CAN WE BE FORGIVEN

     Should God make a provision for man to vindicate himself so as to be able to return, to be in communion with God? It would only be fair; it would only be just, right? Even though man's inherited nature is to sin, born separated from the Lord God?

What does the Lord have to say?

Habakkuk 1:13 - “Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You cannot look on wickedness with favor.”

- Isaiah 59: 2, tells us-

“Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear”.

     Revelation 15: 3, 4 tells us – “Great and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations! “Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are Holy;”

     Only HE is independently, infinitely, immutably, [never changing] holy. He is frequently styled "The Holy One" in Scripture and He is because the sum of all moral excellency is found in Him. He is absolute purity, unsullied, unblemished, unpolluted, undefiled, unsoiled, spotless, untarnished, pristine, pure, even by the shadow of sin. “. . . God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” [1 John 1:5].

     Holiness is the very Excellency, the very supremacy, eminence, virtue, distinction, the arête, which is the aggregate of all the great good beautiful qualities of the divine nature. I used as many synonyms as I could to try to portray what to me is still unfathomable. Our God is like no other - “Who is like You among the gods, O Lord? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, Awesome in praises, working wonders?” [Exodus 15:11]. We can then look again at Habakkuk 1:13 “Your eyes are too pure to approve evil; And You cannot look on wickedness with favor.”

     Well, it was one strike and you’re out; zero tolerance. The GOD of the universe said to Moses that HE will not leave the guilty unpunished but just before those words, as He passed by in front of Moses who was in the cleft of the rock He says, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness and truth; who keeps loving-kindness for thousands, Who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; - . . .” [Exodus 34: 6, 7].

     GOD told the first man, Adam that is he so much as eats from that tree which GOD said don’t eat, that he would die. Adam ate and the curse of death came on Adam and because he was now contaminated, sent away from GOD, all who were to be born of him would also be under the curse.

     So comes the question that anyone would ask. Is there any way out of this predicament? One has to search the Scripture to find the answer. What about early man? Adam and those immediately after Adam? Were they told of a chance of redYes, we can be forgiven. The creator, the Lord our God when He, “In the beginning . . . created the heavens and the earth.” [Genesis 1:1] – His plan of salvation was ordained in eternity past, whenever and however that is determined, Scripture tells us in Revelation 13:8, “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.”

God is a jealous God is possessive of the worship and service that belong to Him, and as creator all belongs to Him, yet He is, as we read in Exodus 34: 6, 7: “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness and truth; who keeps loving-kindness for thousands, Who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; - . . .”

     The fall of man was foreknown by GOD;

The atonement for God’s elect was foreordained by God;

[Genesis 3:15]

     All people will one day glorify God;

[Psalm 86:9]; “nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord, And they shall glorify Your name.”

And God’s purposes to bring unity to all things under Christ, [Ephesians 1:10]. “. . . the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things ^[b]in the heavens and things on the earth.”

     We can be forgiven, because we have  already been forgiven, as it is written in Scripture, Romans 5: 8-10 -

“God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.  For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

All one has to do is accept, believe in this free gift to us. Ephesians 2 tells us –

“… you were dead in your trespasses and sins, ² in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. ³ Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. ⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), ⁶ and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; ⁹ not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”