Not Why but How?

by Rick Thompson

One of the questions I get asked a lot goes something like this:

"Why did God have to pay such a high price for my sin? I know I am sinful, but does it really require that Jesus die on a cross to forgive? Why couldn't God just say 'I forgive you' and that be the end of it?"

It really is a perplexing question if we don't think through our understanding of the nature of God. We all have a tendency to place human-like qualities onto God to help us embrace our understanding of Him. But this is not possible when trying to understand a Holy eternal creator God. God is so much greater than us, so much "other than we are" that to try to describe His qualities is a little like an ant at a picnic trying to ascertain human philosophy.

In our world people forgive all the time. If someone offends me and comes to me and says "I'm sorry, will you forgive me?" It is very easy for me to say "Of course- you are forgiven!"

But I am not God.

To just "let sin go" would make Him less than a Holy and Just God. And if we really thought about it and admitted to it, we would all have to say that none of us wants any less than a purely Holy and Righteous God who is not like us.

Last week I reread the book "Why I am Christian" by John R.W. Stott and found this great passage that explains this truth much better than I could:

The cross of Christ is the only basis on which God can forgive sins. By why, an impatient critic will immediately object, should our forgiveness depend on Christ's death? Why does God not simply forgive us, without the necessity of the cross? "God will pardon me" Heinrich Heine protested, "that is His metier (specialty). After all, the objecter might continue, if we sin against each other, we are required to forgive one another. So why should God not practice what He preaches? Why should He not be as generous as He expects us to be? (The answer) was given by Anselm, the arch bishop of Canterbury at the end of the eleventh century. He wrote in his magnificent book, Why God Became Man, "You have not yet considered the majesty of God". To draw an analogy of our forgiveness of each other and God's forgiveness of us is very superficial. We are not God but private individuals, while He is the maker of the heavens and the earth, creator of the very laws we break. Our sins are not merely personal injuries but a willful rebellion against Him. It is when we begin to see the gravity of sin and the majesty of God that our questions change. No longer do we ask why God finds it difficult to forgive sins but how He finds it possible. As one writer has put it, "forgiveness is to man the plainest of duties; to God it is the profoundest of problems."