THE GLORIES OF FORGIVING GRACE – Charles Spurgeon
THE GLORIES OF FORGIVING GRACE
“In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His Grace.” – Ephesians 1:7.
Last Sunday morning, the subject was redemption: “You are not your own: you are bought with a price.” The sequel to redemption is pardon—the text gives us that doctrine, for it tells us that redemption through the blood of Jesus involves the forgiveness of sins. Our subject at this time shall be the forgiveness of sin—the measure, mode, medium, and manifestation of it, as set forth in the words before us. May the Holy Spirit sweetly open up to us the glories of our sin-forgiving God and cause us to exult in the riches of His Grace.
The Practicality of the Subject
Beloved friends, no one can say that we have before us a theme which is unpractical, speculative, and fanciful! No one will be able to charge the preacher with discoursing upon a subject with which his hearers have little or nothing to do, or wandering into barren fancies that cannot affect their actual lives. It is true that some sermons are barely human and might as well have been addressed to the inhabitants of Jupiter or Saturn as to ourselves, but such shall not be the case with our discourse. We have no hairlines of metaphysical subtlety before us—our theme runs parallel with the beaten track of everyday life.
Sin is, alas, too familiar with us. We have all committed it; the slime of the serpent has been upon us; we are still affected by it. As an adder in the path, it bites at our heels and it will be our daily trial, like the fiery serpents in the wilderness, till we enter the promised rest. Sin, as a thing of the past, cannot be forgotten. Was there ever a more sore bondage than that which made us serve it with rigor? Sin, as a matter of affliction for the present, is not to be ignored—was there ever a sterner fight than we have to wage against evil outside and within? Sin, as a danger still ahead, must not be overlooked—were there ever rocks or quicksand more terrible to the mariner than temptations to sin which yet lie before us on our voyage to Heaven?
Sin is always around us! Where shall we hasten to escape from its presence? If in holy communion we climb to Pisgah’s top, we stumble even in view of Canaan and slip upon our high places! And if we descend into the lowest deeps, like David, till all God’s waves and billows have gone over us, our despondency and unbelief cause us to sin amid our humiliations! Should I take the wings of the morning and fly unto the uttermost parts of the sea, unless I could escape from myself, even there would sin follow me and its hand would smite me to my sore wounding. Nothing can be more practical than the doctrine which deals with sin and its removal, and no news can be more pleasant than the tidings of remission! Why, the very sound of that word, “Forgiveness of sins,” is a joy forever! No marriage bell has more music in its notes. To the guilty, forgiveness is a tone of joy which their jaded ears are able to hear without strain. It ministers refreshment to the weary heart.
High joys and rare delights are apt to send forth raised notes which terrified consciences cannot endure—their very sweetness is sharp and distressing to the sorrowful—and their harmony causes a deeper discord in the broken heart! But forgiveness has a soft, silver sound, mellow and tender, and when man’s ears are stunned with the thunder and the terror of the wrath to come, then he is charmed to listen to its soothing melody. The gentle love whispers of Free Grace and dying love and pardons bought with blood are as Heaven’s own sonnets to troubled souls!
The Doctrine of Forgiveness
It is my earnest desire, dear friends, that many this morning may come to believe in the joyful doctrine of the forgiveness of sins! It is an article in the creed, but I want it to be a substantive in your lives. Most men say that they believe it, but their belief is often nominal, and a nominal faith, like nominal wealth, only makes the absence of the reality the more deplorable. In two instances, there is clearly no faith in forgiven sin.
The first is in the case of those who have never felt that they are sinful. How can he who does not believe in the existence of sin believe in the forgiveness of it? His whole confession on that matter belongs to the region of fiction. If sin is not a terrible fact to you, pardon will never be more than a notion.
A second class of persons who do not believe in forgiveness are those who know the guilt of sin but are not yet able to believe in the Lord Jesus for the remission of their transgressions. They need to be admonished as Luther was by the godly old monk. When he was greatly distressed under conviction of his guilt, the aged man said, “Did you not say this morning in the creed, ‘I believe in the forgiveness of sin’?” Luther, like many more, had repeated those words but had never grasped their meaning. Oh, my dear hearers, do not be theoretical Believers! You believe in sin, believe also in its pardon! Let the one be as much a truth of God as the other.
The Riches of God’s Grace
You believe in the punishment of sin in the case of the impenitent, be equally sure of the pardon of sin to believers! You believe in the guilt of your own personal sin, believe also in the power of Jesus, at this moment, to blot out all your transgressions and, lo, they shall vanish as a cloud which is driven before the north wind! Forgiveness in Christ Jesus accepted by faith is now to be enjoyed, and with it, perfect rest and peace of heart. God grant it to you at this present moment—then shall my theme be marrow and fatness to you.
The Measure of Forgiveness
According to our text, forgiveness of sins is a matter of Divine Grace, and yet it is connected with the price paid by our Redeemer. We spoke last Sunday morning of a price being paid, and here the text says, “In whom we have redemption through His blood.” But the fact of Christ having paid a price and having satisfied justice does not remove the pardon of sin out of the region of pure Grace. Because justice is satisfied, we are not, therefore, to say that mercy is excluded. I cannot, at this time, go into the details to explain how the facts stand, but so it is according to the word of Revelation, that, albeit the salvation of a sinner is conducted upon principles which are as just as his condemnation, yet at the same time the forgiveness of a sinner is an act of gratuitous favor on the part of God. As the giving of Jesus Christ, by whom justice is satisfied, was an act of free favor on the part of God, so the giving of the pardon which comes through Jesus Christ is, in the same manner, a matter of absolute Grace and by no means of debt or obligation.
Do not, therefore, whenever you speak of our Lord’s satisfaction which He made to justice, think that justice has eclipsed mercy. Or, on the other hand, whenever you speak of the Grace of God in pardoning sin, do not imagine that mercy has blinded the eyes of justice, for it is a part of the Christian faith that in the death of Christ, justice shines out full-orbed like the sun at midday while mercy is glorified after a like fashion. God is just and yet the Justifier of him that believes. Where sin abounded, Grace does much more abound! Justice is not forgotten, but Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. Transgression, iniquity, and sin are put away by the All-Merciful according to the riches of His Grace.
The Riches of His Grace
Our text speaks of, “the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His Grace,” and from it we learn the measure of forgiveness, the manner of it, and the manifestations of it. O for heavenly light while we view this grand Truth of God! Illuminate us, O Spirit of all Grace!
The Measure of Forgiveness
From the text we learn THE MEASURE OF FORGIVENESS. Hear this, you burdened souls, you self-condemned spirits, you that have shut yourselves out from hope of mercy—hear me earnestly, I pray you, that your souls may live! It may be while I am speaking to you your minds will be quieted and you will find the key which will unlock every door in Doubting Castle and you will be set at liberty from Giant Despair! Observe, then, that the measure of forgiveness is the riches of God’s Grace, and this statement leads us to observe that it is not the character or person of the offender which is the measure of mercy, but the Character of the offended One!
Is there not rich consolation in this undoubted fact? The pardon to be hoped for is not to be measured by you and what you are, but by God and what He is! In matters of offense and forgiveness, the rule almost always holds good that pardon becomes likely or unlikely, easy or difficult, not so much according to the offense as according to the character of the person offended. One man will forgive a grievous wrong while another will not overlook a wry word.
Take an instance from English history—John had most villainously treated his brother, Richard, in his absence. Was it likely that when he of the lion’s heart came home, he would pass over his brother’s grievous offense? If you look at John, villain that he was, it was most unlikely that he should be forgiven. But then, if you consider the brave, high-souled Richard, the very flower of chivalry, you expect a generous deed. Base as John was, he was likely to be forgiven because Richard was so free of heart and, accordingly, pardon was right royally given by the great-hearted monarch. Had John been only half as guilty—if his brother Richard had been like he was, Richard would have made him lay his neck on the block. If John had been Richard and Richard had been John, no matter how small the offense, there would have been no likelihood of pardon at all!
So is it in all matters of transgression and pardon. You must take the offense somewhat into account, it is true, but not one-half as much as the character of the person who has been offended. Suppose I were asked, at this present time, to reconcile two persons who are at enmity—if the one who evidently had been injured was one of certain Brethren around me whose forgiving spirits I have long relied upon, I should feel my task to be easy—whatever the offense might have been. But I know some others about whom I would say, “I don’t know. I am afraid I shall not get on the right side of them. I shall have to approach them very carefully. However small the offense, it will be hard to remove their anger.”
I know certain persons of old—they are quick-tempered and ready to be aggrieved for small reasons and they are slow in burning out, having fine memories for an affront. It is hard to get a forgiving word out of such sour spirits. You see, the nature of a pardon materially depends upon the character of the pardoner.
Let us establish this fact and then see what light it throws upon the probability of pardon to any of you who are seeking it. With whom are you dealing? You have offended—who is He whom you have offended? Is it One whose anger is quickly awakened? No, the Lord is long-suffering and exceedingly patient. Forty years was He grieved with one generation and many a time did He pity them and remove His wrath from them. Is He one who is hard to satisfy and not easily persuaded to forgive? No, the choirs of the Temple of old chanted, as one of His sweetest praises, the oft-repeated words, “His mercy endures forever.” Again and again they answered one to another, “His mercy endures forever.” If the pardon were to be according to your character, you would never be pardoned at all! If it were to be measured according to your offense, you would never be forgiven! But since the probability of pardon lies in the Character of God, then, O guilty one, self-condemned one, take heart and come to your Father’s feet and say, “Father, forgive me, for I have sinned.”
Look into the face of God and see if He is not ready to forgive! Do you tell me that you dare not even think of the face of your offended God? Then I ask you to look into the face of Jesus Christ, for in His loving Countenance shines all the brightness of the Father’s Glory. Is it possible for you to look at the Lord Jesus and doubt His willingness to forgive? He whose eyes wept over a guilty city? He whose hands were weary with incessantly doing good to those who despised Him? He who gave His feet to the cruel nails for His adversaries and who, at last, poured out the life-floods of His heart for those that mocked Him? He must be willing to forgive!
Conclusion
The measure of forgiveness, then, lies in the riches of Divine Grace, and this may encourage the chief of sinners to expect mercy. Again, since the forgiveness of sins is “according to the riches of His Grace,” then it is not according to our conceptions of God’s mercy, but according to that mercy, itself, and the riches of it. We conceive harsh things of God at times. We measure His corn with our bushel. We feel that He cannot pass by this and that crime, but that in certain points His Grace may be vanquished by human wickedness. Our ideas of God’s mercy are narrow and we think Him to be altogether such as we are!
Listen, then—“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My ways your ways, says the Lord; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” God’s love is not to be measured by a mercer’s yard, nor His mercy to be weighed in the balances of the merchant! He has riches of Grace surpassing all the wealth which the imagination could ascribe to Him whose name is Love. When He gave His dear Son, His other Self, that He might bleed and die, He gave us proof that there was no penury of love in the coffers of His heart. “He that spared not His own Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
The measure of mercy, then, is not our conception of God, but God as He really is—and who is he that can tell us how large is His love, how wide is His Grace, how high is His goodness, how deep is His favor? I would have you come, poor Sinner, to God as to a deep abyss into which your sins can be cast and never heard of again! I would have you come to God in Christ as to One who is able, with a glance of His eyes, to make your sin dissolve like snow in the summer’s sun and vanish utterly, so that if it is searched for, it shall not be found! Yes, it shall not be, says the Lord.
Charles Spurgeon