From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part 3 of a series. Read part 2.

In his powerful sermon, "Who Is A Pardoning God Like Thee?", Archibald Brown next addresses this great question: Who but our God pardons so willingly? He draws the answer from accounts in the Gospel records.

"Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage?" Micah 7:18

It is almost difficult to decide which calls for loudest praise, the pardon or the way in which the pardon is bestowed. Not only is God incomparable in the forgivenesses He has, but also in the way He gives them.

Human pardons are generally spoiled in the mode of bestowal. The bloom of their beauty is lost by the hot hand that holds them so long before it parts with them. Too often man's pardon is only the result of long pleading. It never gushed forth towards the guilty one with holy alacrity, but was wrung out by many an argument and plea; then when it came how ungracious was it in its language.

Who, among us, has not known what it is to be forgiven in such a way that we felt more miserable after the pardon than before, and inwardly resolved we would never ask another from the man. Henry Ward Beecher has well said "there is an ugly kind of forgiveness in this world - a kind of hedgehog forgiveness, shot out like quills. Men take one who has offended them and set him down before the blow-pipe of their indignation, and scorch him, and burn his fault into him, and when they have kneaded him with their fiery fists, then they forgive him."

How different the manner of our God - how infinitely higher in this matter are His ways than our ways. I will show you an illustration or two of how the Lord forgives. Our Savior is sitting at meat in the house of Simon the Pharisee, when a woman comes timidly to the door. The woman is too well known, her shame has been her living. She is a sinner - a woman of the town. Respectable morality will "Make a wide sweep, lest she wander too nigh."

She is fallen, and sanctimonious Phariseeism would lose its caste if it was weak enough to pity. Something tells this poor creature that Jesus may be ventured nigh; perhaps she has marked a look of deep compassion on His face as she has passed Him in the streets, and that look has broke the heart - at all events she comes to where he is, and bending over His feet upon the couch, big tears begin to fall. The bold look of the past has gone, she can but sob as she remembers it. Her tears wet those blessed feet she has come to anoint with ointment, so stooping down, she uses her long tresses to wipe them.

The host at the head of the table looks on with scorn, He seems to have known the woman well, and says within himself "If he were a prophet he would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him." Jesus perceives his thoughts, rebukes him, and then turning to the weeping sinner, says, "Thy sins are forgiven; go in peace." O the exquisite tenderness of our Lord in giving that guilty soul its pardon.

Yet again. The scribes and Pharisees bring unto Him one day a woman taken in adultery. Here is, if anything, a greater sinner than the last. They demand that she should be stoned to death and ask His approval of the sentence. Appearing to be occupied in writing on the ground he only for a moment looks up to say, "He that is without sin, let him first cast a stone at her." Convicted in their own consciences, they leave one by one, until only the woman remains. Jesus looks up again from the ground, and says to that guilty wife, "Hath no man condemned thee?" and she said "No man, Lord." "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more." Could anything be more delicately done? Could reproof and pardon be more sweetly blended?

Would you yet know, dear friends, how God forgives? Then take His own picture in the parable of the prodigal son, and there in every line you will behold the beauty of His pardon. In the father who sees the prodigal "afar off," who "has compassion," who "runs," who "kisses," who interrupts even the confession of guilt, and puts on the best robe at once; in all these things I behold my God who is "ready to forgive," and am compelled to sing

"Who is a pardoning God like Thee?
Or who has grace so rich and free?"

Next: Who Pardons So Frequently?

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