Word of Encouragement (01/23/2025)
“If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to a land far or near, 37 yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captivity, saying, ‘We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly,’ 38 if they repent with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity to which they were carried captive, and pray toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name, 39 then hear from heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their pleas, and maintain their cause and forgive your people who have sinned against you. 40 Now, O my God, let your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayer of this place. (2 Chron. 6:36–40)
What is implied in this prayer is that the LORD would restore His people to the promised land from their exile if they repent of their sins (vv. 37-38). This only makes sense. If the people did not recognize their sins and repent of their sins, why should God grant them forgiveness and bring them back to their land? We only spoil and destroy our children if we do not keep them accountable for their wrongdoings and “get them off the hook” when they don’t feel any remorse.
This is not to say that our repentance has an inherent merit to earn God’s forgiveness and restoration. Repentance may mitigate our guilt, but it cannot eradicate it. Even mitigating our guilt is only at the interpersonal level; it does not, and should not, work at the judicial level. A murderer may feel deeply remorseful for what he has done. And the judge may feel moved by the heart-wrenching display of his remorse. But the judge must keep his personal feelings at bay when he is sitting on the bench. He sits on the judicial bench to uphold the law, which is not his to do whatever he wants. When we do wrong, we must repent. But our repentance, though required, does not erase our guilt.
Then, how could Solomon expect the LORD to grant forgiveness to His people? It is possible that he prayed this petition simply out of desperation and necessity. He confessed in v. 46, “...there is no one who does not sin.” He knew that God was holy, and sin could not be just swept under the rug. They needed God’s forgiveness lest they perish. So, did Solomon just pray out of desperation, hoping that God would have mercy on them? No. He must have understood the covenantal arrangement between God and His people—the gracious nature of the covenant. The sacrificial system pointed to this gracious nature of the covenant. For under the covenant of works, no such arrangement is allowed—one strike and you are out (as in the case of Adam and Eve). The question is how a holy God, who cannot allow any sin to go unpunished, extend the grace of forgiveness to His people if even repentance does not merit forgiveness?
The answer lies in Jesus Christ, doesn’t it? If God could extend the grace of forgiveness to the Israelites, it was only in view of the atonement Jesus would make for the sins of His people in the fullness of time. Without Jesus’ atonement, no repentance can be allowed. So then, repentance is not what we must do to earn God’s forgiveness; it is what we are allowed to do to be restored to fuller fellowship with God (because we are already under grace in Jesus Christ!). And we must repent of our sins to the end of repairing the fellowship with God broken by our sins.
What a blessing it is that we can repent and have the assurance of renewing our fellowship with God! Let us not sin lest we disrupt our precious fellowship with God. But if we do sin, let us repent quickly and decisively in the name of Jesus Christ. God will receive us for the sake of His Son and let the light of His countenance shine upon us to our great delight!