Forgiven ...

Friday, March 18, 2011. One key point of Christianity is forgiveness. “You are forgiven” … one of the sentences which Jesus repeats many times according to the stories of the New Testament.

Forgiven …

Usually, our perception of forgiveness and in particular of our need to be forgiven can very significantly. There are days, or even years, when we think that forgiveness is not needed. We life, we have our job, we carry out our hobbies, we go into cinemas or some leisure centers in the evening or at the weekend. What for do we need forgiveness?

There are other days, when our sense of the need for forgiveness is much stronger. When something went wrong. When we feel pain or when we suffer. When we are sorry about something we have done. When we messed up completely with another person or with some job we took, but were not able to carry it out adequately.

The need for forgiveness can be personal - related to another human. Then, we can go to him, in principle, and ask for forgiveness. We can say: “I am sorry”. We can go and ask him to forgive us. That can be an important point to restart our relationship, to start with a clean background. Often, relationships which start with forgiveness can gain quite some depth.

Forgiveness in Jesus …

The New Testament offers forgiveness “in Jesus”. The point is that it claims that in his life and death God offers his forgiveness to us. What ever we do, where ever we fail, when we feel completely lost, we can get forgiveness just by going to the Lord and asking for it in the name of Jesus.

The forgiveness in Jesus is both a simple and highly complex topic. It is simple, since we just need to ask for forgiveness, as it is stated in the Lord's prayer: “forgive us our sins” (Matthew 6 or Luke 11). It is complex, since usually we have many questions. How can it be? Why guilt before God? What are the rules according to which sin is measured?

The forgiveness in Jesus is linked to his death. Here, where life was completely terminated, new life can start. There is a complete stop, and then a resurrection, new life, something completely different starts on the Easter day. Forgiveness is not only looking into the past, but also into the future. ... more texts