In our study of the divine redemption we considered from the words of St. Paul to the Galatians the great foundation act of the whole, viz., the satisfaction made for sin by the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God. We had no time then to go on to the consequent deliverance. But we do not want to have either a building without a foundation, or a foundation without a building. In other words, we do not wish either to have a superficial life of Christian experience without a solid foundation in the great work of atonement, or to be so exclusively occupied by the atonement as to forget the great practical deliverance which is in fact the completion of redeeming grace. Having laid the foundation, then, in the study of the ransom, redemption price, or satisfaction for sin, we must pass on to the great deliverance with which God follows up His work of mercy. This we will now do, if God permit, and may He Himself put forth the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, and this very day in His own grace deliver souls!
Now what is the first great gift of God in delivering souls?—the first result of the blood of atonement when applied to the salvation of the sinner? I hope that if we were all to speak we should give the same answer to the question, and that there are none amongst us who would hesitate to reply, ‘Forgiveness.’ So long as sin remains unforgiven there can be no freedom, nor any deliverance of any kind whatever. Unforgiven sin blocks the way against all hope of escape, and therefore when God invites a sinner to return He first assures him of the blotting out of sin: ‘I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me, for I have redeemed thee.’ (Isa. xliv. 22.)
But now arises a question which has sometimes occasioned difficulty in thoughtful minds. A complete forgiveness is the starting-point of the Christian’s life; and accordingly this forgiveness of sin is described as a complete and present privilege, so we read, ‘In whom,’ i.e., in Christ the Beloved One, ‘we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.’ The apostle speaks of it there as something of which we are now in the present enjoyment, for he says, ‘We have it.’ It is ours now. But yet in other passages, such as the Lord’s Prayer, the children of God are taught to ask for it with as much regularity as for their daily bread. How is it, then, that we are told to ask for that we have already? Why do we pray the Lord’s Prayer every day when we already have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins? It is a very natural question, and I cannot be surprised if persons feel the difficulty. But I believe that if we look carefully at the real work of redemption it will throw great light on the subject. We shall find if we do so that there are two kinds of forgiveness described in the word of God, the one the immediate, and the other the consequent, result of redemption. There is judicial forgiveness as the foundation, and parental forgiveness as the consequence: the two being closely connected with each other, and both resulting from redemption. Let us study them separately.
I. Judicial forgiveness.
In order to understand judicial forgiveness we must consider the judicial condemnation of the unforgiven man, and we must carefully remember God’s offices as King, as Lawgiver, and as Judge. He is a Saviour, but He is a ruler likewise, and He rules the world in righteousness. But if we think of Him as the great executive of a perfectly righteous and holy law, acting on principles of strict and unvarying righteousness, we must see in a moment that we have all been brought under judicial condemnation, for the law condemns us all. It condemned our whole race in the person of our head and first father when Adam sinned, and the sentence of death was passed on him as the representative of man. It condemns our nature as alien and strange to God. And it condemns our lives that have abounded in action contrary to His will. I know that some people find a difficulty in the first two points, and cannot understand the condemnation of the race, or of the nature. I can appreciate their difficulty, though I am quite sure it is fully met in Scripture. But I have not time to discuss it now. But this one thing I am sure is plain; even if there were no condemnation on the race or on the nature, there is quite sufficient in the past life to bring condemnation on any soul amongst us. Even if we had not been condemned in Adam there has been quite sufficient to condemn us in ourselves. There is not one amongst us who is not guilty of that for which he knows himself to be responsible. There is not one who dare stand before God on the plea that he has never sinned, not one therefore that must not acknowledge in some form or other that he cannot be saved if the sentence of the law is to be carried out on his sin.
But if you think over it you will see that according to natural principle judicial forgiveness is impossible. Law can acquit, and law can condemn, but law cannot forgive. Law can pronounce a man innocent, and law can pass the sentence of death, but law cannot pardon the guilty. Our legal position by nature is perfectly hopeless. We have incurred a legal and just condemnation, but nature has made no provision for a legal and just forgiveness. It is the effort to overcome this insuperable difficulty that has kept thousands of conscientious heathen toiling on throughout their lives in deep religious anxiety without a ray of light to throw peace upon their path.
But the whole difficulty is met in God’s great plan of redemption, as revealed in those wonderful words, ‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.’ The forgiveness resulting from the great act of redemption is exactly what we want, a legal and judicial remission of a legal and judicial sentence. The sentence of the law has been as fully carried out in the person of our most Blessed Redeemer as it would have been had the whole race been cast into hell for ever. The whole difficulty is removed by the principle of substitution, or satisfaction. If Christ was made a curse for us, then the curse is gone from us, and we are free. The holiness of the law is honoured, the righteousness of the lawgiver is preserved, the sentence of the judge is established, not one jot or one tittle of the law is allowed to pass; but, notwithstanding all, the man that has broken it, although he has broken it, is absolutely free. Thus, in Rom. iii. 26, we are taught that the result of propitiation is, ‘That God might be just, and yet the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.’
Here, therefore, we have what I have termed a judicial forgiveness, a forgiveness in perfect harmony with the strict righteousness of law; a forgiveness which is, in fact, the letting forth of God’s eternal love when all legal claims are satisfied. Till that redeeming act was complete, the love was as it were pent up, and could not, in consistency with His own law, flow forth to a condemned people. But all is different now. The law itself pronounces in favour of the condemned, and the result is that God is not only faithful, but just to forgive. And to this righteous forgiveness we may apply the text, ‘In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.’
II. Parental Forgiveness. But when we are in the enjoyment of this judicial forgiveness it may be said, ‘If this be the case, why should we any more pray for forgiveness? Why should we say the Lord’s prayer? Are we not taught that we already have forgiveness as we have redemption through His blood? To answer this question we must mark the distinction between judicial and parental forgiveness.
Consider, then, the position into which every believer is brought through redemption and judicial forgiveness. According to verse 6, we are ‘accepted in the Beloved,’ accepted, i.e., in Christ Jesus the Beloved One. And according to Gal. iv. 5, we are made, by virtue of that redemption, children of God, for Christ was sent forth ‘to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.’ If, then, we be in Christ Jesus, what is our position? The curse which fell on the whole race through Adam is gone, and we shall soon rise from the dead into new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The condemnation of our sinful and ruined nature as well as of all the sin of all our past lives is forgiven for ever; and much more than that, for, the barriers being all broken down, we are accepted in the Beloved and ‘the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.’