Can I Be Forgiven?

GUILT

Our guilt shows up in a number of different ways. For instance, before David said sorry to God for the affair and murder, he suffered physical and emotional distress. He described how his guilt affected him like this:

When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long . . . my strength was sapped [like in burning heat]. (Psalm 32:3-4)

Guilt can affect us physically. It might lead to illness, exhaustion, lack of sleep (or nightmares/flashbacks), stress or other such things. Guilt can control our minds, making us feel depressed, angry, lonely or worthless. And it can break relationships as we blame others, get irritable with them and struggle to be open.

David’s entire life was affected by his guilt. But he cried out to God and found forgiveness. He was able to move on in his life—scarred, but hopeful.

Surely David had gone ‘too far’ to ask for forgiveness? Wouldn’t he have been more respectful to his victims to refuse mercy and instead slowly die in self-hatred? Not according to the Bible.

HAVE WE GONE TOO FAR TO BE FORGIVEN?

If you think you’ve gone too far, there’s hope. God wants us to know that He can forgive all the things that haunt us.

The Bible says God forgives those who are truly sorry for how they have lived. He doesn’t have to forgive—but He promises to forgive.

We’re going to look to see how much God personally suffered to forgive us, even though we don’t deserve it. In His love, God has found a way to punish our wrongs (as we deserve), and yet still offer forgiveness to the worst of us.

GOD’S ANGER

We don’t like to talk about God’s anger. But we need to understand it if we are going to understand God’s forgiveness.

God created us to live with Him. But we prefer to live without Him, doing our own things, living our own lives, setting our own priorities and valuing ourselves above Him. And we are all guilty. We all ignore God, our Creator, and by doing so, we hurt Him, hurt others and do selfish things. This is what the Bible calls sin. Sin makes God angry. This isn’t the grumpiness or imbalanced rage of someone who feels they have been ignored. It is the right and correct anger of God, who sees everything that is not in line with His perfect ways as unacceptable. God will judge and punish us for living like our ways are more important than His.

But because of your stubbornness and your [rejection of God], you are storing up wrath (fury) against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgement will be revealed. God ‘will repay each person according to what they have done’ . . . for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil. —Romans 2:5-9

God’s anger isn’t a denial of His love. He cares about us too much to just ignore the harm we are doing to ourselves and to others. He cares enough to be angry about our sin; He cares enough to do something about it.

Even though we deserve God’s anger and judgement, Jesus (who is God) didn’t come to earth to judge. He came to save us from our sin and from the anger of God. Jesus said, “For God did not send his Son into the world to [judge] the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not [judged], but whoever does not believe stands [judged] already” (John 3:17-18).

If we deserve God’s anger, how can Jesus promise to save us?

GOD’S JUSTICE

We don’t like it when criminals go free. If a child is murdered, for example, we want the guilty person to pay. God says:

There is none righteous (right with God), no, not one; there is [nobody] who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable (worthless). —Romans 3:10-12

If we are the guilty party, how can God forgive us? Only bad judges let guilty people go free. If we aren’t paying for our sin, who is? There is only one other person who can pay for the things we have done wrong.

At great cost to Himself, God paid the price for our sin. In an act of amazing self-sacrifice, God became a man on earth (Jesus) in order to die in our place. Roman executioners crucified God’s only Son, Jesus. He had no sin of His own to pay for; He was perfect! But in His perfection, He chose to take on our failings, selfishness, guilt and shame.

When it was finished, God accepted the death of Jesus as the “finished” payment for our sin (John 19:30). God’s justice was satisfied. Jesus, our Creator, took on our sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21), took on all of God’s anger towards us, died on the cross for us and was separated from God instead of us (Mt. 27:46)

Three days later, Christ rose from the dead. By walking out of the grave, Jesus showed the punishment for sin had been paid in full. He also showed that new, forgiven life with God was a reality for anyone who trusts Him.

According to Paul (a writer in the Bible), God is just (right and perfect) to justify (call perfect) all who trust Jesus Christ. He wrote:

By [our works and actions] no [person] will be justified in His sight . . . For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the [rescue] that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a [payment for sin] by His blood . . . that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. —Romans 3:20-26

GOD’S FORGIVENESS

Because Christ’s death on the cross was for all sin, if we trust Christ, we have received complete forgiveness. This isn’t just for things we have done wrong in the past, but for the things we are struggling with right now, and for things we’ll struggle with in the future.

Once For All. The moment we trust Christ as Saviour, we are free of God’s judgement. The issue is settled: our case is closed and God will not open the files of our guilt again. God will not judge us, because our sins have been judged and punished in Christ.

God, by His own authority, clears us of all charges. God “made Him who knew no sin (Christ) to be sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21), so that we could be made right with God again.

Does this mean we are no longer answerable for the things we have done wrong? His forgiveness doesn’t mean there won’t be consequence to our actions (Gal. 6:7). When we do wrong things, make mistakes and hurt people, we will still have to live with the result. But those of us who trust Christ will never be judged for our sin. That is why Paul could write:

Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through who also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God (Rom. 5:1-2).

The word justified describes the status of a person who has paid the full penalty for their wrongs. In this case, Christ has paid the penalty for us.

In effect, God says to those who trust Christ (or have “faith” in Him), “Your sins have been paid for. My Son died for you. So, in Him you are right and blameless before Me. You are forgiven of all your sin in a ‘once for all’ payment!”

Complete. Blessed are those whose [wrongs] are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.’ (Rom. 4:7-8 niv).

Forgiven. A young mountain climber struggles up a steep trail with a heavy backpack. He weakens, slows and falls down. Then an older climber drops back, lifts the load off his back and shoulders it himself. The young hiker feels free and starts up the trail with new energy. The word “forgiven” means “to lift off and carry away”. That is what happens when we accept God’s forgiveness. He takes our failures and guilt away and puts them on Christ instead.

Covered. This means our wrongs are hidden forever. We don’t need to worry about being confronted by those sins. We will not see them again. We will not face judgement for them.

Never count against. God puts our sins on Christ’s account. He will not hold our sins against us. Instead, He puts the perfect righteousness (rightness with God) of Jesus into our account. God looks on us as His perfect children!

When we receive His forgiveness, God judges all sins to be “paid for in full”. Christ becomes our Saviour and our representative in heaven (1 Jn. 2:1). He is our shield, protecting us from ever being separated from the love of God (Rom. 8:28-39).

We need to remember, however, that this forgiveness is given only to those who trust Jesus. Like medicine, forgiveness is not effective until taken.

Want to read more about how God describes the forgiveness He offers you? Ask you Scripture Reader to help you think about these verses in the Bible: • John 3:16; 5:24; 11:25 • Romans 1:16; 5:1; 10:11

Forgiven People Still Need God’s Discipline

By dying for us on the cross, Jesus has paid for all our sin, past present and future. However, as Christians, when we get things wrong and don’t correct ourselves (1 Cor. 11:31), God disciplines us as a loving Father (see Heb. 12:4-11). It is like a young man taking the family car for a spin without permission. His parents aren’t doing him any favours by acting as if it didn’t happen.

In the same way, God’s discipline is for our good. It doesn’t mean God no longer loves us. It means that He wants us to keep close to Him, being honest about our mistakes, so that we can continually receive His forgiveness and move on from our wrongs. He doesn’t want us to keep being dragged down by guilt, but to know His love and forgiveness every day. That is only possible if we spend time with Him in prayer and reading the Bible.

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

WHAT NEXT?

The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news! (Mark 1:15 emphasis added)

When Jesus came to earth to die for our sins, He said that we should trust (“believe”) Him!

He has done the work to save us—we just need to trust Him. But there is another thing He tells us to do: “repent”.

Repentance. The basic meaning of “repentance” is ‘a change of mind’, which results in a reversal in our choices and behaviour. We repent when we change our beliefs about God and ourselves. We are all weighed down with guilt, we all try to fix our problems ourselves and we don’t really want to trust or obey God. Repentance is when we turn around to face the opposite way. Rather than trying to cope on our own, we say to God “Yes, I need You more than anything! I don’t want to be in charge of my life any more, I make a mess of it. Please forgive me and lead me.”

Repentance is a decision to trust Jesus and rely on Him, not ourselves. It is our recognition of our desperate need for Jesus!

Perhaps you are scarred from decisions you have made, relationships you have broken or orders you have followed. When you look at your life, do you desperately wish someone would help? This is where repentance starts. Tell your Padre, Scripture Reader or another Christian how you are feeling. Ask them why they decided to entrust their lives to Jesus, and what difference their decision (repentance) has made.

Being ‘Good’. “But what about the good stuff I do?” some people ask. “Surely God finds it easier to forgive me when I look out for others and do good things?”

Without a doubt, the good, God-centred things we do are important to God. But good actions do not earn us forgiveness.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.(Ephesians 2:8-10 niv)

Rather than earning us forgiveness, good works are the result of forgiveness! Those who are saved through faith become God’s “handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works” (v.10). We must remember that God forgave us while we were still His enemies (Ephesians 2:1) by the death of His Son, which means God’s forgiveness relies only on His love, not on us. As forgiven people, who have ‘turned around’ in repentance, good works are the sign of our new life with God. They show He is in command now and that we want to live for Him instead of for ourselves.

The good news of the Bible is that forgiveness comes through trusting Jesus. There is nothing we can do to earn it! The great cost for this forgiveness was paid by God Himself.

Can I Be Forgiven?

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Can I Be Forgiven?

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