EASTER: THE GOSPEL OF FORGIVENESS

How The Cross Impacts Our Forgiveness of Others

Man was created to be in a relationship with God. This relationship is intrinsic to our very being. We cannot be what we were designed to be without it. When Adam and Eve sinned, mankind, including you and me, died, which means we were separated from God. This created a God-sized hole in each one of us that could only be filled by a relationship with God. We desperately needed forgiveness in order to be restored back to life.

Forgiveness requires the settling of a debt. Just choosing to forgive doesn’t eliminate the cost of what happened. The debt is still there and must be dealt with. Forgiveness simply shifts the responsibility of the debt from the one who caused it to someone else who will cover it. In the Gospel, that someone else is Jesus. Jesus became human so that He could fully satisfy our sin debt to God by shedding His righteous blood on the Cross. Jesus, being fully God and fully human, was the only one who could pay our debt and thereby establish the basis for our forgiveness in order to restore us to a relationship with God so that we could live His Life.

For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Colossians 2:9-14

The Good News of Easter is, “In Christ Jesus, we have been forgiven and brought to Life!”

Did you notice that our In Him relationship is retroactive. We were in Christ when He forgave the sins of the world. This is how the great exchange works. Because we are in Him, we died when He died as payment for our sins. Because we are in Him, we were resurrected when He was resurrected. Our sins are forgiven because, having paid for them, He canceled our IOU. Our bill of indebtedness is gone, wiped away, washed clean as if it had been written in disappearing ink. The One to whom the debt was owed erased the deed, having satisfied in Himself the obligation it entailed. Because we are in Christ, we are debt-free…we are forgiven.

He Himself (Jesus) is the propitiation (full satisfaction) for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. 1 John 2:2

But could it go one step deeper? Could it be that because we are in Christ, we have not only been forgiven, but in a real sense, we have forgiven in Him? If we were in Christ when He forgave us (and we were), we were also in Christ when He forgave the sins of those who wounded us. Therefore, when we choose to forgive, we are simply declaring what has already happened on the Cross. When we don’t choose to forgive, we are acting contrary to who we are in Christ.

God expects forgiven people to forgive others. Our freedom to experience Christ’s Life in its fullness depends on us being expert forgivers. This is why we are so passionate about helping the Body of Christ worldwide experience the freedom of the Gospel through the power of forgiveness.

With this in mind, and to celebrate Easter, we are offering Forgiving Forward Second Edition as a FREE Kindle download today, from Good Friday through Easter Sunday. To get your copy, click below. Would you please help us spread the word?

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