The Bible on Forgiveness

Gowan

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781498271356
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

What does the Bible say about forgiveness? It is a major subject in Scripture, but it has been strangely overlooked by biblical scholars. Forgiveness is the amazing way that alienation can be healed and guilt assuaged, and there is an extensive literature on the subject, written largely by psychologists, pastoral counselors, and philosophers, but until now anyone searching those many books for a thorough treatment of the Bible's message would have been frustrated. Now in a clear and concise form, Donald E. Gowan has offered a survey of all that the Bible says about this crucial subject-from Genesis to Revelation.

part one

The Old Testament

I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

—Isaiah 43:25

1

God Forgives Us

Sin, Judgment, and Mercy in Genesis and Exodus 1–31

The writers of the Old Testament believed in a God who is judge of all the earth, with righteousness and justice the foundation of his throne (e.g., Pss 96:10, 13; 97:2; 98:9). From Genesis on they recorded a history of human injustice and unrighteousness, however, so it might have been a history solely of divine judgment. It is not, because they also believed in a God who is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exod 34:6–7). Although they believed in the universal sovereignty of God, they spoke of divine forgiveness only with reference to God’s relationship with Israel. Prophets did look forward to the conversion of the nations in the last days (e.g., Isa 2:2–4; 19:18–25; Zech 8:20–23; 14:16–19), but they did not use terms referring to repentance and forgiveness. Forgiveness and the covenant relationship between God and Israel were thus intimately related. The two covenants in Genesis were covenants of divine promise and did not depend on human responsibility for their continuance (Gen 9:1–17; 17:1–14; Freedman 1964). This probably accounts for the fact that although many sins are recorded in that book, divine forgiveness is not a significant theme, as will be noted later in this section. On the other hand, the relationship God established with Israel in the Sinai covenant required obedience to the standards he gave them: “Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant . . .” (Exod 19:5), so at that point disobedience became a major issue, and divine forgiveness the good news that enabled the relationship to continue.

The story of that relationship begins with a crisis. The making of the golden calf (Exodus 32) raised an immediate question whether the people God had chosen and rescued from slavery in Egypt could live up to his standards. The message of forgiveness meant God’s character could and would maintain the relationship even when Israel’s character did not. When another crisis arose, however, the rise of the empire-building nations, Assyria and Babylonia, which brought the kingdoms of Israel and Judah to an end, the prophets explained the disaster in moral terms. It happened, they said, because of the people’s refusal—indeed, inability—to repent, leading now to God’s refusal to forgive. Beyond the disaster, however, they foresaw a new era, which would be created solely because of God’s forgiving nature.

So, after some preliminary remarks about vocabulary and the treatment of sin in Genesis, we shall begin with the accounts of those two great crises, whose authors struggled with the question whether any continuing relationship between the holy God and sinful humanity is possible. Then we shall turn to the rest of what the Old Testament has to say about forgiveness.

The Vocabulary of Forgiveness

The importance of this theme is reflected in the remarkable variety of terms used by the Old Testament authors. A whole book may be devoted to the study of the words (Stamm 1940), but the approach taken in this book enables a brief survey to be adequate. Most of the terms are metaphors, but there is one, salah?, which is a technical term for “forgive” (sometimes translated “pardon”); it means nothing else. It is used of forgiving sin—“who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases” (Ps 103:3)—and of forgiving people—“and forgive your people who have sinned against you” (2 Chr 6:39). The second-most frequently used word, nasa’, literally means “lift up, bear, carry,” and it occurs many times in the Old Testament with those meanings, but at times it becomes a metaphor used with sin as its object. It can designate guilt, as when one must “bear his iniquity” (Lev 5:1), but it is used of forgiveness, presumably with an original sense of lifting up guilt from a person: “Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins” (Ps 25:18). It has been suggested that it may also indicate that the one who forgives bears the other’s sins, but the contexts do not offer clear support for that. The term has lost all of its metaphorical overtones when (like salah?) it is used of forgiving a person: “. . . just as you have pardoned [nasa’] this people, from Egypt even until now” (Num 14:19).

Other terms are always metaphorical, usually taking sin-words as their objects. Three of those sin-words appear regularly. The root h?at?a‘ (“sin”) is used both as a verb and as a noun. It has the physical sense of missing the mark, thus of going wrong. The noun usually translated “iniquity” (‘awon) has a range of meanings, from the sinful act to the resulting guilt to the punishment that ensues. The strongest sin-word is the root paša‘, since it carries the sense of rebellion. It appears typically in translation as the verb “transgress” or the noun “transgression.” It will be noted in the quotations that follow that these words are often used as synonyms.

Sin may be taken away (he‘avir) by forgiveness: “Why do you not pardon [nasa’] my transgression and take away my iniquity?” (Job 7:21; cf. 2 Sam 12:13; 24:10=1 Chr 21:8; Zech 3:4) It may be covered (kasah): “Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven [nasa’], whose sin is covered” (Ps 32:1; cf. Neh 4:5; Ps 85:2; Prov 17:9). It may be wiped or blotted out, or swept away (mahah?): “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isa 43:25; cf. Neh 4:5; Pss 51:9; 109:14; Isa 44:22; Jer 18:23).

Forgiveness not only removes the sin but changes the sinner, leading to healing (rapha‘), used metaphorically of personal change as well as physical healing: “Return, O faithless children, I will heal your faithlessness” (Jer 3:22; Isa 6:10; 53:5; 57:18–19; Hos 6:11b—7:1; 14:4). That change could also be called cleansing: “Wash [kavas] me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse [tahar] me from my sin” (Ps 51:2; cf. Ps 51:7, 10; Jer 33:8; Ezek 36:33). God was also said to change, with reference to memory: “I will forgive [salah?] their iniquity, and remember their sin no more” (Jer 31:34; Pss 25:7; 32:2; 79:8; Isa 43:25; 64:9; Ezek 33:16).

One other word is sometimes appropriately translated “forgive.” It is kipper, which is usually rendered by “atone” or “make atonement.” Most of the occurrences of the word refer to ritual acts that have been prescribed by God as the first step people can take in an effort to re-establish a healthy relationship with God that has been endangered by some act of theirs. Many of the offerings prescribed in Leviticus thus associate the act of atonement with divine forgiveness, as in Lev 5:13: “Thus the priest shall make atonement on your behalf for whichever of these sins you have committed, and you shall be forgiven [salah?].” Atonement and forgiveness ordinarily are not identical, but there are several cases where it is appropriate to translate kipper as “forgive,” as in Ps 65:3: “When deeds of iniquity overwhelm us, you forgive our transgressions” (cf. Deut 21:8 [where NRSV uses “absolve”]; 2 Chr 30:18; Pss 78:38; 79:9; Isa 6:7; 22:14; Jer 18:23; Ezek 16:63). The relationship between sacrifice and forgiveness will be discussed later in the Old Testament section.

From Eden to Sinai

The claim made earlier, that forgiveness begins to be discussed seriously first in connection with the sin of the golden calf, should be justified before we turn to Exodus 32–34. Having identified the principle terms used of forgiveness, when we look for them in Genesis and Exodus 1–31, we find two passages to consider in Genesis and two in the relevant chapters of Exodus. All four texts are unusual. In the dialogue between Abraham and God concerning the fate of Sodom in Gen 18:22–33, Abraham asks whether, if God finds fifty righteous people in the city, “will you then sweep away the place and not forgive [nasa’] it? (v. 24). God replies, “I will forgive the whole place for their sakes” (v. 26). So the NRSV and the Revised English Bible (REB) render nasa’, but other translations and commentators on Genesis do not take this to be a true forgiveness passage. Other versions translate it as “spare,” and since the verb here refers only to remission of punishment, it does not correspond to forgiveness as the Old Testament speaks of it elsewhere (Westermann 1985, 292). One example of forgiveness at the human level appears in Genesis, in the reconciliation scene between Joseph and his brothers (50:17). This is unusual, because the Old Testament does not say much about interpersonal forgiveness. We shall return to the passage in the section called “We Forgive One Another.” In Exod 10:17 Pharaoh addresses Moses with a surprising appeal for forgiveness of his sin. One cannot help but wonder whether the author is being deliberately ironic in putting these words into the king’s mouth, for this is scarcely to be taken as a sincere act of repentance. There was no forgiveness in Genesis 18–19 or Exodus 10, and the fourth occurrence of nasa’ also threatens no forgiveness. In Exod 23:21 God promises to send an angel to guide the people from Sinai to the Promised Land, but warns them: “Do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression: for my name is in him.” That verse seems to speak of a covenant relationship in which forgiveness plays no role, so it is not surprising that the sin of the golden calf left Moses very uncertain about whether any future for the people was possible.

Those four passages speak of the possibility of human forgiveness, but only raise the question of whether God is willing to forgive sin. Another way to approach the question is to look at the explicit references to sin in these chapters in order to see how God deals with it. Although the chapters preceding Exodus 32 do not speak positively of divi...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Introduction: “I Believe in the Forgiveness of Sins”
• Part One: The Old Testament
• Chapter 1: God Forgives Us
• Chapter 2: We Forgive One Another
• Part Two: The New Testament
• Chapter 3: God Forgives Us
• Chapter 4: We Forgive One Another
• Bibliography