Love & Forgiveness
First I need to explain why Jesus chose death by love. The reason is simple. It was because he came to set things right in the world, and especially to restore our broken relationship with the God who made us. Jesus didn’t come simply to carve a way out of the mess for people who are stuck in sin. He also came to bring God’s forgiveness to people who are guilty of sin. It was love for God and love for people that drove him, and it was this love that took him to his death.
Let me explain this a bit further.
100% Free Forgiveness
Jesus was famous throughout his life for offering God’s forgiveness to people.
Previously, I shared with you the story about the time when Jesus told a paralytic man that all his sins were forgiven. You’ll remember that when the Pharisees got uptight about it, Jesus healed the man in an instant to show that he really could speak for God (Matthew 9:2–8).
Another time, when a woman who was a ‘sinner’ sought Jesus out, he caused a scandal by declaring that even her sins were forgiven (Luke 7:36–50). The woman was probably a prostitute. Most people would have thought that she was beyond the pale – that she had been too bad and had done too much wrong to ever hope for forgiveness from God. But there were no restrictions on the forgiveness Jesus offered. There was no-one who was beyond the reach of God’s love. The forgiveness he offered was for everyone. It was immediate. It was complete. And it was 100% free.
It was always like that with Jesus.
Jesus, The Friend Of ‘Sinners’
In fact, Jesus became notorious for hanging out with ‘sinners’; for eating, drinking and celebrating with them. Jesus welcomed the people that everyone else looked down upon, and he offered them friendship with God.
Once, when Jesus was questioned about it, he simply said this: ‘Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. I didn’t come to invite good people to be my followers. I came to invite sinners’ (Mark 2:17).
Jesus is saying here that if the world is sick (which it is), things are not the way they are meant to be (which they are not) and the heart of the problem is the problem with our hearts (which it is), then he came as a doctor, offering healing, forgiveness and new life from God to anyone and everyone.
Jesus said that no matter how guilty we are, God offers us forgiveness. God made us to live with him, and even though all of us have lived life our own way – putting ourselves at the centre of the picture and pushing God and others to the edges – God still loves us. He wants to welcome us back. He loves to forgive. Jesus was very clear about this: anyone who decides to come home to God will find nothing except God’s outstretched arms welcoming them back with a party.
The Most Expensive Free Gift Ever
But here’s the crunch. Forgiveness doesn’t come cheaply.
If you’ve ever had to forgive someone for hurting you, you’ll know what I mean. It’s not easy. You have to swallow the hurt. You must let the past go. And that costs.
The thing is, it’s the same with God. Forgiveness doesn’t come cheaply for him either.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day knew this. In fact, God had commanded his people to build a temple in Jerusalem to teach them that forgiveness doesn’t come cheaply. The temple system involved priests, prayers and, most importantly, sacrifices. God commanded his people to build this temple to teach them that forgiveness requires sacrifice.
But Jesus short-circuited this whole system. He taught that while the temple system was good for its time, now that he had turned up, it was past its use-by date. Jesus offered God’s forgiveness to people directly.
It is no wonder that people started asking questions: who does this man think he is? How can he be so sure that God will actually back up his claims and wipe the slate clean for anyone who asks him? How can Jesus offer God’s forgiveness?
These are good questions, because Jesus wasn’t merely offering forgiveness to one person for one hurtful action. He offered forgiveness to everyone for everything they had ever done wrong. It was an enormous offer, and people were right to ask the question: Who is going to foot the bill for all of this?
Jesus had one simple answer. He offered God’s forgiveness to anyone and everyone because he was going to pay the price himself. I’m talking, of course, about Jesus’ death on the cross. It was a death he chose so that we could be forgiven. It was death by love. It was the death Jesus died to pay the price for the most expensive free gift ever offered.
Love, Sacrifice & Freedom
If you had been on the beach at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli, in April and May 1915, you would have seen this kind of gutsy, sacrificial love in action. Australia was, of course, engaged in World War I, and the Anzac troops had been assigned the task of capturing the Gallipoli peninsula from the Turks. If you had been there on the beach at that time, you would have seen Private John Simpson returning from the battlefield over and over again, each time carrying wounded soldiers on his donkey. John Simpson is rightly remembered as a hero of the war. Time and time again he risked his life to save others, often carrying wounded fellow soldiers through enemy fire back to safety. What is not so often remembered, however, is that on 19 May 1915, as he was carrying two wounded soldiers back to the medical tent, John Simpson was hit by enemy fire and killed in action. As far as we know, the two wounded soldiers survived. The sacrifice of his life gave them theirs.
Jesus explained the mission of his life and the meaning of his death as something like this. The mission of his life, he said, was to make the sacrifice that would set the rest of us free. Look at how he explained it to his friends when they were on their way up to Jerusalem for the last time: ‘The Son of Man did not come to be a slave master, but a slave who will give his life to rescue many people’ (Mark 10:45).
Don’t be distracted by the title Jesus uses for himself here. He often called himself the ‘Son of Man’. It was a reference to the glorious figure prophesied in the Old Testament book of Daniel (Daniel 7:13). The thing that really stands out here, however, is that Jesus had a very clear idea of what he had come to do. Did you notice what it was?
Jesus said that he came not to be a slave master, but to be a slave. He came not so that other people could serve him, but so that he could serve them. He came to serve others by giving his life to rescue many people.
Now that is a gutsy kind of love.
Jesus knew that forgiveness isn’t cheap, yet he spent his whole life offering God’s forgiveness to others, free of charge. He did that because he knew that he was going to pay the price for the most expensive free gift ever offered.
Many people don’t realise that God offers them forgiveness. They seem to think that they must make it up to God somehow, that they need to live perfectly for a while or something before God could think about wiping the slate clean for them.
But Jesus teaches us that God is not like that.
If Jesus’ ugly life and painful death show us anything, they show us that God offers forgiveness to anyone who will receive it. In Jesus, God reached out to us and dealt with our problem for us. He gave up his own Son to pay the price for everything we have ever done wrong. God offers us forgiveness. He offers you forgiveness. He promises that if you turn to him, by trusting in what Jesus has done, he will wipe the slate clean and help you make a fresh start.
The only question is: will you accept this offer?
If you are ready to do that, you could use these words to confess your sin to God and ask for his forgiveness and help to start again with him.
Father God,
You know that I haven’t lived the way I should.
I’m sorry.
Thank you that Jesus carved out a new way of living for us.
Thank you that when Jesus died on the cross, he paid the price for everything we have done wrong.
Please forgive me, God, and help me to start a new life with you.
This article was originally published by Bible Society Australia.
