Psalm 25:11. “For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.”
God pardons people because it is His character and glory to do so. This appeal is based on the name of the Lord not on excuses (I didn’t mean to do it) or dismissing it as being ‘not so bad.’ While God hates sin and evil, He shows His great compassion by calling evildoers to repent and offering them mercy and pardon.
Isaiah 55:7. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”
The Hebrew and Greek words translated pardon could also be translated as: make atonement; make amends, release, appease, forgive; annul, cover over, forgetting/forgiving sin, wipe clean, be released, go unpunished, or considered innocent. God can pardon, not because He is lenient in the sense of human “don’t bother with this” but because His wrath against sin is satisfied at the cross. That is, Jesus accepted that wrath without any sin of His own to deserve it, and because our penalty for sin has been paid, God can pardon us.
In the OT, the people of faith looked ahead to this redemption; we look to the past where it was accomplished. For this we can declare with the prophet Micah who said in 7:8:
“Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.”
In the NT, the words most often translated into forgiveness in the sense of justification and not being held accountable for our sin are translated as: grace, gracefulness, graciousness, favor, thanks, gratitude; gift given out of goodwill; show kindness, pardon; endue with grace and let go, cancel, remit, leave, forgive; release, cancellation, forgiveness; letting pass, passing over.
Another word taken together with the above words sums up the whole of God’s saving work of pardon, justification and reconciliation.
Romans 5:15–17. “But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.”
Jesus Christ made it possible for justice in God’s pardon not to conflict with grace as Romans 3:23–26 says:
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. This pardon has been called a legal acquittal yet it is also an outstanding gift! By it, I am delivered from sin, pardoned and forgiven, released to spiritual and eternal freedom, and brought into fellowship with God. His wrath is appeased and His mercy shines through. He changed a selfish and imprisoned life into a healed and freed life — which I gladly give back to Him as His pardoned child, His servant and friend.
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