The "Real Deal" With Forgiveness?

It Is God's Will To Forgive Everyone! Do We Accept?

It's clear from the Word that people have misunderstood for centuries how the forgiveness that God offers all people for all time really looks. In fact, the Heavenly Doctrines say that the common understanding of “forgiveness of sin” as confiscation of sin is called the “error of the age.” (DP 279-280) So, what’s the right way to look at it? It's an important question, because if there’s one thing that really confused the early Christians, it was what to do with all these people who got baptized and then continued to sin. The baptism itself was supposed to solve the problem, right?
What actually happens in “the forgiveness of sin” is the power of the evils and falsities that formed the sin are removed. Something takes place in forgiveness which makes it possible for God to withhold people from repeating the sin, provided what they’re thinking and choosing backs this, and then He gradually moves the thought and love surrounding the sin from the center to the circumference of a person's memory. (AC 9448, 933:2) So when we say that a person is forgiven sin, released from sin, purified from sin, pardoned from sin, delivered from sin, or that their sins are remitted, it means that the Lord Jesus Christ has the freedom to withhold us from them, to keep them back from our conscious life. What God does in forgiving us our sins is remove their activity further and further away from the center of what we think about, what we love, and so how we live – until they’re powerless to affect us. In fact, if we sincerely approach Him in repentance, and open ourselves to His to work inside us this way, it's like they are put to sleep forever.

What the Lord wants more than anything is for us to live a simple life. A worshipful life. One free from the chaos that the hells are constantly nagging at us, trying to create. Its His whole desire and effort to work within our hearts to help us reprioritize, to reorder what’s most important to us. This quality of Divine love is what the Psalmist called out: “For You Lord are good, and ready to forgive; and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.” (Psalm 86:5) The Lord wills to forgive all people their sins. In fact, we’re told He does not “impute a single sin to any person, for He says: ‘They know not what they do.’” (TCR 539) What that means is, since every choice has a series of consequences that extend into eternity, it would be impossible for us unless we were God to really “get” the effect of sin in our life. And yet what He says is: “I forgive you. I will each act of it forgiven." Jesus instructed Simon Peter to forgive others their sins not once or twice, but “seventy times seven.” (Matt. 18:21-22) And the Heavenly Doctrine points out that if this can be the quality of forgiveness with us, “What then will not the Lord do?” (TCR 539)

A lot of the misunderstanding of forgiveness has been a faulty idea of what our responsibility is in it. When the Scriptures talk about people “calling” on the Lord for help, they’re not just talking about the emotions behind it, the feeling of desperation when we’ve fallen down or succumbed to evil in some aspect of our life, and from being overwhelmed with a sense of our own guilt – we cry out to God to forgive us. That’s going to be there. It’s the forgiveness the natural part of us looks for in temporary states of remorse, or under mental pressure (or sickness of the body) or anything else like it. A call to God like this is a beginning, but not the end in view. We have a job to do to engage with the love of God in the process of forgiveness. And unless we do it, we don’t provide the means for the Lord to complete the forgiveness. Remember the principle that His love is always there, its a question of whether we are making ourselves receptive of it. The Lord can’t enter the areas of our lives where evil and falsity are still tolerated. And He can’t remove it unless and until we’re ready for Him to do it; we can’t just say we need help, it's got to be written on our heart and life. What the Word teaches is that God can’t take away sins unless He does it according to the laws of His Divine Providence. (DP 280)

The work we people have to do in seeking the forgiveness of the Lord is to perform repentance. This was why, in preparation for the coming of Jesus, John the Baptist’s message was so strong, so in your face. As the literal Word, he was there with the hands and face reminder that before God can enter your life, you’ve got to get out of the way – repent where you’ve done wrong, and allow in His message of what it takes to live a spiritually proactive life. In the True Christian Religion it says: “In the same measure as a person performs repentance, sins are removed, and as they are removed they are forgiven.” (TCR 510) Self examination is crucial, but then you’ve got to do something with what you’ve seen. It has to motivate you to change our life.

So where does all of this leave us? ...While it's hard for us to know just where we are in our spiritual growth, the teachings of the New Church do give us some signs that can comfort us that our sins are forgiven, as well as signs that encourage us that we’ve begun what is a life long journey to align our will with God’s. We can know we are forgiven when we feel a delight in worshiping the Lord for His own sake; serving the neighbor for their own sake; doing good for the sake of good, and believing true ideas simply because they’re true – for the sake of the truth. And do these things ascribing all the credit to God.

Jesus said: "If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." (John 13: 17)