God's forgiveness is nothing short of amazing. He loved us enough to die for us, and His mercy covers all of our sin. The Bible says that if we just confess our sins to Him, He forgives us. I have wondered before how God sets aside His holiness and justice to love me and have mercy on me. I would read in 1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he...[something something, skip that part, read "love and mercy" or whatever, the points that next part anyway, right?]...forgive us our sins..."
But in fact, 1 John 1:9, while it does talk about God's forgiveness, it makes no mention of His love or mercy. From elsewhere in the Bible, we know that these things are certainly related, but this verse doesn't talk about them. Instead, it makes a different connection. It reads: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins..." Just a few days ago, I was struck by that choice of words. If I were writing that verse, that wouldn't have been my choice of words. Maybe merciful and compassionate, loving and kind, gracious and favorable, but not faithful and just. To tell the truth, those are the parts of God's character that I've often seen as being at odds with His forgiveness. Even if felt forgiven by God, it was against that part of His character. I would still wonder if, some day, His justice would return from wherever it was He'd sent it and overcome His forgiveness for me. But here, all along, the words of the Bible stand in disagreement. God forgives our sins when we confess them to Him...because He is faithful and just.
It is not hard for me to understand how His forgiveness is faithful. For one, He promised His forgiveness right there in that verse. Also, He promised He would never leave me (Hebrews 13:5). Yet if He didn't forgive me, He could not conceivably stay with me. Even humans can't abide hanging around someone they can't forgive. Obviously, if He was determined to fulfill His promise to stay with me, He would have to forgive me.
But still I questioned. Okay, so God couldn't leave me, and therefore had to forgive me. But what if I left Him? Could I, by a sudden lapse of my senses, stray so far from God that He would no longer be obligated by His faithfulness to forgive me? And why would He place such an obligation upon Himself in the first place, when it was so opposed by His perfect justice--as I thought it was.
Faithfulness, though, is only half the picture of 1 John 1:9. The other half is justice. God is just to forgive us of our sins. Now there is a truly profound thought, to me. God's justice is served when I, having done something to incur His awesome wrath, run to Him in repentance and find His incredible love instead. That's God's justice. In fact, to take it further, God would be unjust if He didn't forgive us when we confessed our sins to Him. Have you ever thought of that? Forgiving our sins does not defy God's justice, or circumvent it. God, in His unalterable justice, demands that we be forgiven when we turn to Him. His justice requires it. Why should such mercy be so justly required? The answer to that draws us back to the cross, where Christ, in an act of profound mercy and love, took our sin upon Himself and endured the unflinching punishment God's justice demanded for all our sins. At the same time, He passed on His flawless righteousness to us. Now, when we go to God and confess our sins, the Father acknowledges that, in Christ, all our sins are already paid for. Justice has been satisfied for all our sins in Christ's death. Justice would no more be served by punishing us for the sins Christ died for than justice would be served by policemen demanding $60,000 for a $60 parking ticket. More than that, since Christ has given us His perfect righteousness, God now sees us as blameless before Him. Not only do we not deserve the $60,000 fine, we don't even deserve a parking ticket--our record is flawless, thanks to Christ. Thus, for God (or, by extention, for any of us) to hold a grudge for our past sins, which are covered by Christ's blood, would be a gross injustice. And He is incapable of injustice.
The verse doesn't end there, though, and neither does God's faithfulness and justice. God will forgive our sins, but also He is faithful and just to "cleanse us from all unrighteousness." God's faithful and just character does not allow Him to leave us where we are. He will not simply say, "I forgive you" and leave us unchanged, allowing us to stumble without His aid or care. God's forgiveness is not so careless as to leave us in our sin. He is faithful and just, and when we encounter His forgiveness, it is not without encountering His power to change our lives, our hearts, and our actions, to make them holy and righteous forever. It is a lifelong process, so we still stumble into the same sins over and over (and if we're really good, we move on...and find ourselves stumbling into new sins!). But God, in His faithfulness, and justice, always forgive, patiently picks us up on our feet, and shows us the way to live righteously...and keeps showing us for as long as it takes (most of us are slow learners, I know I am!). He never gives up on us, never condemns us, and never leaves us alone.
