shed my blood and died for the accused, yes he committed the sins the accuser here mentioned. But he has asked for forgiveness from them. I have washed the sins away with my blood. My Lord, the evidences has been destroyed and the witnesses presented by the prosecutor are dead records that only exist in his files.’

Your heart starts to pound, feelings of happiness and excitement begin to well up in you, you wanted to shout but no one dare make any unauthorised sound before the most high so you swallowed and listened on.
‘Father of light’,
The lamb who now appears as a man and is sitting at the right hand of the father said.
‘This person here by virtue of my finished work on the cross and the faith he has in me stands today totally innocent of all the charges brought by satan, yes he sinned even after putting his trust in me, but he acknowledged the sin, repented and asked for forgiveness’
‘Father, he is righteous. He should not suffer the punishment of any sin because I have taken his place and took away the effects of his sins, I agree that he sowed in sin and should reap the consequences of sin, but when he accepted me, I went and removed the root sin. Father I submit that he is clean.’

At this stage, you could no longer contain the excitement burning in you, your voice betrayed you, and from deep within you the shout of GLORY TO THE LORD! came forth. This so frightened the accuser and his team that they jumped from the prosecutor’s bench.
The judge cleared his throat and there was a perfect hush in the court room.
Turning to the lamb now man, the Judge says,
‘Jesus my son I have made you judge over these issues, so give your judgment’
The son stood up, looked in your direction and says
‘My child you are discharged and acquitted, there is no case to answer.’

This caused a great outburst of tears and wailings in the devil’s camp, he wanted to say something, but at the look on the master’s face, he quickly swallowed his tongue, hiding his fangs. He packed his files, beckoned to his mates to follow him as he left in shame just before the Angels starts to worship God.

DOES GOD’S FORGIVENESS COVER SINS COMMITTED AGAINST THE STATE

The Bible says in the book of 1st John 1 vs. 9 that
If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just (true to His own nature and promises) and will forgive our sins [dismiss our lawlessness] and [continuously] cleanse us from all unrighteousness [everything not in conformity to His will in purpose, thought, and action].

As far as God is concerned, when a person repents from sin and asks for forgiveness, such a one is totally forgiven. The devil might and would bring condemning thoughts, but please do not listen to them. Banish them and fix your mind on what the word of God says about you being forgiven. When God forgives, he does so totally. The response God gives to a repentant heart is called total forgiveness, in the few cases where He deems fit to introduce chastisement, he most probably does so to teach a lesson.

We live in a world filled with fellow human beings, and many times the sins we commit are directly against them. At times like these, what do we do?
The government is established by God as a means of bringing law and order to human societies. If the state decides on the fate of an offender, God does not object to it except in exceptional cases where He needs to -and he can use any method to change the decisions of man as seen in the cases of Daniel in the Lion’s den, the three Hebrew children, the Apostle Peter in confinement and so on.

Unless it has to, the spiritual does not directly interfere in human affairs, and where a God-forgiven person is suffering in a human cell, God’s grace gives him the ability to bear the suffering, for with suffering comes the grace to bear it.
Consider another example of a man who used to visit prostitute joints before turning his life to Jesus. Due to his past lifestyle he might have contacted HIV/AIDS or any other deadly disease; this does not mean that God is punishing him for his sins. In the spiritual he is clean, however in the physical he is still suffering as a result of the abuse of his body, but not from God. If he asks God, such a man might be healed.

Anyone who sows to the flesh will reap from the flesh and anyone who sows to the spirit will reap from the spirit. It is also very possible that the seed sown in the spirit will act as an anti-missile and counter the effects of the seeds sown in the flesh. Again the fact that a man is reaping the biological or legal consequences of his sin or offence does not mean God has not forgiven or is punishing him.

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