It is instructive to think how the idea of pardon for sin broke upon the human mind in the earliest ages of time; how step by step it developed itself and brought forth the fruits of peace, love and trust towards God.
We do not get a full view of this subject until we consider how slow the human heart is to admit this wonderful idea. Whether we ascribe this slowness of heart to believe in a pardoning God to that oppressive sense of ill desert which just views of our sin are sure to beget, or to the consciousness that we are by no means inclined naturally to forgive those who have wronged us—whence we are prone to infer that God must naturally feel a like aversion to pardon; or whether it be due to the instincts of justice which are spontaneous in all intelligent minds, the fact cannot be denied that such pardon as we need from God does naturally strike us as being wonderful, not to say strange. No honest mind ever yet saw its own sins in their true light without having this impression strongly made by that view, viz., that mercy equal to the pardon of such sin must be exceeding great. Now in the light of this great fact let us trace the development of the idea of pardon as it revealed itself under the ancient dispensation.
One day each year was set apart especially as a great day of atonement. No other day was so solemn as this. On this day only might the High Priest enter the Most Holy place and appear before the mercy seat where the glorious presence of Jehovah was made visible to mortal eyes. Before he might enter he must needs purify himself with special solemnities. He must bear the blood of a sinless animal slain in sacrifice, to make atonement first for his own sins, before he could offer for the sins of the people. Then two goats are brought before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle; lots are cast upon them; one is thus indicated for sacrifice and the other for a scape-goat. The blood of the former is borne into the most holy place and sprinkled there seven times upon the mercy-seat. Upon the latter, Aaron, acting for all the people, lays both his hands and confesses over him "all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and then sends him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness." Thus by a solemn institution engrafted into that significant system of purification and sacrifices did the Lord provide a perpetual memorial of the way in which sin might be forgiven, and also taken away, so as to be remembered against the sinner no more at all forever. How impressive must this solemn transaction have been to those broken hearted penitents who were longing for some manifestation of divine mercy towards them in the pardon and removal of their sins!
King David had often gone up with the multitude that kept this holy day of atonement. One bitter hour he had occasion to remember the lessons of those yearly days of atonement. It was when Nathan the prophet brought to his mind his great sin in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah. Perhaps it was his remembrance of those days that saved him from sinking into hopeless despair under his sense of awful guilt. The hope inspired by those symbols of pardoning mercy drew him near to God, and breathed forth from his heart those strains of broken prayer: "Have mercy upon me, O, God, according to thy loving kindness; according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions." It was a most blessed truth, taught even under that dispensation—God can forgive. This truth rings out with clear and blessed tone in many of the songs of Christian experience in those ancient days. Here is one from Psalm ciii.
"The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him."
It strikes us as specially beautiful that in Isa. lv, where the prophet exhorts to repentance and promises free pardon from the Lord, and the Lord himself breaks in to endorse the promise, and to rule out of our souls the inference that unbelief is prone to draw from our thoughts to God's thoughts. Isaiah was saying, "seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God for he will abundantly pardon."
Thus far the prophet, speaking indeed for God, but yet the words are his. He had spoken strongly for his God, of the richness of his mercy, and of his great readiness to pardon; and it might be a question in some minds whether God himself would endorse it all. This question is soon put to rest. The Lord himself interposes, not only to endorse all Isaiah had said but to forestall that impulse of unbelief that prompts the suggestion—how can it be that God should forgive sin so great as mine when I know it never was in my thoughts to forgive those whose wrongs against me were not to be named along side of my great wrongs against him.
"For my thoughts," says Jehovah himself, "are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." Judge not my thoughts by yours. Bring not my mercy down to the grade of yours.
"For as the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." So we may bid away from our heart that argument for unbelief, and repose in the certainty that the mercy of the Lord is above the heavens!
That this forgiving mercy of the Lord is surpassingly wonderful, and that it puts forgiven sin forever away is admirably said by Micah just at the close of his prophecy.
"Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."
These words—"wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea"—come to us freighted with a blessed truth—just the same which appears in Jeremiah xxxi. 34, and which is quoted in Heb. viii. "Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." Verily there is sweet comfort in this idea that the sins we have been so deeply ashamed of, and which we wish could forever cease to be our own, may be so forgiven as to be cast into the depths of the sea, never to be seen again. No wonder the prophet cries out, "Who is a God like unto thee," to pardon so, to forgive sin so fully, and cause it to pass away, even almost as if it had never been! Must we not suppose that our gracious Father longs to restore to our torn bosoms the confidence of love and trust and everlasting friendship? This fulness of pardon is the most blessed element in it. O, it gives us such proof of God's deep sincerity when he forgives! It so reveals the love of his heart! Why should not all this sinning race be drawn home to the bosom of such forgiving love? — Ob. Evan.