GOD-FORGIVENESS

I must feel the truth that once I was as close to hell as I am to the chair I am sitting on – even closer. Its darkness, like vapor, had entered my soul and was luring me down. Its views were my views. I was a son of hell (Matt. 23:15), a child of the Devil (John 8:44) and of wrath (Eph. 2:3). I belonged to the viper’s brood (Matt. 3:7), without hope and without God (Eph. 2:12). I must believe that just as a rock climber, having slipped, hangs over the deadly cliff by his fingertips, so I once hung over hell and was a heartbeat away from eternal torment. I say it slowly, eternal torment!

John Piper

Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, Bethlehem Baptist Church, 2002. p. 114.

Forgiveness is available for all sins, without exception. Forgiveness is received freely through trusting Christ. And trusting Christ involves confessing sin as sin and turning away from it to embrace the ways of God with joy.

Bethlehem Baptist Church
A Statement on Divorce and Remarriage in the Life of Bethlehem Baptist Church, May 2, 1989, www.DesiringGod.org.

There comes a time when God's patience runs out (Rom. 2:4-10; 2 Pet. 3:8-10; Jude 5). Those living in continual disobedience must not presume upon God's grace, falsely assuming that God's kindness means that he is winking at their sin. Nor should we take God's forgiveness for granted. We must not sin willfully, thinking that by doing so we are simply giving God another opportunity to glorify himself by showing forth his mercy. As Paul would put it centuries later, "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!" (Rom. 6:2). To do so is to reveal by one's hardened disobedience that the saving power of God is not really in one's life (see Rom. 6:2b-14).

Scott Hafemann

The God of Promise and the Life of Faith, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 97.

Don’t say, “How could God forgive me for that!” (whatever that is). Don’t think that God’s forgiveness is a begrudging forgiveness and with that thought deny some of God’s glorious love. And don’t think that God’s promises are only for other people. If this is how you are thinking, you must realize that your own sins, no matter how big, are not bigger than God’s pleasure in forgiveness.

Edward T. Welch

When People are Big and God is Small, P&R Publishing, 1997, p. 169- 170. Used by Permission.

You may think that God is no better than you. In other words, you couldn’t imagine forgiving someone seventy times seven, so you can’t believe that God would. If this is the way you are thinking, then you are believing a lie. God is not like us. His forgiveness is not like ours. Don’t use your own weakness as the standard by which you understand God’s greatness! Just listen as He reveals Himself in His Word.

Edward T. Welch

Blame in on the Brain? P&R Publishing, 1998, p. 201.

The blood of Jesus unfailingly cleanses the believer from his sin at all times. There could be no sin that the blood does not cover, confessed or not confessed. Though our sins were taken care of in the cross of Christ, and by His blood being spilled for us, it is applied immediately in time to every sin we commit the nano-second we commit it.

Jim Elliff
Confessionism: The Misuse of 1 John 1:9, Christian Communicators Worldwide, www.CCWtoday.org. Used by Permission.

Sins are so remitted, as if they had never been committed.

Thomas Adams

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 110.

No child of God sins to that degree as to make himself incapable of forgiveness.

John Bunyan

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 110.

The sin which is not too great to be forsaken, is not too great to be forgiven.

Thomas Horton

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 111.

If God did not forgive the Christian who confesses and turns away from sin, God would become unrighteous by holding in contempt Christ’s atoning work, whose purpose was to uphold God’s glory.

Daniel Fuller

The Unity of the Bible, Zondervan, 1992, p. 283.

It was your great American wit, Mark Twain, who once said, "Man is the only animal that blushes, and the only animal that needs to." We are ashamed, are we not, of things we've done in the past? Nobody is free who is unforgiven. Instead of being able to look God in the face or to look one another in the face, we want to run away and hide when our conscience troubles us.

John Stott

The Up-to-the-Minute Relevance of the Resurrection, Preaching Today, Tape 79.

So the Cross does not merely tell us that God forgives, it tells us that that is God’s way of making forgiveness possible. It is the way in which we understand how God forgives. I will go further: How can God forgive and still remain God? – That is the question. The Cross is the vindication of God. The Cross is the vindication of the character of God. The Cross not only shows the love of God more gloriously than anything else, it shows His righteousness, His justice, His holiness, and all the glory of His eternal attributes. They are all to be seen shining together there. If you do not see them all you have not seen the Cross.

D.M. Lloyd Jones

The Cross, The Vindication of God, p. 17, by Permission of Elizabeth Catherwood.

Consider diligently these words, without works, by faith only, freely we receive remission of our sins. What can be spoken more plainly, than to say, that freely without works, by faith only, we obtain remission of our sins?

Thomas Cranmer

Edwardian Homilies.

I believe that as often as I transgress, God is more ready to forgive me than I am ready to offend.

C.H. Spurgeon

Sermons, 22.573.

We are today accepted in the Beloved, today absolved from sin, today acquitted at the bar of God… We are now pardoned; even now are our sins put away; even now we stand in the sight of God accepted, as though we had never been guilty. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” There is not a sin in the Book of God, even now, against one of His people. Who dares to lay anything to their charge? There is neither speck, nor spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing remaining upon any one believer in the matter of justification in the sight of the Judge of all the earth.

C.H. Spurgeon

Morning and Evening, Moring of May 15.

Our forgiving others is not a cause of God’s forgiving us, but it is a condition without which He will not forgive us (Mt. 6:12).

Thomas Watson

The Lord’s Prayer, 1692.

We tend to drag up our old sins, that we tend to live under a vague sense of guilt…we are not nearly as vigorous in appropriating God’s forgiveness as He is in extending it. Consequently, instead of living in the sunshine of God’s forgiveness through Christ, we tend to live under an overcast sky of guilt most of the time.

Jerry Bridges

Our sins have been put away. To use the language of the Scriptures…they are completely removed, put behind God’s back, blotted out, remembered no more, and hurled into the depths of the sea.

Jerry Bridges

What do you do with the person who says, “I’ve asked God to forgive me about this, but I still feel guilty”? I hear that statement over and over again. I usually say to these people, “If you still feel guilty, then pray to God again. But this time don’t ask Him to forgive you for the sin that is haunting you. Rather, ask Him to forgive you for insulting His integrity by refusing to accept His forgiveness. Who are you to refuse to forgive yourself when God has forgiven you? When God promises to forgive His people when they repent, He is not playing games. If He says He will forgive you, then He will forgive you. And if God forgives you, you are forgiven.”

R.C. Sproul

The Intimate Marriage, P&R Publishing, 1975, p. 127-128.

It is axiomatic that to err is human and to forgive is divine. This axiom is so set in concrete that we assume that forgiveness is not merely a divine option, but a veritable prerequisite for divinity itself. We think that not only may God be forgiving, but He must be forgiving or He wouldn’t be a good God. How quick we are to forget the divine prerogative: “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion” (Rom. 9:15).

R.C. Sproul

None Righteous, Tabletalk, April 2004, p. 6, Used by Permission.

Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace; it cost God the Cross of Jesus Christ before He could forgive sin and remain a holy God… When once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vice, constrained by the love of God.

Oswald Chambers

My Utmost for His Highest, 1935, Devotion for November 20.

God has already forgiven all our sins one-and-for-all through the death of Jesus Christ. Why then do we need to keep on asking for His forgiveness? The answer, of course, is that we are not perfect, and never will be in this life. We keep on sinning. We break God’s commandments every day, in thought, word, and deed. And although all our sins have been forgiven – past, present, and future – sin still has a way of disturbing our fellowship with God. It interferes with our intimacy with Him, estranging us from His holiness. When we sin, therefore, our personal relationship with God needs to be restored. The Puritans called this “renewing our repentance.” It means asking God to take the forgiveness He has already granted through Christ’s death on the cross and to apply it freshly and directly to our sins.

Philip Graham Ryken