Billy Graham described forgiveness as ‘the most glorious word in the English language’. Al Martin asks, ‘When is your life more fragrant than when the kiss of forgiveness is most fresh upon your cheek?’
But what is forgiveness?
This Friday evening through Saturday Orthodox Jews around the world celebrate Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement.
In Leviticus 16 we read on that day once a year blood was taken in to the holiest place and the High Priest would then come out and pronounce the great benediction. This also involved 2 goats. One was slain, and the High Priest would take that blood along with other blood and poured it on and before the Ark of the Covenant to ask God to pardon the sins of the people. Then the High Priest would place his hands on the other goat and confess the sins of the people upon it, then that goat would be walked out of the temple, city and into the wilderness and it would be released, and with the sins of the people confessed as it were over it would be carried away into some dark wilderness place where those sins would be carried away forevermore – symbolising that your sins would never ever be seen again.
Forgiveness means to wipe out or do away with or blot out the guilt of wrong doing, so that it no longer stands between a person and God before whom he is guilty – never to be seen again. God who cannot ignore sin does this by the payment of the penalty of sin by a substitute. That substitute is Jesus who is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29 cf 1 John 1:9-2:2).
The sacraments of Baptism and Lord’s Supper point to forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ (Acts 22:16; Matt 26:28), and call us to seriously examine ourselves whether we have been straying through unbelief and carelessness from the ways of the Lord into sin, and graciously reminds us of the promises of forgiveness and recall us to fresh obedience.
“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph 1:7).