All sins forgiven for Christ's sake

I am sure I am not alone when I say that the pain of my sins is often a burden too heavy for me to bear (Psa. 38:4). To everyone so burdened, the glad tidings of God from Christ Jesus our Lord is the sweetest news ever heard. “Her sins which were many are forgiven” (Luke 7:47). She was a woman with many sins. Her sins were many! Yet Christ forgave all of her many sins! Christ not only forgives many sins, but He forgives great sins. “For thy name's sake, O LORD, pardon mine iniquity; for it [is] great” (Psa. 25:11). I cannot rest unless I know God has forgiven all my sins for this very reason: because my sins are many and so greatly evil!

David, guided by the Spirit of Christ our great Comforter prayed, “Look upon my affliction and forgive all my sins” (Psa. 25:18). Sin on the conscience is great affliction (Psa. 32:1-2). Only forgiveness from Christ can remove it. The best news this sinner has ever heard is that “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). The Lord Jesus Christ, as our High Priest, took all of the sins of all of His people from off of us and confessed all of them as His own, putting Himself under that load of guilt and shame before the justice of God (Lev. 16:21-22; 1 Pet. 2:24). As our High Priest, He made our sins His own, putting them upon His head as the Lamb of God. All of our sins were then lifted from us. They became His then, at the cross (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:24; Psa. 31:5, 10; 40:6-8, 11; 69:4-7; Isa. 53:3-12; Matt. 1:21; John 18:8)! Christ owned them before God. He bore them as His own under the judgment of God’s wrath in our place, instead of us, bearing the wrath that we deserved (Matt. 26:28; Rom. 5:9; 1 Pet. 2:24). The Judge of all took the sins of His guilty people and bore the judgment of His own law against Himself (Gal. 3:13; Heb. 7:27; 9:26, 28). He died for our sins (1 Cor. 15:3-4). He made a full end of them. He made such an end of them, that by His one offering of Himself to God for our sins, He perfected forever all those God the Father set apart as His sons and entrusted to Christ as Surety from eternity (Gen. 43:8-9; 44:32-34; Heb. 7:22, 27; 10:14-18). Having died for our sins, Christ was buried. Our sins were thus removed. He rose from the dead. Our sins were left in the grave. The body of our sins was put to death and put away in the death and the grave of our Surety and Substitute. We are now justified from all sin (Acts 13:39; Rom. 6:6-7, 11; 8:1, 34; 2 Cor. 5:14). When Adam sinned, we became guilty before God; we were condemned then (Rom. 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:22). When Christ restored God’s honor by answering justice and fulfilling God's law by His obedience, culminating in His death, we were justified before God at that point in history. Before God, we were made holy and perfected when Christ fulfilled the precept and penalty of God’s holy law in our behalf as our Surety (Rom. 5:12-21; Isa. 45:21-25; Heb. 1:3; 9:12; 10:10, 14; 13:12, 20). Because our sins became His, we bear our sins no more. He made an end of our sins in His death (Dan. 9:24). God has forgiven us for Christ’s sake (Psa. 103:10; Eph. 4:32). God has removed our many sins and our great sins from before His face as far as the east is from the west (Psa. 103:12). He will not remember our sins because Christ bore the stroke justice demanded, appeased and removed the wrath of God due to us, and blotted out God’s account of our sins against Him (Isa. 43:25; 44:22). Christ loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood (Lev. 16:30; 1 John 1:7; Rev. 1:5). We are  clean before God. Though a search is made, God Himself will not find sin on His people (Jer. 50:20; John 8:11; Rom. 8:1, 33-34). When Christ appears the second time, it will be without sin unto salvation because He put away our sins by the sacrifice of Himself (Heb. 9:26-28). God is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). He will present us faultless in the presence of His glory in love with exceeding joy (Jude 24; Eph. 1:4).

As a great sinner I find this to be the best of all news! This news disarms my hostility against my God whom I offended (2 Cor. 5:18-21)! It is good news from heaven (Isa. 52:7). It is good news from God our Father. It is good news from the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. It is good news from the Spirit of God, who recorded the Gospel of Christ's redeeming work in scripture and bears testimony to it in our conscience (1 Cor. 15:1-4; Heb. 9:12-14). His work is finished (Heb. 1:3; John 19:30). It is complete. It is perfect. Christ’s answer for our sins with Himself is enough for God!

​By the blood of the covenant God made with Christ, He has sent forth the sin-laden, law-cursed sinner out of the pit wherein is no water (2 Tim. 1:9; Rom. 5:12-19; Zech. 9:11). He gives faith to every chosen, redeemed sinner to enable them to receive this proclamation of pardon and forgiveness that produces God's peace and joy in their hearts (Rom. 5:1-2; 15:13).

There is no good news in the pit of sin. There is no life or peace or hope or good news in the pit of man’s free will, or in the pit of our own personal obedience and worth before God. But there is good news in the covenant of promise, made in the blood of Jesus, the Surety of the everlasting covenant made in His blood (Heb. 7:22; Matt. 26:28; Heb. 13:20). Christ is all my hope. He is all of my salvation. He has made Himself known to me in the Gospel of His grace. He is all my desire (2 Sam. 23:5). Every time I hear God’s Gospel by the Spirit of His grace, it is as if I’ve heard it for the first time again. Nothing from me the sinner is required. God has provided all and accomplished all in Christ my Savior. He has chosen His Son, appointed His Son and made His Son the Christ, the Son of Man, that in His life and death and exalted place in glory, He would be my wisdom, my righteousness, my sanctification and my redemption (1 Cor. 1:30). What could be more glorious (Rev. 5:1-13)? God has provided all in Christ by His grace alone! I must now go to Him at all times for all grace, even and especially this faith by which I see and take from Him and live upon Him (Gal. 2:20)!

Rick Warta