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January 18, 2024 at 2:11 pm
If you look in the Scripture, you’ll find illustrations of the fact that God forgives idolaters. God forgives murderers. God forgives liars. God forgives cheaters, deceivers. He forgives gluttons. He forgives covenant-breakers. He forgives fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals. He forgives the covetous. He forgives the drunkards. He forgives the extortioners. He forgives the criminals of all types. He even forgives the people who think they have no sin. And that may be the most magnanimous forgiveness of all. For that is the supreme sin, to think yourself sinless. He forgives the self-righteous. Some people say, “Well then it must be that this is the sin of rejecting Christ.” Listen, if the sin of rejecting Christ was unforgivable, then none of us could be forgiven, because every one of us, before our redemption, were Christ-rejectors. That is forgivable. In fact, John 16 says that the Holy Spirit has come into the world to convict the world of sin because they believe not on Christ. Paul is living testimony that God can forgive even a blasphemer. Right? For in his letter to Timothy, he says in chapter 1, “I was a blasphemer.” You says, well, some people are just too rotten to come? No, Jesus said, “Him that cometh unto me, I’ll in no wise” – what? – “cast out.” God is a forgiving God. There is no limit to His forgiveness.
But may I suggest this to you? There is no forgiveness at any time without the meeting of a condition, and that condition is repentance and confession and a turning to God. In the new covenant the condition is repentance and confession and an act of faith in Jesus Christ. And just to give you a little hint, the reason the Pharisees couldn’t be forgiven, the reason they were beyond pardon was because they perceived themselves as beyond the need for repentance.
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