NO EASY FORGIVENESS

Last week I wrote about the parable of the Prodigal Son. No matter how far away from the love of his father he walked, it was there ready for him to enjoy when he “came to himself”, humbled himself and went home, seeking forgiveness. It is a parable focusing on the eagerness of God to forgive, the joy he has in forgiving and the change of heart that is required in people in order to enter into that forgiveness. What it does not address, and was not attended to address, is the cost of forgiveness.

It would be an abuse of the parable to deduce from it that God’s forgiveness of our wayward behaviour is simply dependent upon our coming back to him and saying sorry. As Jesus was to make clear, there is another aspect to the story of entering back into the love of God, a very critical and sobering aspect. This has to do with his death.

God is not able to simply and easily forgive and forget the moral failures that stain our lives. Their nature and significance is far too deep for that. Neglect of and rebellion against God cannot just be cast on one side no matter how deeply sorry a person may be. The very love of God itself, a holy love, has decreed the exclusion from God’s presence of those caught up in such behaviour. “Sin” is an eternal affront to a holy God, whose holiness is a blazing spotless love which will not look on evil except to destroy it. Sin is an extremely serious matter. It simply cannot be passed over; it has to be purged. No matter how broken hearted a prodigal may be, there is nothing he can do himself to remove the stain of sin that has marked his life. That is the whole thrust of Scripture from beginning to end.

Jesus knew this, of course, even whilst was telling the parable of the Prodigal, and his mind was already set on the cross. He knew that the love of God had found a way for human sin to be justly purged and forgiven, but that it was a way that would lead him, the Son of God, to bear the due consequences of sin in dying on a cross, derelict and cut off from God. He would “bear our sins”, he would be “punished for our transgressions”, and he would be “made sin for us” so that our forgiveness and restoration would be real.

Thus the patience and loving forgiveness in the heart of the Father as exemplified in the Prodigal story becomes wonderfully magnified into a love that found a way to bring meaningful forgiveness through deep pain both to the “Only Begotten Son” and the Father.What man could not do, they would do.

Our forgiveness was not cheap.






Bob




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