The Rules of Forgiveness

I'm trying to understand the rules of forgiveness.
If the Bible doesn't contradict itself, and it doesn't, then how does this work?
God tells me to
Forgive as the Lord forgave you.--Colossians 3:13

OK. So, how does He forgive?
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins--Colossians 2:13
So, He forgave me before I repented.

But then He says,
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.-1John 1:9
In other words, I must repent to be forgiven. 

So which is it?

Well, it's both.

When Christ went to Calvary, He proclaimed forgiveness and freedom for all men, although most of them did not know Him, had not even acknowledged His godhead, much less repented.
He did it all, all He could do.
But men still have free will, the free will He gave them.
Jesus did all of his part.  Men were forgiven, but their relationship with Him was not yet repaired.
It takes repentance to do that. 
When we acknowledge and repent of sin, we restore our communion with God.

And that is how we must forgive.
We do what we can while the offender is still clueless, still dead in sin.  We forgive him as Christ forgave us.  Without recompense, without expectation.
Then, sooner or later, he may acknowledge and apologize, repenting for his sin.
That is when, as in Christ, are we restored.

Another Blood

The Bible tells us that King David of Israel had a heart for God.  And he did. But he was not weak, nor was he sweet, nor meek.  King David was made and commissioned by God for war.  And he was good at it.

He began his career by killing the giant Goliath and while he reigned, Israel fought enemies on all sides.  King David knew the color of blood, and the smell of it, and the taste of it.  And when he grew old, he tired of it.

By the end of his life, David wanted not to destroy any longer, but to build.  First, though, he decided to assess his kingdom.  He desired to see the scope of what he had done so far.  He had fought so many years; he wanted to find out what he had accomplished, so he commissioned a census.  And he counted his people.

He had built an empire, a far reaching one of more than a million and a half fighting men. 
But God was not pleased with David.

During his life, David had conquered many lands and killed many men at God's command.  And God blessed him for his obedience.  But this counting God neither commanded nor sanctioned.  
Of all the things David had done, this peaceful, seemingly innocuous action angered God.
And David would spill another kind of blood.

Men would die this time, not because David was obedient, but because he had sinned.
So the Lord sent a pestilence in Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.--1Chronicles 21:14

This new blood left a mark all the other had not.  And David would pay for his disobedience.
Then, only then, after all the love and reverence, after all the songs, after all the years of drawing his sword in God's name, only then did God tell David he had done wrong.
You had shed much blood and have made great wars; you shall not build a Temple in my name for you have shed much blood on the ground before me.--1Chronicles 22:8

This last disobedience, not the years of faithful, if bloody, following, disqualified David from building the Lord's temple.
And so it still does.
The blood of disobedience, of pride, of lust, can never honor God.
But there is a blood of another kind, blood shed by specifically commissioned men according to God's intentional command. That blood leaves another stain, the stain of holy obedience, the stain of sacrifice, the same stain that gathered at the foot of the cross on Calvary.

It's All About the Feet

NFL players are lacing up pink shoes for their games these days.  They are not doing it to make a fashion statement, but, after the game, to auction them for charity. And buyers pay big money for them.
Why?  Aren't they just shoes?

Yes, they are only shoes, but, oh, the feet that wore them! That's what folks pay for.
Like the guitar John Lennon played, or a pen that signed the Declaration of Independence, an object can be elevated beyond its intrinsic value by its user.

Ok, you get that.
Now, pinch yourself.
You are made of flesh and blood.  We each occupy our own body and most of us are nothing special, pretty much like one another in composition and appearance.

But what if God put on identical flesh and blood, pulled on our own skin, and age, and pain? What if He laced up a human body as His version of a pink football shoe?  How would that flesh change?

Well, He did it, of course.
God did take on flawed flesh and wore it in His own game.
He wore it every moment...all the way into the end zone.
And when He did that, He changed the flesh, the game, everything.

Aaron Rodgers' pink shoes are still just pink shoes, though, just like before he put them on.
When God took on our humanity, our sickness and death became something else.
He not only made us part of Him, but He put part of Himself in us.
And the one body, the one He wore, He eventually put aside, perpetually undefiled, because it was His.

When Jesus put on flesh, He declared that He wants us to be like Him--not in exaltation, but in sacrifice and humility.
"Be holy," He says, not as men made to be Gods, but like God made man. 

Who, being in very nature God...made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness..." --Philippians 2:6-7
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.  We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only...--John 1:14

Now Where Was I?

My husband does not want me to use herbicides.
But I want a perfect, weedless garden.
For 30 years, we have wrangled about this.
It needs to stop.

But how?  Nobody wants to give in.  We both think we are right and, from our own perspectives, we are.  After all, no biblical principle hinges on whether I spray Roundup on the creeping charlie.
Or does it?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.--Matthew 5:3,5
A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.--Proverbs 29:23
I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite.--Isaiah 57:15

Think about it.
What makes us really humble?
Is it bowing and shuffling when someone tells me that I have done something well?  No.  That makes me secretly proud.
Am I humbled when I experience defeat after striving to do or learn something?  No.  As often as not, that simply spurs me on to try harder next time.

But obedience, now that breeds humility.
Doing what someone else wants, not what I want, when I know my idea or plan is just as valid as theirs.  Setting aside my own will in situations where all I sacrifice is me.
That's humility.

Of course, I should never set aside my holiness, my love and devotion to God, but all else can be well lost.

And it feels nasty.
Is not my opinion or desire of value?
Of course it is.  That's why setting it aside takes so much effort.
I am humbled by giving up my will not because it has no validity, but because it does.

Some positions are not important enough to fight over.
But they make great tools by which to learn holiness.

Obedience in these issues is how I push aside the extraneous parts of me, how I enter into the holy of holies, where my humanity takes a back seat to God's supremacy.

Humility was never about my position before other men.  
It was always about my position before God.
And, as it turns out, pulling weeds.
I am always with you.  You hold me by my right hand.--Psalms 73:23

How He Finishes It

The cross.  The lamb.  The blood.  There are levels of knowing. How can this horrible act remove my sin?  And where, then, does that forgiven sin go?

Every year I watch Jesus struggle His weary way up the hill, listen to the hammers, wait for the words, 'My God, My God..."  I know the reason for all this.  This horror, this terrifying travesty happened because I sinned, because we all sinned, and because God could not tolerate that.  He could not leave it alone.

God made the Jews kill sweet young lambs to repair this sin.  He made them cast out goats into the wilderness to die because of it.  He told His people that these innocent animals bore the sins of  men.  He made those same men sentence to death what would otherwise nourish them.

Then He sent Jesus.

Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.  He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit.--1Peter 3:18.

So, by God's act and decree, what He did to Himself He also does in me.  Jesus Christ died, and so must I.  My corrupt body, my sin, what I am in this world must be put to death so that, like Christ, my Spirit can be raised up.


I must die to the world.  I must die to finish in me what Christ did for all.  As I recognize, confess, and repent of each sin, Christ takes them from me with hands both tender and bleeding, and absorbs them into His own wounds, carries them in His own flesh and blood, and they die there.

On the cross, my sins are carried as far as the east is from the west because Christ moves them from earth to Himself.  By this single act, He gathers sins daily from all confessing believers and transports them to the instant of His own death, a cataclysm shaking heaven and earth, and pronounces, "It is finished."

Getting Close, Getting Dirty

Life's not fair.  Most of us think we have already figured that out, but I'm not so sure.

We know that strangers may not be kind, that politicians and businessmen may not act honorably, and that employers may put their own interests before ours, but we surely expect spouses to love well, friends to be there when we need them, and church people to practice what they preach.

But they don't.  And, unlike strangers, the ones we care about hurt us when they don't.  Sometimes a lot. When they do, it's important to remember something.


We are all cut from the same cloth--dirty rags.  There is no one on this earth for us to love but other sinners.

I do not like suffering for someone else's sin, but if my son is an addict, I will.  If my best friend cheats on her husband, I feel the grime of it.  If my pastor steals from the church treasury, I know the sting of his defamation.  The more we invest in a relationship, the closer we get to someone, the more we rub up on their dirt, and they on ours. 

There is an upside to  this, though.  When we bear with each other's faults, we stay together to enjoy the triumphs. 

After the suffering of His soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied.--Isaiah 53:11
God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.--2Corinthians 5:21

We, who are already dirty, further foul one another.  It's a dirty world.  But Christ, who knew no corruption, assumed all of ours and in doing so, He makes us all clean.

Sin hurts those closest to the sinner. The closer we get to one another, the more we risk. A hug transfers more mud than a handshake.  But that's OK.  We'll all get clean clothes later.

Outside the Gate

At the creation of the world, God made our bodies in His own image.  He pronounced them very good and indeed they are, but He made them good, not holy.  Our bodies require sanctification. We look like Him, but we do not bear His perfection.   

We might come eventually to wear His glory, but we must endure the fire to do so.

The High Priest carries the blood of animals to the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp--Hebrews 13:11
.
God told His people to separate the useful parts of a sacrificial animal from the bad; meat, fat, and blood came into the holy parts of the temple for dedication.  They separated hair, and skin, and entrails for burning at a place away from God's presence.

The rest of the bull he must take outside the camp to a place ceremonially clean where the ashes are thrown and burn it on an a wood fire on an ash heap.--Leviticus 4:12

God's people, to honor Him, separated what belonged to God from what did not, then sacrificed the first to Him and burned the rest.

God taught us to subject ourselves to the fire, to spend our own bodies in His service.

In fact, He did this Himself.  He demonstrated how to separate what we must spend from what He will save when He walked away from the temple out of the gate, up the hill, and stepped up onto His cross.

And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through His own blood.--Hebrews 13:12  

Our body houses a perfection God placed in it, a perfection He distills until it can stand beside His own.  This is why we endure the separation and intermittent burning away of what He cannot own.  This is why we bear our sufferings patiently because, as we follow His footsteps up the hill, we come to resemble Him.  And, in the process, He makes us beautiful.

Let us, then, go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore.--Hebrews 13:13

Laying Down the Knife

Blood stained the temple court, ran down the arms of the priests as they performed their grisly work. They smelled of briny entrails and dank bile. Shiny intestines uncoiled beneath their hands and fell in heavy, liquid slaps against dark tiles. Broad slabs of fresh-killed meat dripped red as Your servants sang daily repentance and praise. Hair and fat and cast-off organs piled in fly-blown mounds outside the city gates, the sad products of commanded sacrifice. They, God's elect, smelled unceasingly of the kill.

Bloody sacrifice, though, brought hope. Through it, ancient Jews hoped to approach You. The gate through which they might find forgiveness for their sins ran unfailingly red and unforgiving heat baked it into high stench, but the trail of sacrifice, they knew, led the only way they knew to You. You told them they had to kill to be saved, so they killed and killed and killed.

Then You came. You made sure they were paying attention when You taught them about love and about obedience and about humility and mercy. You made sure they heard when you condemned pride and hypocrisy. Then you made them watch and listen when You ended their incessant bloody sacrifice with Your own. They heard You say what they had memorized, "My God, My God..." and then You declared in triumphant shout so that no one could misunderstand, "It is finished..." You rocked their world with earthquake and rent the veil of their separation from You.

What relief must they have known when You told them that Your sacrifice would be the last! Your death delivered them all. And then You rose to show them its beautiful result. Now, whoever accepts Your death as their own deliverance also rises in glory with You. Blood no longer runs in our temples. Instead, the cross rises before our eyes...

In Him you have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with God's grace.--Ephesians 1:7

Slain and Singing

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.--1Thessalonians 5:18
Surely He took all our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted.--Isaiah 53:4

I have troubles, troubles through which I am to praise You. My troubles fret You, too, though You allow them all. You really feel like a parent in this. This is why You call Yourself our Father. No other god, either ancient or modern, does this. Other gods manifest as rulers and kings, powerful and frightful, one dimensional in their lofty separation, but not You. They are flat, not gods at all.

But You, You not only carry me, but You carry my troubles too, lift them from my back and put them on Your own, ultimately bearing them all the way to the cross. If I think of them properly, my troubles constitute my sacrifice to You as I surrender them. To You I am to transfer all my earthly hopes, slain by my own hand by both command and necessity. They bleed all over the altar, then become You somehow: Your blood, Your pain, because I have slain what I most treasure for Your sake.

This must continue until I realize that You have told me to kill only what I do not need. You provide everything I need--raise it and kill it and raise it again in Your perfect will. And all the while, You do this not because You lack anything and need that sacrifice, but because I do. You die and resurrect by voluntary affliction, not as inevitable consequence. You do it through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. You continue to lay down among spilt blood and scattered crumbs, to split Yourself open again and again, then to rise up time after time until I see it all, grasp Your holy feet and give glorious thanks for my burden's assumption. and slaughter in You.

First Light

I have wondered for a long time about how soldiers get ready for their days, the ones in which they know they will have to risk their lives in combat and during which they might die. The rest of us get up, brush our teeth, decide what to wear or what to have for breakfast, kiss our spouse, and go to work. Somehow, a solder has to rub sleep out of his eyes, shoulder his weapon, and prepare to fight for his life.

I have heard a few discussions about this, memories of times filled with bullets and explosions and blood. I have heard about days when the dead lay all around except for one. I have heard about the smell of spent shells and been asked to imagine the sound of the accumulated gunfire of a hundred men shooting at once, but I have never experienced anything even remotely like it. I do know, however, someone who has.

Israel's King David did not use a gun, but he did use spears and shields. And he also did something that few soldiers can: he found words for what he experienced.

Strangers are attacking me; ruthless men seek my life, men without regard for God. -Psalm 53: 3
See how they lie in wait for me! Fierce men conspire against me for no offense or sin of mine, O Lord--Psalm 59:3Every soldier must at some time cry out just like David did. And I'm ashamed to say it, so do I, even though my lot is less dangerous and the price much lower. Some days, enemies just seem to crowd around and I can almost hear their spears rattle. On those days, though, I have to find solace in the same place David did.
Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me. Take up shield and buckler, arise and come to my aid. Brandish spear and javelin against those who pursue me. --Psalm 35: 1-2a

And on those days, knowing that we do not have the final say as to who wins or loses, who lives or dies, there is only one place to look for real assurance.
Say to my soul, 'I am your salvation.' Psalm 35: 2b
Rest, soldier. Your battle may still rage, but the Victor fights beside you, and has already won.