Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the
experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But
conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on
earth and makes us aware of only one— “Against You, You only, have I
sinned . . .” (Psalm 51:4).
When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit
of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did
forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice
than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with
grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle
of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of
Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to
remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that
God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin,
we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary— nothing
less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The
only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is
there that His conscience is satisfied.
Forgiveness doesn’t merely mean that I am saved from hell and have
been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that
level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created
relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of
redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of
Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the
nature of Jesus Christ.
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