Thomas Watson · 25 of 36

The Fifth Petition in the Lord's Prayer · Part 3

(5) Forgiveness of sin is a choice and eminent blessing. To have the book cancelled, and God appeased, is worth obtaining, which may whet our endeavour after it. That it is a rare transcendent blessing, appears by three demonstrations:

First, if we consider how this blessing is purchased, namely, by the Lord Jesus. There are three things in reference to Christ which set forth the choiceness and preciousness of forgiveness:

[1] No mere created power in heaven or earth could expiate one sin, or procure a pardon, but Jesus Christ only. ‘He is the propitiation for our sins.’ 1 John 2: 2. No merit can buy out a pardon. Paul had as much to boast of as any man, his high birth, his learning, his legal righteousness; but he disclaims all in point of justification, and lays them under Christ’s feet to tread upon. No angel, with all his holiness, could lay down a price for the pardon of one sin. ‘If a man sin against the Lord, who shall intreat for him?’ 1 Sam 2: 25. What angel durst be so bold as to open his mouth to God for a delinquent sinner? Only Jesus Christ, who is God-man, could deal with God’s justice, and purchase forgiveness.

[2] Christ himself could not procure a pardon without dying. Every pardon is the price of blood. Christ’s life was a rule of holiness, and a pattern of obedience. He fulfilled all righteousness. Matt 3: 15. Certainly his active obedience was of great value and merit; but that which raises the worth of forgiveness, is that his active obedience had not fully procured a pardon for us without the shedding of his blood. Our justification therefore is ascribed to his blood. ‘Being justified by his blood.’ Rom 5: 9. Christ did bleed out our pardon. There is much ascribed to his intercession, but his intercession had not prevailed with God for the forgiveness of one sin had he not shed his blood. It is worthy of notice, that when Christ is described to John as an intercessor for his church, he is represented in the likeness of a Lamb slain, to show that Christ must die and be slain before he can be an intercessor. Rev 5: 6.

[3] Christ, by dying, had not purchased forgiveness for us if he had not died an accursed death. He endured the curse. Gal 3: 13. All the agonies Christ endured in his soul, all the torments in his body, could not purchase a pardon except he had been made a curse for us. He must be cursed before we could be blessed with a pardon.

Secondly, forgiveness of sin is a choice blessing, if we consider what glorious attributes God puts forth in it. He puts forth infinite power. When Moses was pleading with God for the pardon of Israel’s sin, he spoke thus: ‘Let the power of my Lord be great.’ Numb 14: 17. For God, forgiving sin is a work of as great power as to make heaven and earth, nay, a greater. When he made the world, he met with no opposition; but, when he pardons, Satan opposes, and the heart opposes. A sinner is desperate, and slights, yea, defies pardon, till God, by his mighty power, convinces him of his sin and danger, and makes him willing to accept of pardon. God, in forgiving sins, puts forth infinite mercy. ‘Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people, according unto the greatness of thy mercy.’ Numb 14: 19. It is mercy to have a reprieve; and if there be mercy in sparing a sinner, what mercy is there in pardoning him! This is the flos lactis, the cream of mercy. For God to put up with so many injuries, to wipe so many debts off the score, is infinite favour.

Thirdly, forgiveness of sin is a choice blessing, as it lays a foundation for other mercies. It is a leading mercy. It makes way for temporal good things. It brings health. When Christ said to the palsied man, ‘Thy sins are forgiven,’ he made way for a bodily cure. ‘Arise, take up thy bed and walk.’ Matt 9: 6. The pardon of his sin made way for the healing of his palsy. It brings prosperity. Jer 33: 8, 9. It makes way for spiritual good things. Forgiveness of sin never comes alone, but has other spiritual blessings attending it. Whom God pardons, he sanctifies, adopts, crowns. It is a voluminous mercy, it draws the silver link of grace, and the golden link of glory after it. It is a high act of indulgence. God seals the sinner’s pardon with a kiss. And should not we, above all things, seek after so great a blessing as forgiveness?

(6) That which may make us seek after forgiveness of sin is God’s inclinableness to pardon. ‘Thou art a God ready to pardon.’ Neh 9: 17. In the Hebrew it is, ‘A God of pardons.’ We are apt to entertain wrong conceits of God, that he is inexorable, and will not forgive. ‘I knew thee that thou art an hard man.’ Matt 25: 24. But God is a sin-pardoning God. ‘The Lord merciful and gracious, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.’ Exod 34: 6, 7. Here is my name, says God, if you would know how I am called, I tell you my name, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, merciful, forgiving iniquity.’ A pirate or rebel, that knows there is a proclamation out against him, will never come in; but, if he hears that the prince is full of clemency and there is a proclamation of pardon if he submit, it will be a great incentive to him to lay down his arms and become loyal to his prince. See God’s proclamation to repenting sinners, in Jer 3: 12: ‘Go and proclaim these words, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful.’ God’s mercy is a tender mercy. The Hebrew word for mercy signifies bowels. God’s mercy is full of sympathy, he is of a most sweet, indulgent nature. ‘Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive.’ Psa 86: 1. The bee does not more naturally give honey, than God shows mercy.

But does not God seem to delight in punitive acts, or acts of severity? ‘I will laugh at your calamity.’ Prov 1: 26.

To whom does God say this? See verse 25. ‘Ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof’ God delights in the destruction of those who despise his instruction; but a humble penitent breaking off sin, and suing for pardon, he delights in. ‘He delighteth in mercy.’ Mic 7: 18.

But though God be so full of mercy, and ready to forgive, yet his mercy reaches not to all; he forgives such only as are elected, and I question my election.

No man can say he is not elected. God has not revealed to any particular man that he is a reprobate, excepting him only who has sinned the sin against the Holy Ghost; which thou art far enough from who mournest for sin, and seekest after forgiveness.

The thought that we are not elected, and that there is no pardon for us, comes from Satan, and is the poisoned arrow he shoots. He is the accuser: he accuses us to God that we are great sinners; and he accuses God to us as if he were a tyrant, one that watches to destroy his creatures. These are diabolical suggestions; say, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’

It is sinful for any to hold that he is not elected. It would take him off from the use of means, from praying and repenting; it would harden him, and make him desperate. Therefore pry not into the arcana coeli, secrets of heaven. Remember what befell the men of Bethshemesh, for looking into the ark. 1 Sam 6: 19. Know that we are not to go by God’s secret will, but by his revealed will. Let us look into God’s revealed will, and there we shall find enough to cherish hope, and encourage us to go to God for the pardon of our sins. He has said in his Word, that he is ‘rich in mercy,’ and that he does not delight in the destruction of a sinner. Eph 2: 4; Ezek 18: 32.‘ Jurat per essentiam. Musculus. He swears by his essence. ‘As I live, saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.’ Ezek 33: 11. Hence he waits long, and puts off the sessions from time to time, to see if sinners will repent and seek to him for pardon. Therefore, let God’s tender mercies and precious promises encourage us to seek him for the forgiveness of our sins.

(7) Not to seek earnestly for pardon is unspeakable misery to such as need forgiveness. It must needs be ill with that malefactor that has not pardon.

The unpardoned sinner, who lives and dies such, is under the greatest loss and privation. Is there any happiness like the enjoyment of God in glory? This is the joy of angels, the crown of saints glorified, but the unforgiven sinner shall not behold God’s smiling face; he shall see God as an enemy, not as a friend; he shall have an affrighting sight of God, not beatific; he shall see the black rod, not the mercy-seat. Sins unpardoned are like the angel with a flaming sword, who stopped the passage to paradise. They stop the way to the heavenly paradise. How doleful is the condition of that soul which is banished from the place of bliss, where the King of Glory keeps his court!

The unpardoned sinner has nothing to do with any promise. The promises are mulctralia evangelii, the breasts that hold the sincere milk of the word, which fill the soul with precious sweetness. They are the royal charter: but what has a stranger to do to meddle with the charter? It was the dove that plucked the olive branch; it is only the believer who plucks the tree of the promise. Till the condition of the promise be performed, no man can have right to the comfort of it; and how sad is it not to have one promise to show for heaven!

An unpardoned sinner is continually in danger of the outcry of an accusing conscience. An accusing conscience is a little hell. Siculi non invenere tyranni tormentum majus [The Sicilian tyrants devised no worse a torture]. We tremble to hear a lion roar: how terrible are the roarings of conscience! Judas hanged himself to quiet his conscience. A sinner’s conscience at present is either asleep or seared; but when God shall awaken it, either by affliction or at death, how will the unpardoned sinner be affrighted! When a man shall have all his sins set before his eyes, and drawn out in their bloody colours, and the worm of conscience begins to gnaw, oh, what a trembling at heart will the sinner have!

All the curses of God stand in full force against an unpardoned sinner. His very blessings are cursed. ‘I will curse your blessings.’ Mal 2: 2. His table is a snare; he eats and drinks a curse. What comfort could Dionysius have at his feast, when he imagined he saw a naked sword hanging by a twine-thread over his head? It is enough to spoil a sinner’s banquet, that a curse like a naked sword, hangs over his head. Caesar wondered to see one of his soldiers who was in debt so merry. One would wonder that man could be merry who is heir to all God’s curses. He does not see these curses, but is blinder than Balaam’s ass, who saw the angel’s sword drawn.

The unpardoned sinner is in an ill case at death. Luther professed there were three things which he durst not think of without Christ; of his sins, of death, and of the day of judgement. Death to a Christless soul is the ‘king of terrors.’ As the prophet Ahijah said to Jeroboam’s wife, ‘I am sent to thee with heavy tidings’ (1 Kings 14: 6); so death is sent to the unpardoned soul with heavy tidings; it is God’s jailer to arrest him. Death is a prologue to damnation. It takes away all earthly comforts, it takes away sugared morsels; no more drinking wine in bowls, no more mirth or music. ‘The voice of harpers and musicians shall be heard no more at all in thee.’ Rev 18: 22. The sinner shall never taste of luscious delights more to all eternity; his honey shall be turned into the ‘gall of asps.’ Job 20: 14. At death, an end shall be put to all reprieves. Now God reprieves a sinner, he spares him such a fit of sickness; he respites him many years; the sinner should have died at such a drinking bout, but God granted him a reprieve; he lengthened out the silver thread of patience to a miracle; but when the sinner dies without repentance, and unpardoned, the lease of God’s patience is run out, and he must appear in person before the righteous God to receive his sentence; after which, there shall be none to bail him, nor shall he hear of a reprieve any more.

(6) The sinner dying unpardoned, must go into damnation; this is the second death, mors sine morte [an undying death]. The unpardoned soul must for ever bear the anger of a sin-revenging God. As long as God is God, so long the vial of his wrath shall be dropping upon the damned soul. This is a helpless condition. There is a time when a sinner will not be helped; Christ and salvation are offered to him, but he slights them, he will not be helped; and there is a time shortly coming when he cannot be helped; he calls out for mercy, Oh! a pardon, a pardon! but it is too late, the date of mercy is expired. Oh! how sad, then, is it to live and die unpardoned! You may lay a grave-stone upon that man, and write this epitaph upon it, ‘It had been good for that man that he had never been born.’ Now, if the misery of an unpardoned state be so inexpressible, how should we labour for forgiveness, that we may not be engulfed in so dreadful a labyrinth of fire and brimstone to all eternity!

(7) Such as are unpardoned, must needs lead uncomfortable lives. ‘Thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night.’ Deut 28: 66. Thus the unpardoned sinner must needs have a palpitation and trembling at the heart; he fears every bush he sees. ‘Fear has torment.’ 1 John 4: 18. The Greek word for torment, kolasis, is used sometimes for hell: fear has hell in it. A man in debt fears, every step he goes, lest he should be arrested; so the unpardoned sinner fears, what if this night death, death which is God’s sergeant, should arrest him! ‘Why dost thou not pardon my transgression? For now shall I sleep in the dust:’ as if Job had said, ‘Lord, I shall shortly die, I shall sleep in the dust; and what shall I do if my sins be not pardoned?’ Job 7: 21. What comfort can an unpardoned soul take in anything? Surely no more than a prisoner can take in meat or music, that wants his pardon. Therefore, by all these powerful motives, let us labour for the forgiveness of sins.

But I am discouraged from going to God for pardon, for I am unworthy of forgiveness; what am I, that God should show such a favour to me?

God forgives, not because we are worthy, but because he is gracious. ‘The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious.’ Exod 34: 6. He forgives out of his clemency; acts of pardon are acts of grace. What worthiness was there in Paul before conversion? He was a blasphemer, and so he sinned against the first table; he was a persecutor, and so he sinned against the second table; but free grace sealed his pardon. ‘I obtained mercy;’ I was all bestrewed with mercy. 1 Tim 1: 13. What worthiness was in the woman of Samaria? She was ignorant. John 4: 22. She was unclean; ver 18. She was morose and churlish, she would not give Christ so much as a cup of cold water; ver 9. How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me which am a woman of Samaria? What worthiness was here? Yet Christ overlooked all, and pardoned her ingratitude; and though she denied him water out of the well, yet he gave her the water of life. Gratia non invenit dignos, sed facit. Free grace does not find us worthy, but makes us worthy. Therefore, notwithstanding unworthiness, seek to God, that your sins may be pardoned.

But I hare been a great sinner, and surely God will not pardon me?

David brings it as an argument for pardon. ‘Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great.’ Psa 25: 11. When God forgives great sins, he does a work like himself. The desperateness of the wound the more sets forth the virtue of Christ’s blood in curing it. Mary Magdalene, out of whom seven devils were cast, was a great sinner, yet she had her pardon. When some of the Jews, who had a hand in crucifying Christ, repented, the very blood they shed sealed their pardon. Consider sins either for their number as the sands of the sea, or for their weight as the rocks of the sea, yet there is mercy enough in God to forgive them. ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.’ Isa 1: 18. Scarlet signifies twice dipped, which no art of man can get out, yet God can wash out this scarlet dye. There is no sin exempted from pardon but that sin which despises pardon, the sin against the Holy Ghost. Matt 12: 31. Therefore, O sinner, do not cast away thy anchor of hope, but go to God for forgiveness. The vast ocean has bounds set to it, but God’s pardoning mercy is boundless. He can as well forgive great sins as little, as the sea can cover great rocks and little sands. Nothing hinders pardon but the sinner’s not asking it.

That a great sinner should not despair of forgiveness, we may learn from this Scripture: ‘I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.’ If you look on the foregoing words, you would wonder how this verse comes in. ‘Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou has wearied me with thine iniquities;’ and then it follows, ‘I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.’ Isa 43: 24, 25. One would have thought it should have run thus, ‘Thou hast wearied me with shine iniquities; I, even I, am he that will punish thy iniquities;’ but God comes in a mild loving strain, ‘Thou hast wearied me with shine iniquities; I am he that blotteth out thy iniquities.’ So that the greatness of our sins should not discourage us from going to God for forgiveness. Though thou hast committed acts of impiety, yet God can come with an act of indemnity, and say, ‘I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.’ God counts it his glory to display free grace in its most brilliant colours. ‘Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’ Rom 5: 20. When sin becomes exceeding sinful, free grace becomes exceeding glorious. God’s pardoning love can conquer the sinner, and triumph over the sin. Consider, thou almost despairing soul, there is not so much sin in man as there is mercy in God. Man’s sin in comparison of God’s mercy is but as a spark to the ocean; and who would doubt whether a spark could be quenched in an ocean?

But I have relapsed into the same sins, and how can I have the face to come to God for pardon of those sins into which I have more than once fallen?

I know the Novatians held that after a relapse there is no forgiveness by the church. But doubtless that was an error. Abraham twice equivocated; Lot committed incest twice; Peter sinned thrice by carnal fear; but they repented, and they had absolution.

There is a twofold relapse, (1) A wilful relapse, when, after a man has solemnly vowed himself to God, he falls into a league with sin, and returns back to it. ‘I have loved strangers, and after them will I go’ (Jer 2: 25); and (2) there is a relapse through infirmity, when the bent and resolution of a man’s heart is against sin, but, through the violence of temptation, and withdrawing of God’s grace, he is carried down the stream against his will. Now, though wilful and continued relapses are desperate, and tend vastare conscientiam (as Tertullian), to waste the conscience, and run men upon the precipice of damnation, yet if they are through infirmity, and we mourn for them, we may obtain forgiveness. A godly man does not march after sin as his general, but is led captive by it; and the Lord will pity a captive prisoner. Christ commands us to forgive a trespassing brother seventy times seven. Matt 18: 22. If he bids us do it, much more will he forgive a relapsing sinner in case he repent. ‘Return, thou backsliding Israel, for I am merciful, saith the Lord.’ Jer 3: 12. It is not falling once or twice into the mire that drowns, but lying there; it is not once relapsing into sin, but lying in sin impenitently that damns.

But God requires so much sorrow and humiliation before remission, that I fear I shall never arrive at it!

He requires no more humiliation than may fit a soul for mercy. Many a Christian thinks, because he has not filled God’s bottle so full of tears as others, he is not humbled enough to receive pardon. But God’s dealings are various; all have not the like pangs in the new birth. Some are won with love; the sense of God’s mercy abused causes ingenuous tears to flow; others are more flagitious and hardened, and God deals with them more roughly. That soul is humbled enough to receive a pardon which is brought to a thorough sense of sin, and sees the need of a Saviour, and loves him as the fairest of ten thousand. Therefore be not discouraged, for if thy heart be bruised from sin and broken off from it, thy sin shall be blotted out. No sooner did Ephraim weep than God’s bowels were working. ‘My bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him.’ Jer 31: 20.

Having answered these objections, let me beseech you, above all things, labour for the forgiveness of sin. Think with yourselves how great a mercy it is: it is one of the richest jewels in the cabinet of the new covenant. ‘Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven.’ Psa 32: 1: In the Hebrew it is ‘blessednesses’. And think of the unparalleled misery of those whose sins are not forgiven! Such as had not the blood of the paschal lamb sprinkled upon their door-posts, were destroyed by the angel. Exod 12: So they who have not Christ’s blood sprinkled on them, to wash away the guilt of sin, will fall into the gulf of perdition. If you resolve to seek after forgiveness, do not delay.

Many say they will get their pardon, but they procrastinate and put it off so long that it is too late. When the shadows of the evening are stretched forth, and the night of death approaches, they begin to look after their pardon. This has been the undoing of millions. They purpose to look after their souls, but they stay so long till the lease of mercy is run out. Oh, therefore, hasten to get pardon! Think of the uncertainty of life. What security have you that you shall live another day? Volat ambiguis mobilis alis hora [The fleeting hour flies on fickle wings]. Our life is a taper soon blown out; it is made up of a few flying minutes. O thou dust and ashes! thou mayest fear every hour to be blown into thy grave; and what if death come to arrest thee before thy pardon be sealed? Plutarch reports of one Archias, who being among his cups when a letter was delivered to him, and he was desired to read it, as it was about serious business, Seria cras, he said, ‘I will mind serious things to-morrow;’ and that night he was slain. Thou that sayest, ‘To-morrow I will repent, I will get my pardon,’ thou mayest suddenly be slain; therefore to-day, while it is called to-day, look after the forgiveness of sin. After awhile, all the fountains of mercy will be stopped, there will not be one drop of Christ’s blood to be had, there are no pardons after death.

Use 3. Let us labour to have the evidence that our sins are forgiven. A man may have his sins forgiven and not know it; he may have a pardon in the court of heaven when he has it not in the court of conscience. David’s sin was forgiven soon as he repented. God sent Nathan the prophet to tell him so. 2 Samuel 12: 13. But David did not feel the comfort of it at once, as appears by the penitential Psalm composed afterwards. ‘Make me to hear joy;’ and ‘Cast me not away from thy presence.’ Psa 51: 8, 11. It is one thing to be pardoned and another to feel it. The evidence of pardon may hot appear for a time, and this may be:

(1) From the imbecility and weakness of faith. Forgiveness of sin is so strange and infinite a blessing that a Christian can hardly persuade himself that God will extend such a favour to him. As it is said of the apostles when Christ first appeared to them, ‘They believed not for joy, and wondered,’ (Luke 24: 41), so the soul may be so stricken with admiration that the wonder of pardon staggers its faith.

(2) A man may be pardoned and not know it from the strength of temptation. Satan accuses the godly of sin, and tells them that God does not love them; and should such sinners think of pardon? Believers are compared to bruised reeds; and temptations to winds. Matt 12: 20; chap 7: 25. Now, a reed is easily shaken with the wind. Temptations shake the godly; and though they are pardoned, yet they know it not. Job in a temptation thought God his enemy, and yet he was then in a pardoned condition. Job 16: 9.

Why does God sometimes conceal the evidence of pardon?

Though he pardons, he may withhold the sense of it for a time: (1) Because he would lay us lower in contrition. He would have us see what an evil and bitter thing it is to offend him. Therefore we must lie longer in the briny tears of repentance before we have the sense of pardon. It was long before David’s broken bones were set and his pardon sealed, that his heart might be more contrite; and this was a sacrifice which God delighted in. (2) Though God has forgiven sin, he may deny the manifestation of it for a time, to make us prize pardon and make it sweeter to us when it comes. The difficulty of obtaining a mercy enhances its value. When we have been a long time tugging at prayer for a pardon of sin, and still God withholds, but at last, after many sighs and tears, it comes, we esteem it the more, and it is sweeter. Quo longius defertur eo suavius laetatur [The longer the delay, the sweeter the rejoicing]. The longer mercy is in the birth the more welcome will the deliverance be.

Let us not be content however without the evidence and sense of pardon. He who is pardoned and knows it not, is like one who has an estate bequeathed to him, but knows it not. Our comfort consists in the knowledge of forgiveness. ‘Make me to hear joy.’ Psa 51: 8. There is a jubilee in the soul when we are able to read our pardon. To the witness of conscience God adds the witness of his Spirit; and in the mouth of these two witnesses our joy is confirmed. O labour for the evidence of forgiveness!

How shall we know that our sins are forgiven?

We must not be our own judges in this case. ‘He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool.’ Prov 28: 26. ‘The heart is deceitful.’ Jer 17: 9. It is folly to trust a deceiver. The Lord only by his word must judge whether we are pardoned or not. As under the law no leper might judge himself to be clean, but the priest was to pronounce him clean, (Lev 13: 37); so we are not to judge ourselves to be clean from the guilt of sin till we are such as the word of God pronounces to be clean.

How shall we know by the word that our sins are pardoned?

(1) The pardoned sinner is a great weeper. The sense of God’s love melts his heart. That free grace should ever look upon me; that such crimson sins should be washed away in Christ’s blood, makes the heart melt and the eyes drop with tears; never did any man read his pardon with dry eyes. ‘She stood at his feet weeping.’ Luke 7: 38. Mary’s tears were more precious to Christ than her ointment; her eyes, which before sparkled with lust, now became a fountain, and washed Christ’s feet with her tears. She was a true penitent, and had her pardon. ‘Wherefore, I say, her sins, which are many, are forgiven;’ ver 47. A pardon will make the hardest heart relent and cause the stony heart to bleed. Is it thus with us? Have we been dissolved into tears for sin? God seals his pardons upon melting hearts.