The Only Basis of Forgiveness
is the Cross of Jesus

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 2:13-14

I have been asked, “How do you teach forgiveness to those who don’t believe in Jesus and who follow other religions?” My answer was this: “My friend Mike Wells used to say, ‘There is The Way and there is not the Way. Jesus is the Way and every other way is not The Way.’ I only have one bullet in my gun, it’s the Cross of Jesus. If someone won’t accept The Way (Jesus), who is the only Way, why would I give them another way that will lead them away from The Way? If they won’t accept the Cross of Jesus, I have nothing for them.”

The foundation of the Forgiving Forward message is the Cross of Jesus Christ where Jesus settled our debt so that we could be forgiven and find restoration with God. True forgiveness must be Gospel-centric because only at the Cross is the debt issue resolved. This is the theme of the Gospel that runs throughout the Biblical narrative.

One of the core passages that explains the transformative power of the Gospel is Colossians 2:6-15. Paul begins the paragraph by exhorting us that, because we are rooted and grounded in Christ, we are not to be deceived by human philosophies or man-centered strategies that are designed to lead us away from Christ. Why? Because in Christ is where the fullness of the divine powers and the saving grace of our Savior resides. Christ is the full expression of God in a human body. In Him and only in Him are we made complete! The word “complete” means, “to fill, to make full.” Paul does not say, “You are made full in Him,” but rather, “You are in Him, made full.” It’s a subtle, yet significant difference. The emphasis is that we are in Him. Since the fullness of God resides in Christ, and we are in Him, the fullness of God fills us and we are thereby complete.

Man was created to be in relationship with God. That 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. Jesus became human so that He, through His righteousness, could fully satisfy mankind’s sin debt. Jesus, being fully God and fully human, was the only one who could make a way for us to be reconnected with God the Father. We are not filled “by Christ,” but rather, we are filled “in Christ.”

“In Christ” is a signature theme in Paul’s writing. There are 164 instances of Paul, nine times in this paragraph, using some variation of “in Christ” or “in Him.” We are complete in Him. We are circumcised in Him. We were buried with Him and also raised with Him. He made us alive together with Him and we triumph in Him. We were in Him when He paid our sin debt and canceled the guilty verdict against us by nailing it to the cross. The entire basis of our relationship with God comes from our identity in Christ. Our debt became His debt, which He settled on the cross, thus providing the means for our forgiveness.

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.

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.

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

To be clear, just because we have forgiven someone, doesn’t mean we are reconciled with them. Just as not everyone whose sins Jesus paid for has been reconciled with God, we may not be reconciled with everyone we forgive. However, the transformative truth remains that we were in Him when He paid the sin debt of the world.

Only the Gospel settles the “who pays” question. Jesus paid and we were in Him when He did. Forgiving others is simply aligning ourselves with what is already true by applying the blood of Jesus as payment in full for every wound we ever have or will suffer.

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