I see multitudes of believers who live believing that they are unworthy of the covenant blessings, that they are not really separated from sin—such blessings are not for the likes of them. If we are unsure of our forgiveness and acceptance, we have a barrier in our minds forbidding us to consider taking all He has purchased for us. We have a self-image of unworthiness that holds us in chains and forbids us to take of all the blessings of the covenant.
Faith dares to accept such an unlimited and unconditional acceptance even though to the natural mind it seems illegal and ungodly! When Satan accuses us of past sin, we must hurl the promises of the new covenant, validated by the blood and the oath of God, in his face and deliberately rejoice in the unlimited forgiveness of God.
What Is forgiveness?
But now we have a problem with the English word “forgiveness”; the word translated “forgiveness” in Scripture does not mean forgiveness as the word is defined today.
This is Webster’s definition of forgiveness: “to excuse for a fault or offense; to renounce anger or resentment against; to absolve from payment of a debt.”1 What Jesus accomplished in the blood of the new covenant is infinitely more than what the English word “forgiveness” means. We have been more than excused for our sins; He accomplished infinitely more than giving up anger and resentment toward us, and we have more than the payment for our sins. We will have to drop the word “forgiveness,” for it in no way describes what He did and what we have in Him.
The word translated “forgiveness” is aphiemi2 in the original Greek of the New Testament and means to send away, to dismiss, to forsake, to leave; it is the word used for divorce or to put away a wife. Jesus “sent away” (aphiemi) the crowd, and it would be nonsense to say that in so doing He forgave them! It is the word used in Matthew 27:50 to describe how the spirit of Jesus left His body: And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up (aphiemi) His spirit. He sent away His spirit, dismissed it away from Him, with the result that His body was dead. It was a total sending away, not just a weakening. There is no way that we could fit the English word “forgiveness” in there!
Another word in the same family and derived from aphiemi is aphesis2. It is translated as “liberty” in the Greek Old Testament, when in the Year of Jubilee all slaves were set free and sent home to their families:
And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.
Leviticus 25:10
Jesus, quoting the prophet Isaiah, announced that in Him a Jubilee without end had begun:
“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty (aphesis) to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty (aphesis) those who are oppressed.”
Luke 4:18
The new covenant declares that our sin has been sent away from us, banished from our presence; we have been divorced and set free from the chains that bound us, to be at liberty. Our guilt and bondage to sin have been sent away from us as surely as Jesus’ spirit left Him on the cross; their power has not been weakened but has gone. We are free from sin! It is this meaning that we must insert every time we read of His forgiving us.
Forgiveness of Our Sin
We have seen that the Greek word hamartia describes the principle and the power of sin, which came into the race through the rebellion of Adam.
Therefore, just as through one man sin (hamartia) entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.
Romans 5:12
We have seen that hamartia describes the governing force behind sin, out of which comes the catalog of sins. Jesus came with the mission of releasing us from our sins.
And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.
Matthew 1:21
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin (hamartia) of the world!”
John 1:29
The words “take away” mean to pick up and away from and carry away,2 giving much the same picture as the meaning of forgiveness. The Gospel is clearly the Good News of our being set free from the power of sin through the blood of Jesus.
For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission (aphesis) of sins (hamartia). ”
Matthew 26:28
A literal rendering of this verse would be “...which is shed for many for the taking away of the principle and power of sin.”
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin (hamartia) .”
1 John 1:7
Paul personalizes the principle of sin, likening it to a tyrant despot who would rule over the terrain of our mortal bodies; but forgiveness means that we are free from his rule and can choose to be as free from him as we truly are in Christ.
Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin (hamartia), but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin (hamartia) reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
Romans 6:11,12
Once the slaves of the tyrant, offering our bodies to him for his use, we are now the joyful slaves of the Lord Jesus, presenting our bodies for Him to express His life through.
And having been set free from sin (hamartia), you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.
And having been set free from sin (hamartia), you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.
But now having been set free from sin (hamartia), and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.
Romans 6:18,19,22
And so the phrase “forgiveness of sins” is the essence of the Good News and the doorway to all the blessings of the new covenant. The ascended Jesus commanded that this be the content of the message:
Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission (aphiemi) of sins (hamartia) should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
Luke 24:46,47
It was the joyful cry of triumph that echoed through the early church: He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13,14).
Old Covenant Forgiveness
The Old Testament saints did not know this, for the blood of animals covered their sin; it awaited the blood of Jesus in the new covenant to send sin away from us, to effectually divorce us from the power of sin. The Old Testament vividly prefigured this in the sending away of the second goat of the Day of Atonement. But they could not know this, as we do, until Jesus rose from the dead to announce that sin had been taken away and the Spirit now witnesses with our spirits that we are free from its bondage.
That the Old Testament saints could not know the dismissing of sin from their lives, as we do, does not mean that the Old Testament is the domain of an unforgiving and angry deity. The Old Testament forgiveness, as we have seen it in the new covenant, was ineffectual and, in fact, impossible until Jesus, the Lamb of God, took away the sins of the world. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could t
ake away sins (Hebrews 10:4). However, that does not mean that they did not enjoy the experience of God’s forgiving and removing their sin as far as the revelation they had could take them.
The revelation of God to Moses became the foundation of the understanding Israel had of Him, and it is a revelation of a God of love and forgiveness.
And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin...”
Exodus 34:6,7
This foundation passage is quoted again and again throughout the Old Testament. Throughout their desert wanderings, Israel experienced the covering over of their sins again and again.
“Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”
Numbers 14:19
...But You are God, ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and did not forsake them.
Nehemiah 9:17
The prophets, although addressing a rebellious and sinful people moving rapidly to inevitable judgment, celebrated a forgiving God.
To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him.
Daniel 9:9
Isaiah described God’s forgiveness by making reference to an ancient custom called “giving the double.” In ancient times in Jerusalem, a person who was in debt with no hope of paying his creditors would write out on a parchment all of his debts and the persons he owed them to and hang it at the front of his dwelling for all to see. He waited for a generous rich man with a compassionate heart to come by. When such a man passed and saw the document fluttering in the breeze, he would read it and if he was financially able and had a large enough heart, he would double the parchment over, hiding the record of debts and write on the back, “Paid in full.” The rich benefactor would then satisfy all of the creditors; the matter was now out of the hands of the debtor, and he was a free man.
Isaiah portrays Israel with her sins hanging out for all to see and the Lord, infinite in love and compassion and also the One they were in debt to, coming and giving them the double.
“Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.”
Isaiah 40:2
As glorious as those words were to ancient Israel, the revelation of their full meaning awaited the new covenant. We come out of guilty hiding into the light of God, declaring ourselves sinners before God, only to discover that the One we were in debt to has written across our bill in the blood of Jesus, “Paid in full.” We have seen in a previous chapter that the cry of Jesus on the cross “It is finished” has been found written across settled accounts; it was equivalent to our “Paid in full.”
The psalmists join with the prophets to praise the God who forgives:
You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people; You have covered all their sin.
Psalm 85:2
As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Psalm 103:12
But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.
Psalm 130:4
The declarations and promises of God’s forgiveness in the Old Testament sprang from the heart of the God who is everlasting, unconditional love. He did not begin to be a loving and forgiving God after Jesus died, as if that event changed His mind. The issue of forgiveness was settled in the heart of God from before the creation of the earth when the Trinity committed to the ultimate sacrifice of God the Son for the salvation of sinful men and women. The cost of that forgiveness given before time is manifest in time space history in Jesus’ death and resurrection. The decision to create us in the light of what we would do is God’s telling us that He would rather die than live without us.
The Old Testament knew of His forgiveness and praised and proclaimed Him as the forgiving God, but the people of its time could never dream what that actually meant or the cost to God in achieving it. They caught a hint in the bloody sacrifices that went on continually in the temple, and on the Day of Atonement, but none could dream of the pain in the heart of God that to Him was worth the fellowship of men and women. They lived in the predawn light of God’s heart revealed; Jesus is the sun risen in full strength and glory.
By Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.
Acts 13:39
Remembered No More
The language of the prophets as they anticipated the new covenant is extravagant; they tell us that God remembers our sin no more, that He does not bring our sins to mind, that He has forgotten them.
I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, and like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.
Isaiah 44:22
I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against Me.
Jeremiah 33:8
I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins.
Isaiah 43:25
But You have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.
Isaiah 38:17
In the blood-shedding of the Lord Jesus, sin has been dealt with finally and forever. The term of the covenant says, “Remember no more,” which means sin is no longer on God’s agenda because it has been completely dealt with. The doctor who sees an improvement in a patient does not say that he will remember this person no more! If my house is burning, I do not want the fireman to walk away and forget my house when he has put out the fire in the living room, leaving the rest to burn.
Something that is remembered no more has been fully handled and dealt with and there is no more work that needs to be done. The patient whose disease has been completely healed is “remembered no more” by the doctor. When the fire is fully out and the embers are cold, the firemen go away to “remember it no more.” God does not “remember our sin no more” until it is fully and forever dealt with and the guilt is fully gone.
There are two well-known stories that Jesus told which show us what God means by the word “forgiveness.” In Matthew 18:23-35, we have the parable of the king who forgave his servant’s debt. A king decided it was time to settle all accounts payable. His servants were brought in one by one to pay off their debts. It is a mystery how the servant of this story came by such a debt. Such an astronomical sum as the books showed he owed would hardly have been borrowed in a legal fashion. The king had the books open, and the ledger told the story of his debts. In today’s currency, his debt would take ten lifetimes to repay, assuming that all his paychecks went in total to paying off the debt. Jesus was portraying a man with an impossible debt that was earning interest and getting larger every minute and was beyond the man’s capability to pay back.
The servant did not seem to understand the enormity of his debt. He fell down before the king and asked for an extension of time so that he could pay back what he owed. The request was ludicrous.
Then the king acted in a way that we cannot expect any king of a loaning institution to act. He closed the ledger and the accounting department and dismissed his accountants. He was no longer dealing with the servant in the light of the ledger or debts, but on another basis entirely. He was moved with compassion. He freely forgave the man the entire debt; he removed the debt out of his life.
The true meaning of the word “forgiveness” is embodied in this act of the king. The man was released from the debt so that the debt was no longer a burden on the shoulders or a ball and chain around the ankle. The debt would never be associated with the servant again. The king would never deal
with this man in reference to his debt. He was no longer confined, defined, or determined by his debt. He was free to get on with his life with a clean slate.
Power of the Blood Covenant: Uncover the Secret Strength of God's Eternal Oath Page 18
