A God who forgives

MICAH 7:18–20

One of the greatest mistakes of most people with faith, in my opinion, is thinking that, for God, grace is a “contract” with conditions and clauses. You cannot simply proclaim God’s forgiveness as free and unconditional, because otherwise people will abuse it and use it as an excuse to do whatever they want. So the solution for many becomes what we might call “almost-grace.” “Jesus died for your sins, but now you have to prove to Him that you are serious about your faith. You must do penance to show God that you are truly sorry.” Even the ancient Church fell into this mistake, and for this reason it placed a limit on absolution of only once in a lifetime: absolving a sinner more than once, according to them, would prove that the sinner was not serious in their repentance!

One might then ask what ancient Israel should have done. They should have despaired! Far from being occasional offenders, the Israelites were sinning at an almost competitive level! Everything the Torah told them not to do, they did. Witchcraft? Even King Saul resorted to it. Idolatry? The high places and Asherah poles were everywhere. Sexual immorality? Before King Josiah, there were even prostitutes in the temple itself. And it is not as if Israel was not warned: prophet after prophet, king after king, came to condemn these things. And Israel? Israel killed them, beat them… Jeremiah ended up in prison multiple times and nearly died. When every escape route was exhausted, Israel found itself face to face with Nebuchadnezzar. Jerusalem was destroyed, and the people went into exile.

Then they began to cry. “Of course, it is easy to repent once the beatings start!” We might say that humans have never been a race inclined to admit they are wrong—not after Adam, who, as his first act after sinning, blamed his wife.

But God was not dissuaded by our stupidity and wickedness. Think of the story of Manasseh, one of the most wicked kings of Judah, who ended up in captivity because of his evil. And there, in prison, he repented and prayed to the Lord. And what did the Lord do? Did He say, “Serves you right”? No. Even though Manasseh was one of the worst kings, even though his repentance came only after punishment, the Lord immediately answered him and brought him back to Jerusalem.

WHO IS A GOD LIKE YOU, asks Micah, YOU WHO FORGIVE SIN AND PASS OVER REBELLION? Perhaps the ancient pagan gods would have punished until their anger was satisfied. Perhaps they would have demanded payment in blood and flesh. But WHAT GOD IS LIKE THE LORD, who instead forgives without demanding anything in return?

HE DOES NOT REMAIN ANGRY FOREVER, the prophet continues, BECAUSE HE DELIGHTS IN MERCY. “He delights”—khafetz in Hebrew—a word that expresses desire, affection, friendship. The Old Testament uses it to say that Jonathan “loved” David (1 Samuel 19:2), and that King Ahasuerus “desired” Esther (Esther 2:14). For the Lord, showing mercy is a joy! When God took flesh, He chose the name “Jesus,” meaning “The Lord saves,” so that it would be clear that being our God and Savior is what He desires to do.

Some time ago, I was studying Psalm 3, and something struck me that I had never noticed before. The psalm is a lament in which David asks God for help against his enemies. What struck me, however, was the subtitle: “A Psalm of David, when he fled from his son Absalom.” The reason this stood out to me is that Absalom’s rebellion—which forced David to leave Jerusalem and led to a major coup—was, according to the prophet Nathan, a punishment sent by God Himself because of David’s adultery and murder.

So notice this: David flees because he is being punished for his sins (serious sins, in fact), and what does the Holy Spirit do? He gives him faith and words to say: “THE LORD… WILL ANSWER ME FROM HIS HOLY MOUNTAIN!” (Psalm 3:4). Even in the middle of punishments deserved by our own sins, God is ready to answer as soon as we cry out for help.

WHO IS A GOD LIKE YOU, WHO FORGIVES SIN AND PASSES OVER REBELLION?

This is why Jesus RECEIVES SINNERS AND EATS WITH THEM (Luke 15:2). The Pharisees were busy showing God how serious they were about obedience. Many of them were probably deeply sincere—but one can be sincerely wrong, and this was their case.

Jesus, on the other hand, was busy doing the work of God. That work which I have often summarized with the motto: “Let God be God, and man be man.” Let man bear the guilt of sin, and God the undeserved forgiveness. Let man experience weakness before temptation, and God be the strength that delivers us from evil.

It is not speaking too much about grace that leads people into sin. Perhaps it is speaking wrongly about grace. Sometimes it is speaking too little about grace. But once we understand what it means to speak about the grace of God, it becomes impossible to speak about anything else!

It is grace that forgives us. It is grace that protects us from temptation, that gives us victory over sin. Otherwise, we would not pray “lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil,” we would simply say, “Look how well we avoid temptation and how free we are from evil.”

Then we realize that the Christian life is entirely about receiving—entirely about being given things by God, not only at the beginning but continually. It is not a path uphill: “God has forgiven you now, go and prove yourself!” It is a rushing river, where God, the source of all good, pours out upon us everything we need for the Christian life: forgiveness, grace, sanctification, and the Holy Spirit.

And is that all? Yes—that is all. But must we not at least show God that we have earned His help? And how? By praying with enough sincerity? By proving that we avoid the “big” sins? What must we do when our guilt weighs on our soul? Or when we are tempted and feel unable to resist the forces of evil? What must we do when the devil torments us, hiding God’s face from us and pouring black smoke into our lives?

The answer, as in all of Christian life, is always the same: we fall on our knees and say, “I am baptized! Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner!”

And Jesus will have mercy, because David sings that Jesus is “HE WHO FORGIVES ALL YOUR SINS, WHO HEALS ALL YOUR DISEASES, WHO REDEEMS YOUR LIFE FROM THE PIT, WHO CROWNS YOU WITH LOVE AND COMPASSION, WHO SATISFIES YOU WITH GOOD THINGS, SO THAT YOUR YOUTH IS RENEWED LIKE THE EAGLE’S… HE WHO DOES JUSTICE FOR ALL THE OPPRESSED.”