Any discussion about Christian salvation must consider the importance and meaning of divine forgiveness. We previously considered salvation in terms of reconciliation. Since reconciliation implies a prior alienation, and alienation implies an offense that causes separation, forgiveness lies at the heart of true reconciliation.
This is true in reconciliation between humans. One party must forgive the offending one, or more likely both parties must extend forgiveness when fault lies with both of them. A person may be heard saying, “I’ll forgive you, but I will never forget it.”
At first glance it looks like real forgiveness has not been extended. However, on closer consideration we understand that perfect, permanent and willful forgetfulness is not a human possibility. Only God can willfully forget what He has forgiven. The best we humans can say about our ability to forgive is, “I may remember at times what happened between us, but when I do, it will no longer matter.” But divine forgiveness includes divine forgetfulness.
Forgetfulness
The Bible makes several references to God’s forgetfulness in forgiving our sins. Isaiah 4:25 says, “I am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” The prophetic promise of God about His new covenant is similar: “For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:34).
Other images of God’s ability to forget what He forgives include that of Psalm 103:12: “As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.”
As Christians who are perfectly forgiven we nonetheless sometimes remember times of sinful failure — things done and things left undone. When those memories crop up, we can take heart. While we may remember, God for Christ’s sake has chosen not to remember.
Forgiveness was a pervasive subject during Jesus’ public ministry. In the course of that ministry He told a paralytic whom He healed that the man’s sins were forgiven. Jesus’ critics leaped on that pronouncement as if they had just heard blasphemy. They protested that only God is able to forgive sins (Mark 2:1–12). While they were right about that, they failed miserably in recognizing that Jesus was God in the flesh and that He possessed authority to forgive sins.
Saving mission
In the course of His ministry Jesus called for His followers to practice forgiving others even, if need be, up to seven times in a day (Luke 17:4). Near the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus instituted the memorial supper making the shared cup a reminder of His blood that He would shed for the forgiveness of sins (Matt. 26:28). At the very climax of His saving mission, Jesus famously called from the cross for the Father to forgive those who caused His suffering, contributed to His shame and secured His death (Luke 23:34).
The centrality of Jesus’ saving death to our experience of God’s forgiveness serves to remind us that forgiveness of sins is not a cheap transaction. While it flows to sinners without cost to us, it cost the Heavenly Father His only-
begotten Son and cost the Son the agony of the cross. Because Jesus paid it all, all to Him we owe.
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