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The Father's Business Podcast
The Father's Business Podcast
He is-The Character of God: Forgiveness
Divine forgiveness extends beyond mere pardon—it completely erases sin, lifting our guilt and removing our burden as far as the east is from the west. Through Christ's sacrifice on the cross, God demonstrates the lavish nature of His forgiveness, wiping our slate clean rather than keeping a running tally of our transgressions. In today's podcast, we discuss further some of the following:
• God's forgiveness is uniquely divine—He intentionally chooses to remember our sins no more
• Unlike human forgiveness which is often partial or conditional, God's forgiveness is complete and abundant
• We can forgive someone while still holding them accountable for their actions
• We must surrender our right to be judge and jury, allowing God to handle justice His way
• God's forgiveness flows from His covenant relationship with us, not from our merit
• Our identity in Christ means we are completely forgiven—past, present, and future
The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God. I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
Speaker 2:And I am Kimberly Roddy. Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast. We are so glad that you've joined us, hey everybody.
Speaker 1:It's Elizabeth and Kimberly's here too, and we're so excited to invite you to Rooted and Resilient. It's happening October 3rd and 4th in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Speaker 1:We can't wait to see you there.
Speaker 2:Come and join us for Rooted and Resilient Well, welcome everyone. Back to our podcast. We are in a series where we are talking about the theme of he is the character of God, and this week we are going to be talking about the characteristic that he is forgiving. We've been looking at Exodus 34. And in that passage God has just passed in front of Moses and he has proclaimed the Lord. The Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. For now we want to talk about forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.
Speaker 2:That is who God is. His character is true, he is true to His character, and God, the Father, jesus, the Son and the Holy Spirit are forgiving. In Hebrew, the word forgive means uniquely divine, to lift away guilt, to remove the burden of sin, and in the Greek, in the New Testament, the word forgive means to release or to let go, to send away. And when you think about the fact that God has declared to Moses we talked about this in our first week that he is compassionate and gracious, those are the first two characteristics he puts out there and then that he is slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. And then it says he is forgiving. He is forgiving of wickedness, rebellion and sin. I don't often appreciate how forgiving God is.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean by that, elizabeth. Oh, I absolutely know what you mean by that, because my first problem is I don't have a true reality on just how sinful I am. You know I'm a good person, right? You know I'm pretty nice to most people I meet, and so if you're not looking in the mirror at the depths of things that you do on a daily basis that can be offensive to a God, you already don't appreciate the depths of the forgiveness he has given you. Even when you do, and in those moments where I really am overwhelmed by His grace and His mercy, I think sometimes God is a forgiving God. It's just a phrase that just kind of rolls off the lips without really slowing down and just taking a minute to understand. What does it really mean to forgive and to be forgiven?
Speaker 2:And so that's why I'm so excited. We've talked about every week that if God has these characteristics and we are to emulate him and be holy as he is holy, then we are also, fortunately and unfortunately. I mean, the first picture that comes to mind for me is the cross and the resurrection, and that's the crux of it. Right, and if you look in the New Testament, in Acts 3 and 4, peter and John are preaching the crucifixion. Now them preaching the crucifixion then is not like us. Hearing the crucifixion preached today then is not like us hearing the crucifixion preached today. For them, the crucifixion had been days ago, maybe 30, maybe 60, maybe 90, but it had been recent. So they are not like remember back then, remember like 2000, 3000, whatever years ago when the crucifixion happened. No, they are thinking back to days ago, recent times for them, where it was the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. For them it was very fresh and the Holy Spirit has come and he was filling up the believers and it was all very new. And so they are preaching in those days to a Jewish audience. In that moment in the temple, they're preaching forgiveness.
Speaker 2:And in Acts 3.19,. This is what they say. I'll go back up to 17. Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders, but this is how God fulfilled what he foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer Verse 19,. Repent, then, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord and that he may send the Messiah who has been anointed for you even Jesus, right there. Repent and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out. And I think that's what we forget about God's forgiveness. I mean, let's talk about repentance first. Like repentance means I'm doing it my way and I'm going to turn now and not do it my way anymore. I'm going to do it God's way. Okay, so they're preaching repent and turn to God.
Speaker 2:Now they didn't say turn to God and he's going to handle your sins. He's going to talk to you about it, he's going to wrestle with you through it. He's going to, you know, maybe, like, take away one or two sins. No, they said he will wipe out your sin. And that's the part where, on a human standard, on a human level, I am often like, yeah, I'll forgive you for that, but I need to think about it. I need to really make sure I can forgive you for that and I'm like no, this is not on an incremental basis, this is on a huge wipe away, like if you tally all of your sins throughout your life and you have them marked on your wall and then you come in one day and they're gone.
Speaker 2:That's what Jesus did. He didn't say, they didn't say now repent and turn to God, and if you're good for today, he's going to be kind to you for a day. Right, and if you take steps towards him, he's going to take a step towards you. Yeah, no, the gospel, this is the gospel, and the gospel is saying if you turn from your way and you turn to Christ in God, in repentance, the truth is he will wipe your sins out. And that's where I think that Old Testament word of forgive comes in so beautifully when it says it is uniquely divine Because I do not have the human ability or capability to wipe away someone's sin, to lift their guilt, to lift my guilt when I have been hurt or when I have harmed someone and I need forgiveness. So the text is saying here he will blot them out, wipe them away. It's the tsunami effect taking it over and changing the landscape, and I think that's a powerful picture when you really think about it.
Speaker 1:Oh, it definitely is, because as you're talking, kimberly, I'm even thinking about when someone has done something wrong to me and I do choose to forgive them. Like you say, the incident is not erased, it's still there and there's a part of me that takes you know. I feel it's very biblical because Jesus said it Go and sin no more attitude that I have, which is I will forgive you, but if you do this again, then I'm waiting to get you and I will not forgive you twice. And it's almost like God intentionally has memory loss. God intentionally has memory loss and if he's blotting it out and it is as far as the East, is from the West, and it is remembered no more and it is sent away from us and so that it's no longer even associated, when he looks at Kimberly, when he looks at Elizabeth, he doesn't associate with us past sins that we've done, because they've been blotted out.
Speaker 1:Like you said, the board has been wiped clean.
Speaker 1:And how refreshing it would be in our own human relationships if we could have that kind of relationship, because we're going to hurt each other In a friendship, in a marriage, you're going to bump up against each other.
Speaker 1:But wouldn't it be awesome if, when you hurt someone and they truly forgave you, it's like it never happened. And we can have that on a cosmic level with a God who, at the same time, knows all things, knows my every thought, knows every attitude of my heart, sees more ugly in me than anyone else will ever see, because I can put on a good show when I need to on the outside, but my attitude could be completely rotten on the inside. And God sees all of that and yet still treats me as if the board is wiped clean. And that is abundant forgiveness, that is abundant love, that is abundant grace, that is abundant mercy. And so, for each of these characteristics that we keep talking about, we talk about how much he lavishes His love upon us, and I think oftentimes I forget to add into that. I'm like, oh yes, god loves me and he lavishes me with love, and I feel accepted and safe. I think sometimes I forget to add into that the lavishness of his forgiveness towards us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm thinking of Micah 7, verse 18. It says who is a God like you who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy. Going back to the crucifixion, when they drove the nails through Jesus's feet, through his hands, when they mocked him, they spit on him, they cussed at him, they jeered at him, they tore him apart. He was dying.
Speaker 2:So this holy son of God is dying for our sins, for the sins of the world, and even one of the men on the cross next to him realizes it. Right, right, yeah, what Luke records is that Jesus looks down at the crowd and what does he say? He says, father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. That's lavish, amazing, abundant forgiveness. Yes, that's a holy God through a perfect son who is like. I'm extending it to you and offering you in the midst of you, tearing me apart, right, and that's in Psalm 103. You were just referencing this. Extending it to you and offering you in the midst of you, tearing me apart, and that's in Psalm 103, you were just referencing this.
Speaker 2:The Lord is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. He wiped them out. It's abundant, it's overflowing, it's taken away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know there are certain faiths out there that are very much a works-oriented. I ran into this a lot when I was working in Romania and some of the East Orthodox religions over there. Oftentimes what you would see, either in a mural painted on the wall or even actually at the front of the church, was a scale, and the scale was there to remind you that your good deeds better outweigh your bad deeds by the end of your life, to make sure you know where you're going and just the weight of that being on us versus this lavish forgiveness that you're talking about, what grace and freedom there is when it's like it doesn't matter. I mean, do I want to live a life of godliness? Yes, but my salvation isn't based on how many good deeds I can perform to make sure the scale is going to tip one way instead of the other. It is that lavish love that on the cross said even now, I mean because I would not really be in a forgiving mood if I was being crucified for something that I didn't do.
Speaker 1:You know the human side of me, I understand he was fully God and fully man. But the man side of Jesus, there's got to have been that temptation to him to say you know what, wipe them all out. Go ahead, just call down fire and just wipe them all out for what they're doing to me. But even in that moment he was forgive them because they don't understand. If they knew what they were doing, they wouldn't do it and they don't understand. There was such compassion and forgiveness in his heart all the way to the cross.
Speaker 2:I had this thought while you were talking about the measurements on the wall, and I had this thought of like there are times where I'm minding my own business. And I had this thought of like there are times where I'm minding my own business. I may be reading my Bible, listening to a podcast that's a sermon, or driving in the car doing whatever.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I'll have that thought of hey, remember that time in 1997 when you blah, blah, blah, right, and I think, I think, well, did I ask forgiveness for that? Uh, yeah and yeah, and is that our first thought? Our first thought is on us and what we did right, and I go, okay, no, that's the. The thought is I'm in christ First off. I'd say that's the enemy trying to take us apart, right, and trying to tear us out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds a lot like shame.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's his voice. But I also need to shift my perspective of hey, god, thank you for forgiving that. Now, if there's something I need to deal with, I need to deal with it. Sure, obviously, but often I think two things. One, the enemy is trying to throw shame at us to knock us off our game of honoring God and living in that abundant forgiveness. And two, I tend to go back to workspace thinking of I need to do more to be forgiven for that. I need to show God how much I need to be forgiven for that, rather than receiving and sitting in his abundant provision of forgiveness for me as his child who's already claimed I have been forgiven by God Right Now. Now, let's talk about that too, cause, like we, that doesn't mean like we never have to ask for forgiveness again. Sure, what does that look like, elizabeth? What does it look like to know that we are forgiven but to also live in a place where we have to continue to ask for forgiveness when it comes to God?
Speaker 1:I think it is that relationship piece that he wants with us, that he wants us to come and keep on coming to receive from Him. But also, Kimberly, if you and I in our relationship, if I continually do things that offend you and I never circle back around and say I need to ask your forgiveness for that, eventually that's going to tear the relationship apart. And so I think I see forgiveness not only as a holiness and sanctification issue, and the Holy Spirit is very good at tapping us on the shoulder or nudging us in the heart and going hey, that response there, how you handled that. You know what you did there. That's not in line with who God has called you to be. But it's also a relational piece. If I want to have an intimate relationship with God, then I need to be coming and keep on coming to him, as it says in the abiding verses of John 15. And so asking forgiveness is part of that. It is also, in my eyes, a form of worship, because I'm continuing to come back to the only one who is able to forgive me and asking for forgiveness. But going back to the example you were given of being in the car and all of a sudden you're thinking about something you did back in 1997. To the example you were given of being in the car and all of a sudden you're thinking about something you did back in 1997. Yeah, I mean God, if I have not. If this is you trying to convict me of something, then I'm going to be quick to repent of that.
Speaker 1:But, as you said, so often when I have those same feelings it is either shame coming from the enemy or it's my own inner critic, because I'm really good at being very harsh and very judgmental with myself. And there have been times when the conversation I've had to have with God sounded a little like God. You know, I'm struggling. I remember that time. I really blew it 10 years ago when I did something stupid or I said the wrong thing to the person, and it's almost as if God's like what are you talking about? What, what, what you know, and jokingly with me, kind of like no, I don't remember any of that, Because it's been forgiven, it's been blotted out and so giving me permission to also go, you know what, Okay, if you want to ask me forgiveness again for that, you can, but that's not on the ledger.
Speaker 1:That's not on the ledger. That's not what I'm thinking about when I see you. When I look at you, I see my beloved daughter, in whom I'm well pleased, and so we just have to keep. The forgiveness piece to me is much more relationally driven and holiness driven. Those are the two kind of threads that kind of get woven together. I want to show my reverence for him by showing him that I always want to strive to meet his holy standard, but also I want to ask forgiveness so that he and I are in right relationship with one another.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really good, and that's where we have to remember too there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It's scriptural right, and so we can carry the weighted backpack of shame and guilt and condemnation, or we can remember that Christ has taken that for us. So we can clearly see, through this conversation, the contrast between human forgiveness, which is not sure we really want to do it, it's partial versus God's forgiveness, which is abundant, complete, joyful. But I think the next question then is how does forgiveness shape not only our relationship with God but our posture towards others? And I think that's where we go back to Ephesians 4.32 as one place in Scripture where Paul says be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, god forgave you.
Speaker 2:One practical application that I think flows out of this is forgiveness is not just sweeping something under the rug. I think for some people they don't like conflict, and so they don't want to deal with something, or they don't like you can like, not like a number of things, to not want to deal with forgiveness, but oftentimes we just want to. Let's just not deal with, let's just sweep it under the rug. Well, that can't happen over and over and over again.
Speaker 2:So if you have a tendency to sweep things under the rug, then in some ways I would say the enemy is already working on you, because you're tending to think, well, it doesn't need to be forgiven or they don't need to be held accountable, and you kind of take that almost an orphan heart or victim mindset position, which is like they'll be fine, I don't need to forgive them. Or if you're on the offending side, you don't want to face what you've done. So I mean, I think this is real. So where forgiveness truly not sweeping things under the rug and where forgiveness gets real, I think for me, I really wrestled with this when I had to walk through this. I had to walk through forgiving my dad for some things after he was already, after he had already passed away.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I remember, shortly after my dad passed away and I was still I mean, you're just, I'm wrestling with some things in my late twenties, early thirties and I went to this Christian counselor who was really helpful in walking me through some things and one of the questions he asked me he said let's look at Colossians 2. And I want you to answer the question how did God forgive us? And I'm reading Colossians 2 and I'm like, okay, when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, god made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins. Okay, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us, he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
Speaker 2:At the beginning of that verse it says when you it's verse 13, chapter 2, verse 13, when you were dead in your sins, god made you alive with Christ. And I was like, okay, how did God forgive me? He made me alive in Christ. So one of the things that this counselor was trying to say to me is like when you are trapped in unforgiveness, you are wrapped up like a mummy. That's the picture I had and I thought okay, I don't want to spend the rest of my life wrapped up like a mummy, because I didn't get to work through some things with my dad or my mom or whoever it is in your life, right.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:I thought I don't want to live that way. I want to choose to forgive them because I want to be alive and as a mummy, I feel dead. So the first thing that we have to do is acknowledge the hurt.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And that means that we can't sweep it under the rug. The hurt, and that means that we can't sweep it under the rug. And so I just I think, as a practical application of forgiving others, as Christ forgave us, if you're on the side where you're the one who needs to be forgiving others, you don't have to say they don't need to be held accountable. You don't have to say they're dead. You don't have to say they're not in my story anymore. How can I forgive them? There are ways you can do that. It's not the same as going and talking to them, but there are ways to process that and walk through forgiveness and pretend you're talking to them. So part of what that does is it's releasing yourself from being in bondage.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It's releasing yourself from being wrapped up like a mummy, because the truth is, if something has been important enough to cause you to feel like you need to forgive someone, it's worth dealing with it and not just sweeping it under the rug. Does that make sense, elizabeth?
Speaker 1:Oh, that totally makes sense and, as you said, the imagery of you were wrapped up like a mummy. I'm like, I feel claustrophobic, like you can't move your arms and your legs. There's a lack of freedom there. When you're wrapped up in that unforgiveness and it's something that's been said a lot but that doesn't make it any less true which is unforgiveness doesn't hurt the person you're not forgiving. Yeah, the only person that holds in bondage is you, because for a lot of us, we are holding unforgiveness in our heart towards someone, and it could be for very legitimate hurt, and that's, I know, something Kimberly that you and I have said on this podcast many times before Just because you say I forgive you does not mean it was okay that it happened, right, but it's a choice that we're making there. But when I hold on to unforgiveness because I want to make the other person pay nine times out of 10, that other person doesn't even know that I'm holding on to unforgiveness in my heart and so the only one who's paying for it is me. Because I'm living with this bitterness and this resentment and this anger and this unhealed wound in my own heart, because I want to hold on to unforgiveness because somehow that gives me some feeling of control or revenge or all these words that we talk about when we've been harmed. And so it's getting to a place where we say I'm willing to release my control of this situation, I'm willing to release what happens to the other person that's involved in this situation because I want my own heart to be whole.
Speaker 1:There's several times this is something I don't think we've brought up in the podcast yet, but this Exodus 34, 6, 7 passage shows up in Scripture over and over and over. They keep repeating it. There's at least 25. There's more than that. I think. I haven't gone through to count them all, but I know of at least 25 different times in Scripture that the verse describing who God is is repeated, and I love reading through some of those.
Speaker 1:And the one in Nehemiah 9, 17 says but you are forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love. Therefore, you did not desert them. But if you read down into the Amplified Version, which is one of my favorite versions, this really kind of got me this week. It says but you are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful. That is his posture. His posture is I'm being ready to pardon, being gracious and merciful and that really convicted me of I need to live a life, of a posture that I am prone towards forgiveness rather than I am prone to protecting myself. I'm prone to making you pay for the way that you have hurt me, and so the conversation God and I've been having this week is okay. Where in my life am I not prone towards leaning towards forgiveness, being lavish in my forgiveness, versus trying to, out of self-protection, hold on to unforgiveness so that I don't get hurt again?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and again we want to be clear, as we've talked about this stuff before too if there is something egregious that's happened to you or is happening to you, we're not saying that you stay in that situation and say, well, I'm supposed to give that person and just go on from here and forgive them. That is not what we are saying.
Speaker 1:No, not at all.
Speaker 2:We want to be crystal clear about that. If there needs to be accountability, if somebody needs to, if the authorities need to be told, then all means bring in the authorities. The law has been broken, Take care of it. So and understand forgiveness and accountability are not the same. You can forgive somebody and still hold them accountable for what they've done. Okay, so forgiveness is starting with this attitude of the heart. One of the things that I wrestled with early on when I was in my 20s. Early on in this truly understanding forgiveness and being wrapped up like a mommy and that kind of thing, One of the things I realized was like first, I've got to acknowledge that the hurt happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I have to acknowledge how it made me feel yeah, I need to release the person from the debt that they owe me and not hold them in bondage to that. And then I need to accept them and release them to Christ, and I need to look to Christ for Christ to meet my need for security, love and acceptance. Right, yes, and then the last thing is, if God allows it, I have to be willing to be heard again.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Again, I'm not saying this in the context of what I just said. Okay, right, if there's something egregious that's happened that does not apply here, right, I just want to be crystal clear about that. Take that in for a minute. But in the context of, like Elizabeth and I, if we hurt each other, if we acknowledge the hurt, we don't sweep it under the rug, we work to release the person, accept the person unconditionally, then in the relationship we also are willing to be hurt again if God allows it, because we have a forgiving attitude, we have a forgiving heart, right, and it's a good, healthy, honoring relationship. What this means is you are relinquishing your right to be the judge and jury for that person. Judge and jury for that person, and we know Elizabeth and I will be the first people up here to go. That is incredibly hard. I am very much about justice and I like to take things into my own hands.
Speaker 2:In Romans 12, starting in verse 14, this is what we read Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but this is what we read. So we got to leave room for God's wrath.
Speaker 1:I'm going to struggle with Kimberly, because there is also a place where I don't forgive and live at peace with all people, just to leave room for God's wrath, and that that that is the Elizabeth tendency. Well then, I will do this because I am being promised that God is going to get you. Um, but what we've also got to be okay with is what if God's version of justice looks very different than what we want it to be? And we've got many examples of that in the Bible. I think Jonah is the first one that pops into my head. He's like no, I don't want to go to Nineveh and preach, because they're going to repent and then you're going to forgive them, and I have a very Jonah heart sometimes about situations and so— Well, and I think about oh, sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2:I think about the thief on the cross. Many people say, well, he got to live his life the way he wanted. There in the last minute he's like all right, jesus, take me into heaven Please. I see it, I believe it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And and there's a part of me that feels that's unfair because other people lived by the law, believed in Jesus, was a follower of him, made sacrifices on his behalf, and they both ended up in the same place. Well then you even go to the parable of the laborers, the one that worked all day in the field versus the ones that showed up at the last hour. So if we try to fit God's justice, his wrath, his version of revenge into our human mind, it's not going to work. Because we've just, at the beginning of this podcast, talked about how lavish his forgiveness is, how lavish his love is, his grace, his compassion, his faithfulness, and all of us have situations where it's like it'll be so great the day I see that person get what's coming to them.
Speaker 1:We've all had that thought at some point in our life, whether it's someone we know, or it may even be someone in the public sphere that we don't even know, but they're going to get what's coming to them kind of attitude that is cultivated in this culture, because good people are supposed to win and bad people are supposed to lose, and so there is this place. Of my part is to live at peace with all people, to be prone towards forgiveness of others, to have my heart in a rightful place, knowing that there is assurance in that verse that God will take care of what God needs to take care of. But I also even have to surrender my right to know how God's taking care of it, and that's really hard, because I want to be assured that it really is going to be taken care of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, elizabeth, I will say for sure that, like if someone, if I have to face the reality of this person, might hurt me again or if this person might never change, then I'm like I don't want in this forgiveness game. Yeah, but I don't. How am I really going to know that God's going to take care of that? Because I think I know how it should be taken care of and I definitely want to distance myself and again, at times that's appropriate. But like I mean, I can have that feeling, I could have that feeling with you or with you have that feeling with your spouse at times, like do you really want to enter into this relationship and stay in it when it's it's a beautiful relationship, but it's hard because it's a relationship of humans, Right yeah.
Speaker 1:And then there's this whole idea of God's wrath, which that feels almost contradictory, because we've just been talking about how lavish God's forgiveness is and how compassionate and gracious, and wiping the slate clean and all these types of things. But you go back to our passage that we started the series on in Exodus 34, 6 and 7. And right after it says he forgives the wickedness, the rebellion and the sin. It continues on in that same verse. He says yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished, which that is some of that, I think a comforting thought that we're just talking about here, Kimberly, where it's like I need to know that justice is going to come. If I'm not going to do it, God better show up, right. But it says he punishes the children and their children for the sins of their parents to the third and fourth generations. And now I'm like, now, hold on a minute. That doesn't feel very just either, because now I'm being punished for something my grandparents did. What's going on in this verse? And so I really have been wrestling with this and struggling, and this is not a new thing that people have struggled with and what we have to understand, because this verse, every other time it's quoted.
Speaker 1:In the Old Testament, like I said, there's over 25 times where the biblical writers pick up on this verse and they quote it or they rework it a little bit, but the same elements of who God is are repeated. It really was kind of the mantra, for lack of a better term. It was the covenant statement of these people about who God was for them. Every other time this one is used, it's never in connection with God's wrath. It's always like yep, you've screwed up again, we're in exile again, but God is going to be gracious and compassionate to us and he will take care of those who have not been gracious with us, but he's going to be forgiving to you for your rebellion and he's going to take care of the others. And what we have to fully understand is a lot of people take this and run with a whole theology about generational curses I'm not saying that there are not, not of God that's running through my family tree. I want to be the first one to say no more, Let Jesus handle this and take this out of the family line. But these verses don't justify assuming that everything is a generational curse, because it's actually referring back a little bit.
Speaker 1:Go back to Exodus 20, when God gives Moses the Ten Commandments the first time, because there it says the iniquities of the Father upon the children, to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. And now that phrase is not repeated in Exodus 34, but Moses is referring back to that and you got to understand. He came down the mountain with the 10 commandments once, and the first commandment is you should have no other God before me. And the second one is you should not, don't make up yourself any images in the form of anything in heaven, above the earth, below the earth, all that. And don't bow down and worship anything. And not just 14 chapters later. Here we are and they, just 14 chapters later, here we are and they've already broken the first two commandments.
Speaker 1:And Moses has gone back up on the mountain to meet with God. And Moses is pleading on behalf of the people and reminding him hey, you know, please give us another shot. And God is because he's saying let's write down the commandments again. And he's introducing himself and he's saying to them I'm compassionate, I'm gracious, I am slow to anger, because if it were me and I'd given you 10 simple rules to live by and within the first couple of weeks you break one into. Which are the two big ones, in my opinion. I'm not going to be very gracious, I'm not going to be compassionate, I'm not going to be abounding in love, I'm not going to be slow to anger, and so he's presenting himself in all of these things.
Speaker 1:And so when it turns, it's kind of this promise of if you will be the same, if you will be compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving to those around you. And forgiving to those around you, I will take care of the iniquity and the disobedience and the other things of those that do not follow me, of those who hate me. But what you got to compare that to is that is only for the second and third generation. But his blessings, his promises, his love, all the other stuff we've talked about, goes for a thousand generations. And so we need to hold in that tension that we don't want to abuse God's grace, compassion, forgiveness towards us and just say I can live however I want to, because he's going to forgive me, without holding also the other truth, which is he will me, without holding also the other truth, which is he will.
Speaker 1:There will be justice, there will be wrath for those that are not followers of him, and, at the same time, we don't need to live in fear of a holy God whose all he is is wrath, Because, remember we're in Exodus, we're at the very beginning of God's people being brought out of Egypt, and what have they seen?
Speaker 1:We're at the very beginning of God's people being brought out of Egypt, and what have they seen? Moses goes away for a while and he's up on a mountain and there's thunder and there's lightning, and there's all of this glory and holiness and big, powerful, majestic God things going on around these people, and so I don't think they needed to be scared into God being angry at them. I think they needed to be reminded that he is forgiveness, that that is his character and he cannot go against who he is and, at the same time, he will not be mocked. And that is that beautiful tension, Kimberly, that I think you and I get to live in is that we get to enjoy the lavish forgiveness of God, and it does pour. It is so abundant that it will flow down to a thousand generations, as they say in the scriptures. But he is not to be taken lightly and there is a holy standard that does need to be accounted for and thank God for Jesus that he accounts for that standard for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, elizabeth, I do think there's these tensions right between God's holiness and his love and compassion and grace we talk about. There's tension between truth and justice and mercy. I think in Exodus we also see that God was gracious with them. He did not destroy them. He showed up and he said I'm compassionate and gracious. But what we also see is the Israelites had to walk through the desert for 40 years and there are consequences that God, in his holiness and in his rightness and in his justness, does declare.
Speaker 2:And in all of this, I keep thinking he is a covenant-keeping God and so forgiveness is covenantal. It's tied to His steadfast love, to His commitment to us, not to our merit, and that's where we have to remember. This is the character of God. He is a forgiving God, he's the forgiver. Whether we accept that or receive it or not doesn't change the fact that he is the one who forgives. Our response is not based on his character. His character is his character period. His character is his character period. So it's an incredible gift. We don't get it for free. He paid a great price to give it to us. He paid a great price to say I forgive you, your guilt is removed, it is wiped away. Your sins are forgiven.
Speaker 2:I think the question we can ask ourselves this week is how can we savor his forgiveness rather than just accepting it and moving on? How do we savor it? And so, as we're trying to do every week in this series, we encourage you to look for God's forgiveness this week and to savor his forgiveness, to think about and believe the price he really paid, all the implications of that, that his forgiveness is uniquely divine and where do you see that forgiveness showing up for you? That blows you away. And we'll encourage all of us this week to live in our own human relationships out of that forgiveness and the ways and the relationships that are appropriate to do so. So, as always, you can find us on social media. You can contact us through our website. Share these stories with us. We long to hear how you see the forgiveness of God abundantly blessing you. So share that with us, and we look forward to being with you next time.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast. This podcast is made possible through donations by people like you. To donate, go to wwwTheFathersBusinesscom. Be sure to follow us at the Father's Biz on Instagram and Facebook.
