Divine Forgiveness

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By God’s forgiveness, we do not mean He condones or blesses a person’s wickedness, nor prospers that person’s sinful designs. To the contrary, He foils the evil plots of the wicked, who work at cross-purposes to Him. (And He wins, ultimately at their expense.)

To say God is eternally forgiving also does not mean He winks at, and thereby becomes complicit in, evil. Again to the contrary, His own goodness counters evil in every way known to Him, and eventually His utter triumph over it is to be revealed.

Forgiveness just means God still loves the person just as much as He would have had the person never sinned. His perfect love abides, constant and true, through everything, eternally.

God’s forgiveness is not, fundamentally, something legal, not a declaration of innocence, not a “Not Guilty” verdict. Still less does it mean God blinds Himself to the wickedness in us, or that Christ somehow fools Him into not seeing it.

Forgiveness, at root, is ontological, meaning it is a function of God’s Being, of who God is. (Ontology: relating to or based upon being or existence) Forgiveness is rooted in God’s very existence, for God is love. Love endlessly forgives. (Matthew 18:22)

The thing is that God’s forgiveness has no effect whatever upon the unrepentant person. It in no way benefits him. God’s forgiveness although eternal, full, and unconditional, cannot reach a heart which is itself unforgiving. (Matthew 18:35)

God's forgiveness is not a reward for good deeds, nor yet for faith; it is only of His own goodness and compassion. Yet it can only be received by faith (and good deeds are the "outside" of faith, are what true faith looks like).

God’s forgiveness takes the form of giving us eternal life. That immortal Life is not a consequence of God’s forgiveness, but is the form it takes. The indwelling of the Lifegiver (Holy Spirit) in us is the token and pledge, the “earnest” of divine forgiveness (2 Corinthians 1:22 and 5:5, Ephesians 1:14) just as the healing of the paralytic (Mark 2:9, Matthew 9:5, Luke 5:23) was the proof that his sins had been forgiven.

And the giving of life, in turn, takes the form of blood, and of flesh, given for us on the Cross and in the Cup, crucified, poured out, risen, ascended, made immortal, and making us one with the Immortal One if we receive with true faith and true love.