Irresistible Forgiveness

Are you vibrant and alive partaking of the irresistible force of forgiveness, or are you crushed and dead under the immovable weight of your sin?

February’s Awakening, Day 22

The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales.

 —John Stott   

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

 —Author Unknown 

We are most like beasts when we kill, most like men when we judge; most like God when we forgive.

 —Author Unknown 

If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you. Psalm 130:3–4 NIV 

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. James 2:10 NIV

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV 

let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:22 NIV   

            Christianity is all about forgiveness at the Cross, not about the balance scales weighing good deeds against bad deeds. Any religion weighing good against the bad is doomed to fail as the weight of one sin in God’s eyes is infinite. The measuring rod that God uses is His absolute holy perfection, and breaking just one rule breaks and undermines them all. Using a scientific analogy, one sin becomes the immovable object of infinite mass such that no counterweight or application of any force can remove or move it. No measure of good deeds can bring the balance scales into alignment—the weight of the sin is immovable. In physics this dilemma is called the “irresistible force paradox,” or “what happens when the irresistible force meets the immovable object?” The answer in our reality is that by definition there is no solution as both an immovable object (our sin) and an irresistible force (good deeds sufficient to cancel the sin) cannot coexist. For us, our sin remains immovable. In God’s reality, however, there actually is an irresistible force that removes the immovable weight of our sin—it’s called forgiveness. Forgiveness must come from God and the Cross—in our humanity alone, the scales of righteousness will never balance—sin will always win.