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God Does Not Offer Forgiveness
By John R. Gavazzoni
It's a common misperception among Christians that forgiveness of sins equates to absolution from guilt, as in, for whatever reason, God changing His mind toward the sinner from, at one point, holding sins against him, as in the sinner having formerly been an object of God's wrath, and now the sinner's position has changed to being an object of His favor. Supposedly by this change of mind on God's part, He is reconciled to the sinner, though the notion of God needing such reconciliation on God's part cannot find any support in scripture.....always, it is the sinner needing to be reconciled to God.
Within this common misperception, at a deeper level, is the more fundamental notion that, because of the sinner having offended the holiness of God, God demanded, and procured, satisfaction for being offended by taking out His anger on His Son, relieving Him of the need to get back at sinful man. In effect, He vented His rage on His Son so thoroughly that He had no rage left to take out on the sinner. On that basis, as the story goes, God is now able to make the sinner an offer of forgiveness.
But from my long experience involving no small research into what is scholasticism's view all the way down to the man-in-the-pew's view of what forgiveness is all about, it's clear to me that at all levels it is purported that God holds in reserve the right, in spite of having been satisfied, as in, propitiated or expiated, take your pick, to be re-offended if the sinner does not accept His offer. In that case, Jesus dying for our sins turns out, for the great majority of mankind, to be a waste.
Here's what is at the heart of the misconception. God never makes an offer of forgiveness, as understood to be absolution from guilt. Rather than making man an offer, at some due time, God convicts, convinces, thoroughly persuades the man of guilt-ridden conscience, that He has never held, nor ever will hold his sin against him. He has never found man to be disgustingly repulsive in the least, but thoroughly lovable as His children no matter what bondage of estrangement from him we suffer from.
In a word, forgiveness is not a matter of a change of mind on God's part, but completely on man's part. Researching into the etymology of the English words forgive and forgiveness, I've discovered that the compound construction of the word has retained for us its original meaning, i.e., that God is, in the face of man's sin, and in spite of man's sin, "for," as in disposed to, being in favor of, givingness, as in, "where sin abounds, grace doth much more abound," as in, "He makes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust." Traced back to its old English origin, the prefix, "for," carries the meaning, in the intensive mode, of being completely for givingness.
When the sinner comes face to face with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ holding nothing against him, at his deepest heart-level, he is healed of the defilement of his conscience. This occurred seminally as God and man met together in Christ on the cross, and God took the worst of man's enmity against Him, drank that cup of enmity against Him to its dregs, and responded by asking the Father to send away, divorce from those crucifying Him, all guilt-consciousness.
That's the meaning of the message of scripture that we have peace with God, and forgiveness of sins by the blood of Christ. It could be described as God saying to men who resent Him for the world being what has become under His rule, "what do you want, blood?" And we, our humanity within His humanity, said, "Yes we want blood, and nothing else will satisfy us." And God said, "OK, here, do what you will, take out the full fury of your hatred toward Me." All humanity, within the humanity of Jesus, came face to face with, as is summed up in the lyrics of a hymn, "oh love that will not let me go."
He holds us in the embrace of love that will not let us go, no matter what. We can't hate God enough to make God quit loving us, and loving us so effectively as to reconcile us to Himself. There's no mere offer of forgiveness. Forgiveness is an imposition on God's part. He breaks into our hearts to send away sin from our defiled consciences by the sprinkling of His blood (Hebrews 10:22). He divorces from us our sin. I learned that root meaning of forgiveness from Jonathan Mitchell's Translation of the New Testament. Sent away, as far as the east is from the west; buried in the deepest sea.
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