Quotes About Forgiveness

You cannot rescue someone from the scars of an abusive upbringing by replaying the same narrative on a cosmic scale and mouthing the word "love" as you do so.

Forgiveness doesn't mean that we don't take evil seriously after all; it means that we do.

And if, with that death, exile was over, "forgiveness of sins" was a new reality etched into the cosmos itself, and the ancient enslaving "powers" had been defeated once and for all in the "new Passover"—why, then, the important thing was to live within and celebrate that new world, not go rushing back to the old one where sin and death still held sway and where Jews and Gentiles ate at separate tables.

Forgiveness doesn't mean "I didn't really mind" or "it didn't really matter.

I did mind and it did matter, otherwise there wouldn't be anything to forgive at all

All this talk of "victory" means what it means because, as we have seen, on the cross Jesus died for our sins; the blood of the new covenant was shed for the forgiveness of sins. Sins, to say it once more, were the chains by which the dark powers had enslaved the humans who had worshipped them. Once sins were forgiven on the cross, the chains were snapped; victory was won. This opens up several vistas on the church's mission.

Second, the means by which this goal is attained is precisely the "forgiveness of sins." If, as Paul implies in 2:15, the objection of Jews (or Jewish Messiah believers) to the inclusion of Gentiles is that they are "Gentile sinners," then this objection is overturned precisely because the Messiah "gave himself for our sins.

Both these elements, sin and death, need to be dealt with on the cross.

Something has happened, clearly, that has unleashed this new kind of power into the world. That something is the chain-breaking, idol-smashing, sin-abandoning power called "forgiveness," called "utter gracious love," called Jesus.

I received mercy, because in my unbelief I didn't know what I was doing.

Resurrection and forgiveness are not strange things that might perhaps happen in the old creation.

Humans are designed to worship God and exercise responsibility in his world. But when humans worship idols instead, so that their image-bearing humanness corrupts itself into sin, missing the mark of the human vocation, they hand over their power to those same idols. The idols then use this power to tyrannize and ultimately to destroy their devotees and the wider world. But when sins are forgiven, the idols lose their power.

Forgiveness is the new reality. It is the power of the revolution.

Forgiveness isn't weakness. It was and is a great strength.

The minute you think you're good enough for God, God says, 'I'm not interested in people who are good enough for me.' And the minute you think you're too bad for God, God says, 'It's you I've come for.

And, since the exile was the result of Israel's idolatry (no devout Jew would have contested the point, since the great prophets had made it so clear), what they needed was not just a new Passover, a new rescue from slavery to pagan tyrants. They needed forgiveness.

And all of this can be summed up in the phrase "forgiveness of sins." None of it has to do with redeemed souls leaving the world of space, time, and matter for something better. All of it has to do with the strange, unanticipated fulfillment of the hope of Israel.

The old creation lives by pride and retribution: I stand up for myself, and if someone gets in my way I try to get even. We've been there, done that, and got the scars to prove it.

Israel's sins had resulted in exile, exile had been prolonged, a new "slavery" had been the result—so that the new Passover would need to be effected through sins being forgiven. And sins are forgiven, as we have seen in the gospels and in Paul's other letters, through the representative and substitutionary death of Jesus. But in Romans Paul goes one dramatic and decisive, unique and vital step farther.

We have, alas, belittled the cross, imagining it merely as a mechanism for getting us off the hook of our own petty naughtiness or as an example of some general benevolent truth. It is much, much more.

That is why, in accordance with the Bible, the message of freedom from all "powers" (the Passover message) is directly connected to the message of "forgiveness of sins" (the message of the end of exile).

Cornelius didn't want God (or Peter) to tolerate him. He wanted to be welcomed, forgiven, healed, transformed. And he was.

Jesus's followers themselves were to be given a new kind of task. The Great Jailer had been overpowered; now someone had to go and unlock the prison doors. Forgiveness of sins had been accomplished, robbing the idols of their power; someone had to go and announce the amnesty to "sinners" far and wide. And this had to be done by means of the new sort of power: the cross-resurrection-Spirit kind of power. The power of suffering love.

We all know that it's no good simply telling people to love one another. One more exhortation to love, to patience, to forgiveness, may remind us of our duty. But as long as we think of it as duty we aren't very likely to do it. The point of 1 Corinthians 13 is that love is not our duty; it is our destiny.