At Word Alive this year, in his talk on Atonement (from Hebrews 9), Richard Cunningham (Director of UCCF) said: “God does not forgive sin, he only punishes it”. He also went on to concur with my thoughts on sin and sinners. This is a bold statement to make, but if true, I believe it cuts to the heart of lots of issues I’ve been blogging on recently; PSA, hell, depravity etc. This post has been sitting uncompleted in the Wordpress system since coming back from Word Alive, unfortunately delayed due to more pressing things. In that time it’s been discussed elsewhere; by Cat and by a less supportive “Speaker of Truth” who accuses RC of heresy (now retracted).

Now the obvious thing to say is that this statement is clearly false, after all the Bible and creeds clearly state that God forgives sin. But is it that simple? What does Joshua 24:19 mean “..he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins”? What about those who advocate a PS (thoroughly Biblical) view of atonement - have we got it wrong? So what is forgiveness? I think part of the problem is that we may have a wrong view of what forgiveness actually is… generally the view seems to be of God ‘forgetting’ sin or simply saying it ‘doesn’t matter’ anymore. These are nice ideas, they make God sound like a big dad in the sky who really wants us to come and say sorry so he can simply ‘forgive’. Biblical forgiveness is not some kind of ‘cosmic insomnia’ but is administered through sacrifice, through blood. Not very popular, makes us sound ‘pre-Christian’! Whatever we think, the Bible states two truths - God forgives sin (1John 1:9) and God punishes sin (Gen 3).

Firstly (in response to Joshua 24), we know that God does punish the sin of the non-Christian, “the wages of sin is death…” Rom 6:23, sin has to be paid for, if all sin is forgiven then there is no punishment to face, no penalty to be paid - no hell - sounds nice, but that belief leads to Universalism, a heresy, the Bible teaches against that belief. But how is the sin of the believer dealt with? Yes, it’s forgiven, but what does that mean??

Biblical forgiveness is the diversion of God’s wrath, propitiation - it’s what we see at the Passover, the temple sacrifices and at the cross. Not diversion into some spiritual void, or diversion that just eventually fizzles out, but diversion in the full force of God’s wrath, his holy anger against sin being placed upon a substitute - a perfect lamb (Exodus 12). The overviews of the passages in ‘Pierced for our transgressions’ (Ex 12, Lev 16 and Isa 53) superbly present the case for God’s wrath being taken on the lamb (not hard as it’s a simple reading of the text) - Jesus our substitute.

And what about Hebrews 9, the text for this talk in question, what does this text have to say?

v.1-10 There’s a problem, despite all the ritual of the OT temple sacrifices, they “…were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper.” , these ceremonies were a picture, waiting for the “new order”, for Jesus and his cross.

v.11-28 The blood of the goats is a picture of the blood of Christ, but Christ achieved far more than animal sacrifices ever could. He cleanses believers from sins and secures the eternal inheritance.

There are two key verse which help to answer our questions:

“In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Heb 9:22

“so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people..” Heb 9:28 - it is the sacrifice that takes away (forgives) sin

So what?

How can sinful people come into relationship with a holy God? - our sins need to be dealt with, by God

How are our sins dealt with? - at the cross

What happened at the cross? - Jesus, the Lamb, took up the sins of his people and bore the punishment for them, he was our sacrifice and our substitute

Why did it have to happen like this? - God’s holiness and justice demands that sin is punished, Jesus was fulfilling the OT law, God did it so it was the best way

What does this mean for me?

1. Sin is serious, it invokes a death sentence
2. God is big, sometimes we misunderstand him when we try to fit him into our mould of what and who we want him to be
3. Forgiving sin isn’t an easy thing, it required the blood of Christ - be overflowing with thankfulness to God for his gift of forgiveness and eternal life in Christ