Pastor's Power Points

Freely Forgiven

Where there is debt there are constant reminders of that debt. From billing statements to collection warnings, we are kept aware of what we owe. An offended neighbor, colleague or relative will find subtle means to prick the conscience of the offender, reminding them of the punishment due their dastardly deed. Such stress and estrangement is all too real in a fallen world and the self-preeminence of man has brought us to this.

 Do you ever fantasize about that debt being forgiven – wiped off the books; release from the ball and chain of what you owe or the punishment that you ostensibly deserve in someone else’s estimation? Imagine a letter from your mortgage company indicating that they have chosen to forgive your mortgage absolutely; or an estranged relative stopping by to visit and say “Done. I will no longer hold the feeling of resentment or expect you to be punished for the abuses of the past. I want to be at peace and in accord with you.”

 Our human fallenness has warranted a certificate of debt owed to holy, infinite God and his requirement of righteousness. The offense of our sin and its affront to the character and purpose of the Creator who made us for Himself has landed us in a precarious predicament – estrangement from the One who alone gives and sustains life. Man owes a debt he cannot pay.

The Old Testament is largely focused on that certificate of debt. Included in it were constant reminders of man’s debt of sin: In those sacrifices there is a reminder of sin every year (Heb. 10:3). If man were not reminded of his sin debt his self-preeminence would delude him into thinking he has no need for or accountability to the life-giving, sustaining, sovereign Creator. It is evidence of God’s mercy and grace that He reminds man of his debt lest he be eternally condemned in his self-delusion.

 The sacrifices that provided reminders, however, served also as a shadow of the good things to come. The light of God shines on a focal point at which time history turns a corner and there stands God Himself in the second Person of the Trinity nailing the certificate of debt to the cross upon which He offered his own life in place of yours and mine.

 You, being dead in your trespasses… He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses having wiped out the certificate of debt and its requirements. He has taken it out of the way having nailed it to the cross. (See. Col. 2:13-14)

When Christ nailed our certificate of debt to the cross (Col. 2:14), He released us from our debt of offense to the holiness of God. Since the debt has been removed the constant reminders have been too. Because that debt has been paid, there is no longer the need for regular statements to remind us of what we owe.

One of the key words translated forgiveness in the New Testament is aphesis which means dismissal or release. Imagine running a marathon with a 200-pound back pack. After you’ve crawled past the first mile marker you cry out for help recognizing your inability to finish the race in this condition. Someone infinitely stronger than you comes along side and lifts the 200 lb. pack off of you and says “Now you can freely run, I’ll carry the weight.” Imagine the sense of release – the freedom to move ahead toward your intended objective.  In a similar sense of release kind David exclaims:  As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us (Ps. 103:12).  The burden is not following right behind or waiting around the next bend to confront the forgiven one. He is released from it – it is gone!

In the New Testament the apostle Paul links God’s forgiveness with His grace: In Him we have…the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace (Eph. 1:7). So the apostle introduces a new way to understand forgiveness with the word charidzomai which is essentially the same word as grace – to show favor or to freely grant – He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? (Rom.8:32).

Now, instead of having constant reminders of the debt we owe we gladly engage in regular celebration and remembrance of the One who came to us and lifted that weight off of us by freely granting forgiveness having take the weight upon Himself.  As Jesus instituted that solemn remembrance He stated: This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins (Matt. 26:28).

The religion of human merit requires every man to carry his own burden of debt to the holiness of God – it is a lost cause, an exercise in utter futility.  But the religion of grace has good news to proclaim:

 Let it be known to you therefore, brothers,
 that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you,
 and by him everyone who believes is freed….
Acts 13:38 [ESV]