In this chapter we will begin to see the contents of God’s salvation. The salvation of God includes many different aspects and blessings. The first aspect of God’s salvation is forgiveness, which is also the first blessing that a person receives upon believing. The salvation of God first solves our problems. Our foremost problem before God is our sinfulness. Thus, the first item that is taken care of in God’s salvation is the forgiveness of sins. Before God’s righteousness can release us, our record of sin before God must be cleared. Our sins before God must be canceled before the righteous God can come and apply other aspects of His salvation to us.
1. “Not condemned” (John 3:18; see also 5:24).
The first meaning of forgiveness relates to the abolishment of our sinful record before God, which spares us from God’s righteous judgment. We had a sinful record and were condemned before God, and we could only wait for His righteous punishment. Our record of sins demanded that we receive God’s righteous punishment. God’s forgiveness spared us from His righteous punishment. Now we are no longer condemned because the Lord Jesus died and shed His blood on the cross according to God’s righteousness and thereby bore God’s righteous judgment for us (Heb. 9:22). Since the Lord Jesus died and shed His blood to fulfill God’s righteous requirement, God according to His righteousness, can and must forgive us of our sins, blot out our sinful record, and spare us from judgment.
2. Sending sin away from the forgiven one.
In the New Testament at least two different words are translated “forgiven” or “forgiveness.” One word occurs in Matthew 12:31, Romans 4:7, and 1 John 1:9. The meaning of this word in the original language is “to cause to depart.” The other word is in Acts 5:31, 13:38, and Ephesians 1:7, and its meaning is “to send away.”
God not only forgives our sin to cancel our sinful record before Him, sparing us from His righteous judgment; He also sends away from us the sins we committed. When God caused the Lord Jesus to be our trespass offering on the cross, He put all our sins on Him so that the Lord Jesus might bear them on our behalf (John 1:29; Isa. 53:6; 1 Pet. 2:24). After God caused the Lord Jesus to be judged and punished for us by bearing our sins on the cross, our sins were forever heaped upon Satan. The type of the expiation in Leviticus 16 portrays this fact. When the high priest made expiation for the children of Israel, he took two goats and presented them before the Lord. One was killed to make expiation for the children of Israel. This goat was for God. The other, which bore the transgressions of the children of Israel, was for Azazel (vv. 7-10, 15, 22). For Azazel means “for Satan” because Azazel stands opposite to God, and only Satan stands in such a position before God.
Sin originated from Satan. We were deceived by him and allowed sin to come into us, causing us to have a record of sin before God. When God put all our sins on the Lord Jesus, who bore them for us and was judged for us, our record of sin was cancelled before God and our sins were returned to Satan for him to bear. In this way, God’s forgiveness sent our sins away from us (cf. Psa. 103:12).
On the one hand, God forgives our sins because the Lord’s blood eradicated our sinful record; on the other hand, His redemption dismisses our sins forever.
3. “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jer. 31:34; Heb. 8:12).
God’s forgiving is also His forgetting. God’s forgiveness of our sins not only spares us from the judgment of sin and sends our sins away, His forgiveness also results in His forgetting our sins. Once He forgave us, He removes our sins from His memory, never to remember them again.