Matthew 6: 12 & Romans 8: 1-2
"I Believe in the Forgiveness of Sins"

I really want to speak about the correct doctrine of the forgiveness of sin: "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," and "There is therefore now, no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus."  I would like to speak about the three senses in which we receive the forgiveness of the Lord.  For some of you, this is old hat and not something exciting and new, but for others it is one of the most wonderful, liberating, life-changing themes in all of Biblical theology -- and I might say also that it has the possibility of being pretty thrilling to those of us who have previously understood it and who once again realize the thoroughness of the forgiveness of the Lord to the believer.

First, are two kinds of forgiveness that the Lord is presumably not speaking about here in Matthew 6, but which are, of necessity, related to the passage, and then the one that the Savior is indeed urging us to call upon our Heavenly Father for -- as often as we pray.

I. FIRST, IS THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS IN JUSTIFICATION.

1. God the Father, once and for all, (when the individual comes to Christ), absolutely "imputes" ("charges," we say) the redeemed sinner's trespasses to our Lord Jesus Christ and forgives the sinner on the basis that this person now has no sin in God's court of justice -- for his sin has been transferred to the Lord Jesus -- and this person is now the recipient of all the personal righteousness of Jesus Christ during the days of his flesh.  That person is justified!  Declared righteous!  Perfect before God the Father!  "There is therefore, now, no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus; for the law of the Spirit of life has made me free from the law of sin and death."

2. This is a legal act of God, the Judge.

You see, salvation is not just an arbitrary action on the part of the Father, but it is God the Father actually making the sinner righteous before his own court of justice by this act of "justification" wherein he charges the sinner's sins to the Savior and the Savior's righteousness to him who was formerly a sinner.

Now, it is most important that you understand this.  It is hard to think that you can understand the forgiveness of your daily sins -- the "forgive us our debts" clause of this "Lord's Prayer" -- unless you also understand the work of justification only through which we have the right to even pray "our Father who art in heaven," in the first place.  It is not forgiveness that is absolutely arbitrary.  It is forgiveness based upon the Father's charging your sins and your sinfulness to the Savior and his righteousness to you.  (This, by the way, is the explanation of the awesome burden and mysterious loneliness of the Savior as he hung upon the cross: He was estranged from the Father, for the first time in eternity.  And he consequently cried in agony of soul: "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"  Because of this estrangement, he did not even call him "Father" but "My God, My God!"

II. THE SECOND SENSE IN WHICH WE ARE FORGIVEN IS IN THE HISTORICAL FACT, UPON WHICH THE JUSTIFICATION OF GOD IS BASED. THAT HISTORICAL FACT IS THE LITERAL BEARING OF OUR SINS ON THE CROSS BY OUR SAVIOR.

1. Historically, our sins were dealt with, when Christ upon the cross cried "It is finished!" and worked atonement for them.  His infinity and perfection made it possible to bear the sins of many in a short period of three hours.  The "Orphan Cry" of the Savior was an indication: "My God, My God, Why hast thou forsaken me?"

2. The Bible does not usually view things from this perspective upon which God may view things.  But Christ actually and literally bore the sins of all who would ever call upon him (and even all who were God's Saints in the Old Testament Period: "By his stripes we are healed!"  Isaiah said, and "He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; and the chastisement of our peace was upon him," said the prophecy in Isaiah 53.

Peter summarized this passage in Isaiah when he said in I Peter 1: 24: "He bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we being dead unto sin, might live unto righteousness." (I Peter 2: 24)

And for the rest of you, please realize that your salvation rests upon the solid foundation, not of what you did, but what Jesus Christ did; and your access to God -- your "welcomness," we might say, "before his throne," is not based upon anything other than that the Savior has died for you and bore your own sins in his own person!  Hallelujah!

III. THE THIRD SENSE IN WHICH WE HAVE THE FORGIVENESS OF GOD IS WHAT IS SPOKEN OF BY OUR LORD, HIMSELF, IN MATTHEW 6

1. In the first two senses, I mentioned that God the Father acts as our Judge and he laid our condemnation upon Christ, the beloved Son.  He "imputed," we say, to him our sins and his righteousness to us.  Because our sins were no longer upon us, The First Person became our Father and wholeheartedly, unconditionally, received us into his family. -- The theological word for it is "adoption." ("He adopted us!")

2. While we are sinless insofar as God is our Judge, it is very evident that, in a paradoxical sense we are sinners in everyday reality.  It is this parent-child relationship which is hurt when we sin and which is healed when we confess our sins.  It is clear that we are commanded to confess our sins.  And in the meantime, our souls are guarded by the Holy Spirit.

In first John (1: 9), it says that "if we confess our sins he is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins."  Surely this is speaking of this parental forgiveness that the Lord's prayer speaks of.  And it is significant that in I John 1: 9 it says that it is based upon God's justice: "He is faithful and -- just -- to forgive our sins."  It is based upon the first two kinds of forgiveness.  The fact that God, your Judge, has imputed your sins to Jesus and declared you righteous and has thereby become your Father, leads him to forgive you parentally.  Not only his love, but his very justice and faithfulness to the covenant he made with you, compels him to forgive you parentally.

And this is related to the communion which we observe on this first Sunday of the month, as you well know.  In the bread, it is a celebration of the incarnation, spoken of in the Creed.  And, in the cup we have the ceremonial word of God, assuring us that the atonement of Christ is for us if we have received him, and is a vehicle for the dramatization of our faith in the Savior's having borne our sins, and in the existence of our present justification.  It is an opportunity to rejoice in these fundamental concepts of Christianity; and, at the same time, to confess our own personal sins under the realm of the Fatherhood of God who has justified us as our Judge, and has thereby become our Father.

This is a wonderful heritage of the Reformation -- understood by all of its branches.  Before then, people's sins were thought to be forgiven enough to get them into purgatory, where they would pay for them for hundreds or, perhaps, thousands of years, Who knows?  But the Reformation rediscovered the gospel of the forgiveness of sins.  The sinner is able to stand in the judgment because he stands robed, so to speak, in the righteousness of Christ.  His sins are forgiven by the atonement of the dear Son of God; and instead of being credited with those sins, he is credited with the dear Savior's righteousness so that when God the Father, in his role as Judge, looks upon the person, he sees a person who is perfectly righteous because of an imputed righteousness, the righteousness of Christ -- which is charged to his -- to her -- account, as the case may be.

An old Plymouth Brethren hymn has the words:

In the Beloved, accepted I am
In the Beloved, accepted I am
God sees the Savior, and then he sees me
In the Beloved, accepted and free!