The Spirit and Forgiveness

A few weeks ago I did a conference call with a group in Mississippi that has been studying my book Forgiveness is Tremendous. I had a great time talking with them and answering questions they had about forgiveness. What really stood out to me as we were going along was that almost all the questions they had came out of the chapter titled “How God’s Forgiveness Is Applied.”

All three Persons in the Godhead are involved in the gift of forgiveness. The Father is the orchestrator of forgiveness and accepts the substitution of His Son in our place. The Son willingly became a man so that He could live the perfect life in obedience to God that the Father requires of all people, and paid the price that God’s justice required of us in His death on the cross. For many Christians these ideas are familiar and are things we hear if we are in evangelical churches.

What I have been learning is that the role the Holy Spirit plays in forgiveness is a new idea to many people who have read my book. The Holy Spirit is what Christ purchased by His life and death and is what the Father gives to all people who ask for forgiveness. The Holy Spirit unites us to Christ so that His life counts as ours and His death pays the price for our sins. To be forgiven means to be united to Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

This seems to be the teaching of Galatians 3:13-14 (NLT), But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith. As well as Acts 2:38 (NIV), Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

In Forgiveness is Tremendous, Charlie and I wrote;

This union with Christ means several things for God’s forgiveness. First, this union is what makes God’s forgiveness of us possible. Since we are one with Christ, and Christ paid the penalty for our sins, we honestly don’t have to. In Christ we already have.

Second, it is through the Holy Spirit that we receive forgiveness and it is through the Holy Spirit that our forgiveness from God is made real to us.

This union is important to understanding our forgiveness to others because it is the union we have with Christ through the Holy Spirit that enables us to really offer forgiveness. The union we have with Christ and therefore the union we have to His work on the cross is what provides the divine supernatural power that makes our forgiveness of others real and effective.

It is the offender’s connection to the cross that makes receiving forgiveness possible. The work of the cross is constantly being more and more realized in the receiving of forgiveness.

Understanding the role of the Holy Spirit is essential to understanding biblical forgiveness. We pastors and teachers need to do a better job communicating this. We are often afraid to tackle “big theological ideas” because we think we will never be understood, or that the people we are teaching are not interested.

We need to get over that. As James 3:1 (NIV) says, Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We have a responsibility to struggle and strive so that we can pass deep truths to our people in ways that they understand and can incarnate into their lives and relationships. Jesus lived the life He did because of His connection to the Father through the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1, 10:21; Acts 10:38). If we are to become like Christ, we need to have that same dependence. Dig deep. You’ll be glad you did.