Biblical Basis for Forgiveness
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6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Relationship between forgiveness and justice.
God remains true to both
Abraham/Sodom
Forgiveness within the Godhead
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
The idea becomes that, since we must ask God for forgiveness, then, like God, others must ask us for forgiveness.
Jesus offers instructions is asking for and seeking forgiveness (Matt 18)
Jesus also suggests an enormous amount of forgiveness without any mention of the offender asking for forgivenss.
22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
We want them on the hook.
Someone has to pay.
We are grateful God is quick to forgive us… but God’s willingness to forgive those who have wounded us is a step on God’s part we aren’t all that enthused about.
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
God is both just and the justifier.
Someone has been punished. Someone is on the line. Someone did hang on a hook — for your sins to God and those you have wronged. It isn’t you. It’s Jesus.
The same is true for those who have sinned against God and against you — someone is on the hook. It just ins’t your offender. It’s Jesus.