Forgiven

18 Oct

Forgiven

In last week’s devotional there is a list of characteristics of who I am in Christ. I did not include forgiven because it is the basis on which every other characteristic depends. There are a number of related terms that the Bible uses with this characteristic – like propitiation, justification, and sanctification – and they are all components of God’s forgiveness. Propitiation is the reason for, justification is the remedy from, and sanctification is the result of forgiveness.

Jesus Christ died on the cross for the express purpose of forgiveness of sin. In 1 John 4:9-10, the term “propitiation” is used to describe the reason forgiveness was needed: “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Propitiation is synonymous with atonement and substitutionary sacrifice. Jesus Christ bore the punishment we deserve for our sin, satisfying God’s just requirement that sin be punished.

Justification is another term the Bible uses and it is the remedy for sin that comes with forgiveness. Titus 3:5-7 tells us, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior that, being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Justification means to be made righteous, “just as if I had never sinned”, and free of the guilt and the penalty of sin. “Therefore as by the offence of one, [Adam], judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, [Jesus Christ], the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Rom. 5:18).

The result of forgiveness is sanctification. With regard to the forgiveness of God based on Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, both sanctification and holiness mean “to be set apart as consecrated, purified, free from sin”. After a lengthy list of categories of sins that would keep us out of the kingdom of God, the Apostle Paul gives us the hope of entering God’s Kingdom by citing the sequence of forgiveness through Jesus Christ: “And such were some of you. But you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). In 1 Corinthians 1:1-2 he, in fact, correlates the concept of sanctification with the status of saints in God’s kingdom: “Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, … unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours…:”

Knowing all this, how shall we then live? 1 Cor. 6:19-20 forcefully reminds us that God’s forgiveness and redemption have a marked impact on how we live once we accept God’s gift of salvation: “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own? For you are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God’s.” In addition, there are many New Testament passages that talk about love for others as the hallmark of the Christian’s life. The basis and model of love comes for God Himself as we saw cited in 1 John 4:9-10 above.

The propitiation of our sins, the justification of our souls, and the sanctification of our lives were bought with a price, the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. Colossians 1:12-14 wraps it all up under the terms of redemption and forgiveness: “Giving thanks unto the Father, which has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.”