How Has God Forgiven You? Infinitely!

"31Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." (Ephesians 4: 31-32)

When reading this simple passage, with a very powerful message, one can miss out on the expansive power hidden within these wonderful verses.

We do not forgive in order to be forgiven, as Jesus had preached during his earthly ministry. At the time, He was a prophet reasserting the pristine fullness of the law and proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven and the New Covenant (Hebrews 8: 10-12)

The New Covenant is based on everything that God has done for us through His Son Jesus:

"10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)

This Covenant God the Father has cut with His Son, who ministers on our behalf as our high priest forever, according to the Order of Melchizedek.

Wow! We have a high priest up there who care about us, a perfect man and perfect representative before God the Father!

Now, how has God forgiven us? He forgave us through the Blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.

This sacrifice is once and for all forever:

"For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." (Hebrews 9: 26)

How well did he put away our sin? Once and for all forever!

"By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." (Hebrews 10: 10)

In fact, not only are our sins washed away, but the sense of guilt which hangs over man has been put away. Under the Old Covenant of animal sacrifices, the blood of bulls and goats could not perfect any sense of "wholeness":

"2For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. 3But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year." (Hebrews 10: 2-3)

Yet Jesus our High Priest has indeed perfected us in our conscience:

"14For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." (Hebrews 10: 14)

This forgiveness is once for all forever.

Yet Jesus remains ever still our High Priest and our Mercy Seat:

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1: 7)

Jesus' blood is perfect and eternal, a blood which cleanses us, even now!

He remains evermore our Advocate at the right hand of the Father:

"1My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2: 1-2)

If we sin (not "if we confess"), we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, who is made to us through God our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1: 30;2 Corinthians 5: 21)

His payment covers our sins and the sins of the entire world: every person!

There's power in the blood! Yes indeed!

How forgiven are you? Infinitely! Then, with this growing appreciation for how forgiven we are, we can now understand what Jesus was teaching Peter during His earthly ministry:

"21Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? 22Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven." (Matthew 18:  21-22)

The notion here is not "Forgive 490 times, the strike!", but rather do not keep accounts.

Then Jesus follows this overwhelming statement with the Parable of the Unforgiving Steward (Matthew 18: 23-35)

The King had a steward with a ten thousand talent debt -- a thousand lifetimes could not pay off such a sum.

Yet the steward advanced with this mentality:

"The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all." (Matthew 18: 26)

Yet the Lord did forgive him the entire debt (v. 27)

Yet the mentality of the steward was an evil conscience, much like those who offered sin offerings under the Old Covenant. In effect, he did not feel that He was forgiven at all, and thus he harassed someone else to pay him back a meager debt.

If we struggle with unforgiveness, oftentimes we just do not appreciate enough how much God has forgiven us. When we recognize the infinite debt that we must pay, yet cannot, then see that Jesus not only paid off the full debt for all our sin, and in fact continues to pay it off, then we can look at the light afflictions which have set us back, and let go of more and more to His care.

God has forgiven us once for all forever, perfectly and infinitely!