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Introduction
Hi, my name is Brian DeCook. Welcome to the Christian Leaders Institute mini course titled Forgiveness.
In this course, we're going to examine the powerful topic of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is life-changing. Our lives are changed when we receive the Lord's forgiveness for our sin, and we experience that same freedom, that same power when we forgive others and others forgive us in relationships that we encounter through life. We all need forgiveness, and we all have the opportunity to forgive others.
And my prayer for you in this course is that the Lord will reveal something new to you about the height and width and depth and breadth of His love for you that results in forgiveness being offered to us through Jesus Christ. And I pray that He'll reveal Himself to you in such a way that you become a person who forgives freely, as we've been forgiven through Jesus Christ. So let me say a word of prayer as we begin this course together.
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, I thank you for my brother or sister who are watching this course, and I thank you for them, and I pray your blessing upon them. I pray that they may hear from you in this course, and not just from me, but through your Holy Spirit, Father. I ask you to reveal your love to them, reveal your power to them, and reveal to them the great opportunity they have to imitate Jesus Christ by forgiving others the way you have forgiven us.
Oh Father, I thank you for what you're going to do in my brother and sister's life, as you reveal yourself to them and continue the work you've begun in them to transform them into the image of Jesus Christ, we love you and we thank you in Jesus' name. We pray these things, Amen.
Course Overview
Well, we're going to have six sessions in this course. In the first two, we're going to examine the meanings of forgiveness in the Old Testament, and then in the New. In session three, we'll examine our forgiveness from God, and then our forgiveness from others, and how to seek forgiveness from others.
Then we'll examine how to forgive others, and finally how to forgive ourselves.
Definitions of Forgiveness
Let's begin by looking at a couple definitions of forgiveness. The first is taken from the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, and it says, "Forgiveness is the wiping out of an offense from memory. It can be effected only by the one who is affronted or wronged.
Once eradicated, the offense no longer conditions the relationship between the offender and the one affronted, and harmony is restored between the two, and in the Lexum Theological Workbook, we read: "Forgiveness is the release on the part of the creditor or offended party of any expectation that a debt will be repaid or that an offender will receive punishment for an offense. When describing the removal of an inappropriate offense in this way, the removal does not condone the behavior or suggest approval for the offense. The Old Testament gives us shades of meaning of forgiveness and ways that sin was forgiven in the Old Testament, that all point us to Jesus Christ and how he fulfills those images in the New Testament and brings completion to the forgiveness that the Bible describes.
Why Forgiveness Is Necessary
So let's start with looking at why forgiveness is necessary and what the Old Testament has to tell us about that. Well, the reason forgiveness is necessary is sin. We've all sinned.
We've all fallen short of the glory of God, and forgiveness is the way that we are restored to relationship with the Father. How we receive that forgiveness in the Old Testament differs from the way we receive forgiveness in the New Testament. But in describing this need for forgiveness, we look at Ezekiel chapter 18, verses four and 20, where we read, "Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the Father as well as the soul of the Son is mine.
The soul who sins shall die. The Son shall not bear the guilt of the Father, nor the Father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
All the way back to the Garden of Eden, when sin first crept into the relationship between God and humankind.
God Is Willing to Forgive
The need for forgiveness existed, and it's our sin that separates us from God, and it's His forgiveness, His mercy, His grace that restores that relationship. God is a God who's willing to forgive. The Lord desires to forgive people their sins in Psalm 86 five we read for you Lord are good and ready to forgive and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon you.
In Exodus chapter 34 Moses asked the Lord if he could see him. He wanted to see the Lord, and the Lord permitted him to see the backside of himself as he passed by Moses, and he put Moses in the cleft of a rock. And as he passed by, we have this description that the Lord gives of Himself.
It says in Exodus 34 verses six and seven and eight, and the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for 1000s, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, so Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. When we realize how powerful, how merciful, how gracious, how long-suffering, and abounding in goodness the Lord is. Our response should be no different than Moses.
We make haste to bow our head toward the earth and worship Him.
Repentance and Forgiveness
The Lord is willing to forgive, and what He asks for us to receive that forgiveness is to repent of our sin, and that word "repent. The meaning of the word "repent" means to change direction, turn around, quit going in that sinful direction, and turn toward God, and get on the path that leads in His In his ways, that seeks him first. In Lamentations chapter three verse 42, the prophet Jeremiah writes, "We have transgressed and rebelled; you have not pardoned.
The Lord's forgiveness is available to everyone, but it is received by those who repent and turn to the Lord. In that sense, forgiveness is free. It doesn't cost us anything, but a change in direction.
We can't continue on the sinful path, ask the Lord to forgive us for our sins, and stay on that path. To receive that forgiveness, we repent. We change direction.
We turn to Him. In Isaiah, I'm sorry, in Second Chronicles chapter seven verse 14, we read, "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways. Then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
It's that turning from our wicked ways, humbling ourselves and seeking the Lord, praying to Him, that He hears from heaven and He will forgive our sin every time. In Isaiah 55 seven, we read, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
Atonement Through Sacrifice
Well, let's look at some of the ways that sin is forgiven, and symbolized in the Old Testament. One aspect of forgiveness in the Old Testament had to do with making atonement for our sin. In Leviticus chapter 17, verse 11, we read about sacrifices, animal sacrifices that had to be made for sin to be forgiven, and the concept was that the shedding of the blood of an animal would satisfy, would atone for the sin of the person offering the sacrifice, an atonement in the Old Testament was accomplished through the sacrificial shedding of blood of an animal.
Leviticus 1711 we read for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to. Make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. A life for a life.
Remember, we read the soul that sins, it shall die. And as sinners who have sinned against the Lord, who have broken His commandments, who have failed to love him first, and have failed to love others the way he has loved us, and broken thereby broken his law, we deserve punishment for that sin. And that punishment, according to the word of God, the wages of sin is death.
So in the Old Testament, an animal was killed as a sin offering, and the sin was then considered to be covered. And every time sin was committed, it had to there another sacrifice was required, and so through Moses, the nation of Israel received instruction about atoning for the sins of the people, the priests, and the nation. In Leviticus 427 to 31, we read: If any one of the common people sins unintentionally by doing something against any of the commandments of the Lord in anything which ought not to be done, and is guilty, or if his sin which he has committed comes to his knowledge, then he shall bring as his offering a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin which he has committed, and he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and kill the sin offering at the place of the burnt offering.
Then the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger, put it on the horns of the altar of the burnt offering, and pour all the remaining blood at the base of the altar. He shall remove all its fat, as fat is removed from the sacrifice of the peace offering, and the priest shall burn it on the altar for a sweet aroma to the Lord. So the priest shall make atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him.
Quite symbolic these sacrifices in the Old Testament-an animal without blemish, speaking in prophetic terms about the Lamb who is to come, who is without blemish, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the sin offering that ends all sin offerings.
The Scapegoat: Sins Sent Away
There's also this concept in the Old Testament, not just of atoning for sin, but that our sins are sent away, and no longer considered to be attached to us. In Leviticus 16 verses 7 through 22, we read, "The priest shall take two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord, the other lot for the scapegoat.
And Aaron shall bring the goat on which the Lord's lot fell and offer it as a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement upon it and to let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness. And Aaron shall bring the bull of the sin offering which is for himself and make atonement for himself and for his house, and he'll kill the bull as the sin offering which is for himself.
Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering which is for the people, bring its blood inside the veil. Do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat. And when he has made an end of atoning for the holy place, the tabernacle of meeting and the altar, he shall bring the live goat.
Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land, and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. And this scapegoat carries away the sins of the nation of Israel into the wilderness, that the sins are no longer considered to be in the camp.
Another image for us of Jesus Christ, our scapegoat, who carries our sins away.
Sin Is Blotted Out and Wiped Away
Another aspect of sin in the Old Testament is that sin is blotted out and wiped away. In Psalm 51, verses one and nine, King David is writing a psalm of repentance, and he says, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions, hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
In Isaiah 4325, we read, "I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins." Well, in the Old Testament, the nation of Israel had to make these offerings for sins every year. They would release a scapegoat. Every year they would kill the the goat on behalf of the nation for the sins of the people, and the sins were considered to be covered for another year.
Here the Lord gives us a prophecy through the prophet Isaiah that there's coming a time when he doesn't have to be reminded of sins every year; they'll be covered, but he will remember our sins no more. We find that fulfillment in Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 4422, we read, "I have blotted out like a thick cloud your transgressions, and like a cloud your sins.
Return to me, for I have redeemed you. The Lord's willingness to forgive.
Sin Is Removed and Forgotten
There is also an aspect of forgiveness where sin is removed from us and forgotten by the Father. In Micah 719, we read, "He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
In Isaiah 3817, indeed, it was for my own peace that I had great bitterness, but you have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption, for you have cast all my sins behind your back, giving us this impression that the Lord takes our sins when we confess them to Him, and He forgives us, and He puts them away behind His back, where He no longer sees them, and we no longer see them. In Jeremiah 31 verse 34. We read, "No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.
Says the Lord, "For I will forgive their iniquity, and I and their sin I will remember no more. Again, the prophet Jeremiah speaking to that time when the Lord will no longer remember our sins, and in Psalm 103 verse 12 we read, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Hallelujah.
Cleansing and Freedom in Forgiveness
There's also an aspect of cleansing in the Old Testament descriptions of forgiveness in Isaiah one verse 18, come now and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
The dynamic of forgiveness in the Old Testament is thus releasing one from the past. The past acts and deeds of sin are not denied. It's not as though they didn't happen; they did happen.
It's acknowledging those sins, but there's no longer any bondage to those sins. Forgiveness brings freedom.
Conclusion
In the next session, we'll examine aspects of forgiveness in the New Testament. We'll see you then.