Jottings

by J. Miller | Category: Jottings | May 1959

Three Hebrew words are used in the Old Testament for "forgive" : Nesah, which literally means "to lift," "to carry"; Salach, to forgive or pardon, and of this word Gesenius says, the "primary idea is that of lightness, lifting up" Kaphar, to cover, to make atonement, to expiate. Intimately associated with the thought of forgiveness is that of covering sin. Thus David sang in Psalm 32.1, 2:

"Blessed (a plural of excellence) is he whose transgression is forgiven (Nasah), whose sin is covered. (Casah, to cover some person or thing with anything).

"Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." (See Romans 4.6-8).

Then he said,

"I acknowledged (Yada, to see and know) my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid: I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD, and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin" (verse 5).

When David said to Nathan the prophet, "I have sinned against the LORD," Nathan said to him, " The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die" (2 Samuel 12. 18). The tremendous load which had lain upon David's conscience was lifted up and put away by the LORD. His terrible distress is revealed in the words,

When I kept silence, my bones wared old

Through my roaring alt the day long.

For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me:

My moisture was changed as with the drought of summer"

(Psalm 32.3, 4).

Here is a graphic description of a sinner under conviction of sin, and gravely afraid that he may die in his sin. His conscience is alarmed and his heart is bowed under the weight of his sin. But when he knew that his sin was forgiven and covered before the LORD, and that the LORD would not impute iniquity to him, his groans gave place to a song; the hand of the LORD which had been heavy upon him, now lifted from his conscience the burden of guilt. Such was David's experience.

Men then might, and men now may, point to David's sin, as they did and do, (and lie gave cause for the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme), but the joy of forgiveness was David's, deep and abiding.

Often men have thought that God might for some reason withdraw His forgiveness and land them back in the place where they were before they were forgiven. Such was the thought of Joseph's brothers after their father died. They sent a message to him as is recorded in Genesis 50.15-21 which, please read, noting verses 16, 17.

"Thy father did command before he died, saying, so shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive (Nasah), I pray thee now, the transgression of thy brethren, and their sin, for that they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the transgressions of the servants of the God of thy father"

Joseph had given to his brethren the kiss of forgiveness and of reconciliation, in Genesis 45.14, 15. He had assured them that he would nourish them and would give to them the land of Goshen, the best part of the land of Egypt. But, alas, their past sins, which Joseph had forgiven years before, were a terror to them. Joseph told them not to fear; he would continue to nourish them as he had been doing for years.

There are, alas, those in our day, despite the faithful words of the gospel, who are tossed about between hopes and fears. One is not astonished at the fear of the Roman Catholics, whose forgiveness is simply the forgiveness of a mere man who is himself beset with sins, as many as, or more than, those whom he pretends to forgive. Also in their transaction there is the handing over of money. Simon Magus sought to obtain the gift of God with money (Acts 8.18.24). The forgiveness of sins is a free gift from God to all who believe (Acts 10.43), without the mediation of any man-made priest; and when God forgives He forgets the sins He has forgiven (Hebrews 8.12; 10.17). Thus there can be no imputing of sin to the believer, Hallelujah !

Forgiveness and justification by faith are twin truths, but though they are twins they are not identical. Forgiveness (Aphiemi, to send away) means the sending away of the sins of the forgiven sinner. It is well illustrated by the act of the high priest of Israel on the day of Atonement. The high priest having, with the blood of the goat on which the lot fell for Jehovah, made atonement for the holy place, the tent of meeting, for all the assembly of Israel, and the altar that was before Jehovah, presented the live goat for Azazel (or the scapegoat), which means the goat for departure or dismissal. The words of the law concerning this are

"And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat,

and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their sins; and he shall put them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a man that is in readiness into the wilderness : and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a solitary land: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness " (Leviticus 16. 21, 22).

This illustrates what happened at Golgotha. Isaiah says, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD bath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53.0). Peter taking up the same theme says, "Who His own Self bare our sins in His body upon the tree" (1 Peter' 2.24). Isaiah and Peter speak the language of believers of the atonement of Christ. John the Baptist speaks not of sins, but of sin, when he says, Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1.29). This must not be read, " the sins of the world " ; the sin of the world " is what is called original sin," that is, that state of sin transmitted to all mankind (with the exception of the Lord in whom there was and is no sin), of which Paul writes,

"Through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners," and,

"Through one man sin entered into the world" (Romans 5.19, 12). The Lord has taken away the sin of the world, therefore no infant shall be lost because it is one of Adam's ruined race. It is a tragic fallacy that unless an infant is sprinkled with water from a priest's hands, or a nurse's Or doctor's hands, its hope of eternal bliss is gone. It is the blood of the Lamb of God that secures for the infant a place in eternal glory. No one of Adam's ruined race will be lost because of original sin, because of being shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin (Psalm 51.5). Did not David, whose transgression was forgiven and sin covered, say of his child that died, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me" (2 Samuel 12.23); this child had no priestly water sprinkled upon it and would be in happiness in the place where its father David would also be.

Justification means the showing or declaring a person to be just. In the case of the Lord it is said, "He is near that justifieth Me" (Isaiah 50.8), and He was "justified in the Spirit" (1 Timothy 3.16). Though men condemned Him to death and crucified Him, God has shown Him to be just, in His raising Him from the dead, and will yet declare Him to be just before the inhabited earth. The inherent righteousness of the Lord, both as God and Man, was unstained by the lawless action of men toward Him.

In the case of the believing sinner, whose sins are all forgiven for Christ's sake, and who has no righteousness of his own, "his faith is reckoned for righteousness" (Romans 4.5). Righteousness is imputed to him, so that one who was barren of all righteousness receives what is called in Romans 5.17, "the gift of righteousness." He becomes the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5.21). Isaiah speaks of this transaction, which had been his own experience, in pictorial language, when he says, "He bath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He bath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridgegroom decketh himself with a garland, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels" (Isaiah 61.10). In such beautiful garments saints shall remain for ever, fit inhabitants of heaven and of the land of glory yet to be revealed because of God's work on them in Christ. They are justified by God (Romans 8. .88), and by Christ (Acts 13.89). They are justified by His blood (Romans 5.9), by His grace (Romans 3.24), and by faith (Romans 5.1). Note that forgiveness and justification are twin brothers, in Acts 13.38, 39; Romans 4.1-8, 25.

J. Miller | May 1959
Jottings