Luke 23:34 | The Word of Forgiveness

Sermon Notes

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Preacher: Jeremiah Fyffe
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Matthew 9:5–6
For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”

Psalm 85:10
Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; 
righteousness and peace kiss each other.

A. W. Pink
“Who can forgive sins but God only?” (Mark 2:7). But you say, Christ was God. Truly; but man also—the God-man. He was the Son of God that had become the Son of Man with the express purpose of offering himself as a sacrifice for sin. And when the Lord Jesus cried “Father, forgive them” he was on the cross, and there he might not exercise his divine prerogatives. …
Hence it was that hanging there as our representative, he was no longer in the place of authority where he might exercise his own divine prerogatives, therefore takes he the position of a suppliant before the Father.

A. W. Pink:
What is the ground on which a Holy God will forgive sins? And here it is important to remark that there is a vital difference between divine forgiveness and much of human forgiveness. As a general rule human forgiveness is a matter of leniency, often of laxity. We mean forgiveness is shown at the expense of justice and righteousness. In a human court of law, the judge has to choose between two alternatives: when the one in the dock has been proven guilty, the judge must either enforce the penalty of the law, or he must disregard the requirements of the law—the one is justice, the other is mercy. The only possible way by which the judge can both enforce the requirements of the law and yet show mercy to its offender, is by a third party offering to suffer in his own person the penalty which the convicted one deserves. Thus it was in the divine counsels. God would not exercise mercy at the expense of justice. God, as the judge of all the earth, would not set aside the demands of his holy law. Yet, God would show mercy. How? Through one making full satisfaction to his outraged law. Through his own Son taking the place of all those who believe on him and bearing their sins in his own body on the tree. God could be just and yet merciful, merciful and yet just. Thus it is that “grace reigns through righteousness.”