A few years ago some people hurt me pretty badly. I cried myself to sleep that night and woke up still crying the next morning. Then I decided to forgive them. The choice to forgive them was my own. I forgave them before they apologized. I forgave them before they ‘repented’ and before they ‘confessed.’ Before they even knew I forgave them. The moment I chose to forgive them, that was it. In my mind they were forgiven, as if they had never even wronged me in the first place. They had absolutely no say over my choice to forgive them.

Now think of what Jesus did. Did He wait for you to confess and repent before He forgave you, or did He forgive you on the cross? If your answer is on the cross, then that means you were forgiven because God in Christ made the choice to forgive you despite the fact that you didn’t repent or confess. Even the Bible says it!

Rom 5:8  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (NKJV)

God demonstrated HIS love towards us while we were sinners. He died for you before you ever repented or confessed anything. The choice was His to forgive you. That means, in God’s mind, you are forgiven. Whether you are a believer or not, you are forgiven because God chose to forgive you. (Isa 43:25, Jer 31:34, Heb 8:12, Heb 10:17, Rom 3:24-26) Does that mean every single person is saved? Of course not. Forgiveness is not the be all and end all of salvation. Faith in Christ reveals in you the FREE GIFT of HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS. It is His righteousness that gives you right-standing before God, not forgiveness.

Imagine you have credit card debt. Debt places you on the left of zero, in the negative. If I came and forgave your debt, out of my own decided to pay off all your credit card debt, where on the line would that place you? It would only put you at zero, because all I did was forgive your debt. Even though you don’t have any debt, you don’t have anything else either because now you are only at zero. The debt of sin is to the left of zero and righteousness to the right, and as such forgiveness doesn’t give you an ounce of righteousness. To move past zero to the right hand side requires the free gift of His righteousness. That is revealed and received by faith alone.

Rom 1:16-17            For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” (NKJV)

For in it, ‘it’ meaning the Gospel, THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD is revealed FROM FAITH to Faith. Forgiveness is the thing that placed you in a position where you were able to receive the free gift. It is this free gift revealed and received by faith that completes salvation, not mere forgiveness alone. Forgiveness is what placed you in a position where His ETERNAL PURPOSE (which is not salvation) in and through man could be realized once again. (I will write on this more in a later post since it goes beyond the scope of this article and because I am sure it is going to upset a few people very much.)

To recap, Jesus forgave you on the cross. You can’t do anything to change that. It was His choice, and He made it without you apologizing, asking, confessing, or repenting. It was His demonstration of love toward you. When you come to Him and confess your inability to achieve right-standing before God yourself (sin) and when you cease trying to achieve it for yourself (repentance) you receive His free gift and you then become a reborn son of God, CREATED IN RIGHTEOUSNESS and TRUE HOLINESS (Eph 4:24).

Why true holiness? Because only Jesus is truly holy. Your actions or inactions do not make you more or less holy. Jesus in you makes you holy. You are either holy or you’re not. Something or somebody is holy because God set him, her or it apart for Himself. He did it, not you. You can’t be partially holy and you can’t make yourself holy either. Jesus is holy and because you are in Him you are holy, set apart by God, for God, through God and to God.

If that doesn’t make you happy, I don’t know what will! Now if you are wondering what happens in regards to forgiveness when a believer sins, you will need to wait a little while for the next installment…

Grace, grace, grace and more grace to you all!

Cornel