A BLESSED LIFE: Total Forgiveness

“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” – Psalm 32:1-2

Four words and pictures are used to describe and portray our miserable state as fallen creatures before God.

The first word is “transgression”. In the Hebrew language, this word portrays us as rebels against God’s rule and authority. It carries with it the idea that we are in revolt against a legitimate government of God over our lives. We are in a state of mutiny, like pirates taking over a ship they neither built, bought, nor own. And to be forgiven by God means that we have renounced our claims to self-government and have renounced every usurping government we placed ourselves under, and that God has taken us back fully under his rule, restoring our rights and citizens of his kingdom and children in his family. The forgiven are blessed.

The second word is “sin”. In the Hebrew language, this word portrays us as offenders in God’s sight. It carries with it the idea that we are offensive to God, as when a healthy man looks down a broken toilet and sees the excrement that has been in there for days, or as when a learned man listens to the empty babblings of the ignorant, or as when a grown man is spoken to like a child by a child. Take any scenario in which you have found something offensive and multiply it by infinity and you will arrive at the offensiveness of the sinner before God. And to be forgiven by God means the offensiveness is removed, that it is no longer present to disgust God, but is replaced by a righteousness that God can look at and delight in.

The third word is “iniquity”. In the Hebrew language, this word portrays us as perverse against God’s design. It carries with it the idea that we are perverted, that whatever God had in mind when he designed us is unsatisfactory to us until we pervert it. We take everything God made for his glory and pervert its purpose and its function, whether it is relationships, intelligence, power, wealth, energy, health, sexuality, parenting, work, emotions, words, worship, ethnicity, nationality, and a whole host of other things. We refer to those who prey on children or take advantage of other for their own sexual pleasure as perverts, but our perversion is in all things, not just sexuality, and there is not one of us that can stand before God on our own terms without being certified as perverse. And to be forgiven by God means to be pardoned for all the good things from God we pervert for our own selfish ends.

The fourth word is “deceit”, which in the Hebrew language portrays us as traitors. We stand before God as those for whom God has done much good, only to be repaid with treason. We have betrayed God. We had a deal, and we broke it. We had a bond, and we severed it. We stabbed God in the back. And to be forgiven by God means to be pardoned for all our acts of saying one thing to and before God and betraying him by doing another. It also means ending our life of secrecy and evasive action from God, for when our treachery is forgiven, our treacherous tendency to hide things from God is ended.

Oh to be totally forgiven for all your acts of rebellion, all your offensiveness, all your perversion, and all your treachery! Oh to have God look at you for all eternity, and though knowing all your rebellions, offenses, perversions, and treacheries, to find that he doesn’t count any of them against you! And it is not because you never did those things, but because they are now counted against another who took your place in the guilty box. To have and live a forgiven life is to have a blessed life.