The Gospel in Ten Words (6 page)

Jesus
said, “If you do not
forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:15).
This is not good news. This is bad news that should make us shake in our boots
for it links God’s forgiveness to our own. It is not grace, it is law. It is
quid pro quo and tit for tat. It is something you must give to get.

Why
did the Lord of grace preach law? Because some people will never value the gift
of grace until the law has been allowed to do its condemning work. Some people
need to hear the bad news before they will appreciate the good news.

Jesus
said he came to fulfill the law and on the cross he did exactly that. In the
act of paying for the world’s sin, he forgave those who had sinned against him.
See the connection? The very condition for forgiveness that Jesus preached on
the mount, he himself satisfied on the cross. Now Christ is the end of the law
for all who trust in him (Romans 10:4).

Perhaps
you have heard that “God won’t forgive you if you are harboring unforgiveness
in your heart.” Under the law that Jesus preached, that was true. But the
law-keeping covenant was fulfilled at the cross. Those who maintain we must
forgive to be forgiven are confused about the finished work of Calvary. They
will draw your attention to those scriptures that say forgiveness is
conditional while ignoring those that say it isn’t.

We
need to have a whole Bible theology but that does not mean “read everything
indiscriminately and hope for the best.” That would be like going to the drug
cabinet and swallowing every pill in sight. A whole Bible theology means you
read the written word through the lens of the Living Word. It means you filter
everything you read through Christ and his finished work on the cross.

Look
at the figure below and you will see a consistent pattern of preaching
conditional forgiveness prior to the cross and uncon-ditional forgiveness after
the cross. Before the cross Jesus preached forgiveness as a law to be kept;
after the cross he said it was a gift to be received (Acts 26:18). The cross
really did change everything.

On the day he rose
from the dead, Jesus immediately began to preach a different message from the
law-based sermons he had delivered before the cross. Recall that before the
cross Jesus preached conditional forgiveness; forgive to be forgiven. But after
the cross he preached this:

This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the
dead on the third day, and
repentance and forgiveness
of sins will be
preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:46
–
47)

Now take a moment to go and check that passage in your
own Bible. What does it say? Does it say “repentance
for
forgiveness” or
“repentance
and
forgiveness”? The difference is huge. Repent-ance for forgiveness is what John
the Baptist preached. It’s forgiveness conditional on you turning from sin.
It’s a verb for a verb.

But this is not what Jesus is saying here. He doesn’t use
verbs for repentance and forgiveness but nouns.
[13]
He’s saying, “From now on, forgiveness is not something God does, it’s
something he’s
done
.”

This becomes clear when we read the verse in the King
James Bible:

Repentance and
remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations
, beginning at Jerusalem
. (Luke 24:47, KJV)

Forgiveness that has taken place is called remission.
When were our sins remitted? On the cross. During the Last Supper, the Lamb of
God said he would take away the sins of the world when he died:

This is my blood of
the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
(Matthew 26:28)

Where was the Lord’s blood poured out? At the cross.
Where were all your sins forgiven? At the cross.

Forgiveness
in the new covenant is a noun not a verb; it’s a gift not a work. It’s
something God gives, not something he does. (He’s done it already.) This can be
hard for us to understand because this is not how the world works.
When you sin against
someone, your relationship with that person comes under strain. There’s this
Thing
that comes between
the two of you. To be reconciled you need to deal with the
Thing
. Jesus said if you
are bringing your gift to the altar and you remember your brother has some
Thing
against you, go and
deal with that
Thing
(see Matthew 5:23). If your brother sins against you seven times in a day and
seven times says, “I repent,” forgive him. “Send that
Thing
away” (see Luke
17:4).

All this we know and understand. But here’s the thing.
God is not like you or me. He doesn’t wait for you to act before he does his
thing with your
Thing
.
That
Thing
that
was between you and him—your sin—he dealt with at the cross. Since God is not
limited by time or space, he did not need to wait for you to start sinning
before he forgave your sin. He has already forgiven you. He forgave you before
you confessed, before you repented, before you were even born.

To forgive literally means to
send
forth or
send away.
Your sin hasn’t merely
been overlooked or covered up; it has been removed from you as far as the east
is from the west. If you were to go looking for your sins, you wouldn’t find
them. They’re gone.

But now
he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the
sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26b)

At the cross, the sins of the world were sent away. This is why
the risen Lord said we are to proclaim forgiveness as a done deal, rather than
a favor to be earned.

No
doubt the disciples were blown away when they heard this. First of all, there’s
Jesus standing among them when he’s supposed to be dead. Second, he’s preaching
something that seems completely at odds with what he had said earlier in the
Sermon on the Mount.

With
the old covenant fulfilled and the new just getting underway, Jesus had to get
his disciples up to speed quickly. He did this by opening their minds so they
could understand scripture (Luke 24:44–45). He explained how the Law of Moses,
the Prophets, and the Psalms all reached their fulfillment in him.

After
their encounter with the risen Lord, the disciples began to see the old
covenant with fresh eyes. Animal sacrifices and law-keeping, they now realized,
could never take away sins. Those things only had value in that they pointed to
Jesus. They also began to understand how the prophetic longings of Isaiah and
Jeremiah, along with the radical, grace-based psalms of David, Asaph, and the
Sons of Korah, heralded a day that had now dawned, namely, the new era of
grace.
[14]

On
the cross the law was fulfilled, grace was revealed, and verbs became nouns.
Forgiveness was no longer conditional on you doing A, B, and C. Forgiveness
became a free gift paid for by the blood of the Lamb. How fitting, then, that
the first people to hear this new message of unconditional forgiveness were the
men of the Sanhedrin, the same men who had condemned Jesus to shed the very
blood that paid for that forgiveness:

God
exalted him [Jesus] to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might
give
repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. (Act 5:31)

In
other words,
Repentance is a gift! Forgiveness is a gift!

When
they heard these words, the old men of the Sanhedrin were furious.
Unconditional forgiveness and risen Saviors had no place in their theology.
Their religion was based on doing things for God not on God doing things for
them. To the religious mind, grace is scandalous. Grace sounds like blasphemy.
[15]

The
old men had the apostles flogged and ordered them not to preach Jesus. Of
course the apostles ignored this and years later, when Paul joined their ranks,
he too began to preach the new message of unconditional forgiveness:

I want
you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
(Acts 13:38)

No hooks, no qualifications, no “turn from sin you brood of
vipers.” Just good news, delivered pure and straight.

All this
brings us to John who said:

If we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9, KJV)

This sounds like conditional forgiveness, like we have to review
and take responsibility for our sins in order to be forgiven
—
and yet
this comes after the cross. It’s like a piece of the Old Testament accidentally
got pasted into the New. What was John thinking? Was he napping when the risen
Lord proclaimed forgiveness as
an accomplished fact
? How do we
reconcile John with Jesus?

The usual way to read John is to attach a tiny price tag
to the priceless gift of grace. “If you just do this small thing (acknowledge
your sins), a good and gracious God will do this great thing (forgive your
sins).” It sounds like a good deal but it’s not. Indeed, given the phenomenal
price Christ paid for your forgiveness, it’s actually obscene. Allow me to
illustrate.

If I gave you a mansion, with no strings attached, and
you responded with, “Let me pay you with a piece of navel fluff—there, now
we’re square,” I would be insulted. If you then went around telling others,
“Give Paul your navel lint and he will give you mansions,” I would do a
facepalm. Then I would have to bolt my door to the hordes queuing outside with
handfuls of fluff.

It is ridiculous to think you can pay God to forgive you.
Yet many sincere believers are examining their navels for unconfessed sins
because they think God is a sin collector who trades favors for sin. Hear that
slapping sound? That’s the sound of a hundred million angels doing facepalms!

The Creator is not some marionette you can manipulate
through merit and money. He is the Almighty One, the Ancient of Days, who sits
enthroned on high. In his wisdom and mercy he dealt with your sins once and for
all at the cross.

John said, “He is faithful to forgive us our sins.” From heaven’s
perspective, this seems an odd thing to say. God won’t forgive you because he
has
already
forgiven you. God doesn’t judge the same sin twice, and at the cross he judged
all sin. Consequently, he is no longer counting men’s sins against them. Was
John confused about grace? Not at all, for he goes on to explain that we were
forgiven on account of his name (1 John 2:12). Forgiveness is based on his work
not ours.

So why does John say God
will
forgive us our sins as though it was
something he hadn’t already done? Why does he sound like he is quoting the Old
Testament? Because he
is
quoting the Old Testament. John is paraphrasing an Old Testament scripture to
illuminate a New Testament concept. Look at the following two passages side by
side and see if they resemble one another:

I said, “I will
confess
my transgressions to the Lord”—and you
forgave
the guilt of my sin.
(Psalms 32:5b)

If we
confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive
us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9, KJV)