11-20-19: The Forgiveness of God:

Beware of the pleasant view of the fatherhood of God: God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That thought, based solely on emotion, cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament. The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To base our forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross of Christ. There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary. We should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours.

Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ. To forgive sin, while remaining a holy God, this price had to be paid. Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement. The revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive— He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross. God’s forgiveness is possible only in the supernatural realm.

Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is small. Sanctification is simply the wonderful expression or evidence of the forgiveness of sins in a human life. But the thing that awakens the deepest fountain of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven his sin. Paul never got away from this. Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God.

We are apt to think that everything that happens to us is to be turned into useful teaching; it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz. into character. We shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something.

The Forgiveness of God

By Oswald Chambers

In Him we have…the forgiveness of sins… —Ephesians 1:7

Wisdom From Oswald Chambers

The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 664 L

Bible in a Year: Ezekiel 14-15; James 2

At Link:

Cloudmountain,

The ‘forgiveness of sins’ is free.

However, it did not come ‘cheap’.

It cost our Father in Heaven His only SON.

Look at this brief walk thru to see that you don’t need a man to forgive you of your sins.....you have Jesus ‘right here’.

Forgiveness of sins is absolutely free to all people. Isaiah 55:7 says, “Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.” The Bible says repeatedly that salvation and the forgiveness of our sins is a gift that has been given to us from God.

In Ephesians 2:8-9 the Bible says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast.” There is no effort that man can make to earn forgiveness and no amount of money that he can pay for it either. It is a gift given freely by God.

Acts 8:20 demonstrates the conflict we have, “Peter answered: ‘May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!’” Man struggles to accept that the gift of forgiveness is truly free. In this world, our concept has become “we give to receive” or “you only get what you pay for.”

Romans 4:4 says, “Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation.” When we come to recognize that we have sinned, we also realize that a penalty has to be paid for that sin. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” All we really have to do is admit that we have sinned and then claim our free gift.

If God’s forgiveness is free - well, somebody has got to pay! Romans 3:22-24 says, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Hebrews 9:27-28 reiterates this statement: “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”

What is so special about man that God would send Jesus from his place of royalty in beautiful and wondrous heaven down to earth to become a lowly man and suffer persecution, pain, shame, and death as a criminal to pay the price of forgiveness for man’s sin? We find the answer to that question in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

(From “All about following Jesus.org”)

Best to you.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.