he idea of a God who is merciful and forgiving can be very appealing for some. But some people struggle with the fact that God can forgive the whole range of sins that people are capable of committing. It is possible for God to forgive people of the most heinous acts if they turn to God in repentance; seek His forgiveness, choose to turn 180 degrees and live a different life with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. You see, God forgives to transform. He doesn’t forgive in order to just turn a blind eye to people’s wrongdoing. God offers forgiveness for sin but He also gives the forgiven person a new heart and the power to live a life obeying the commands of God from the heart.

Imagine God forgiving someone of something like rape or murder; violent crimes, armed bank robbery, adultery, fraud….. It might seem unjust for God to forgive such acts. How can a God of justice also be a forgiving God? Why would God choose to forgive sinners who are undeserving of His kindness?

We as human beings have a tendency to rate sins. Some seem more serious than others…. For example, something like a rape or a murder seems far more serious than lying or petty crime. We might think that God allows people into heaven if they have lived moral lives, or been relatively good during their lives. However, God has a totally different standard to this. God sees all sin as serious. All sin separates human beings from God. All sins stand between humans and the Holy living God.

So, if you are a liar, a cheat, a petty thief or have lustful thoughts you probably think that your sins can be overlooked by God because they are not too serious. Maybe you think, that you have too much to drink sometimes, use soft drugs or that you can be promiscuous at times, but that overall you are not too bad a person. If this is the case, you might be tempted to take the moral high ground and judge people who are guilty of sins that you consider more serious. After all, you are not a murderer right?

The bad news is, God sees your sin as just as serious. You see God is Holy. He is perfect. He is completely without sin. He cannot allow you to approach Him and be with Him in heaven forever because your sin makes you unacceptable to God. Your sin separates you from God. He cannot just overlook sin, no matter how small and insignificant it may seem to you. And, He cannot just overlook sins that seem to be huge in their magnitude. He cannot turn a blind eye to sin.

But, He has made a way for sinners to be forgiven so that they can know Him and have relationship with Him. He has made a way to allow sinful human beings to be released from the due punishment that comes because of sin and be forgiven. He has made a way for sinful human beings to not only be forgiven, but also to be given a new nature and the chance to live in obedience to God in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. We face death because of sin. We experience both spiritual death and eventually physical death in our lives because of our sinful nature. Because of sin, our relationship with God is destroyed resulting in spiritual barrenness and death to our spiritual lives. And, eventually we will experience physical death and the reality of separation from God forever if we have not got right with Him in this life.

But what is God’s rescue plan for sinful humanity? How can He deal with sin and the punishment that sin deserves? How has God extended an offer of forgiveness whilst also ensuring that justice is done in regards to human sin and wrongdoing. The answer is Jesus. Jesus Christ was sent by God the Father to deal with sin and the consequences of it once and for all.

But how did He do this? But how is it that Jesus can save us?

A Saviour is someone who can save us from the punishment we deserve. God always intended for there to be a way to save people who are sinners from their sin and their just punishment of death and hell. So why do we need a Saviour? And where did sin come from in the first place?

The Bible tells us that though we are physical, and made from the dust of the earth to which we return; we are also spiritual. God breathed life into Adam the first human being He created. This life was spiritual life : the capacity to know God, and to live forever.

In the garden of Eden, God made Adam and Eve to live in a state unsevered relationship with Him. It is said in the Bible that Adam walked with God in the cool of the day. Adam and Eve were created to be perfect, as God was perfect and without sin. But this perfection and relationship was broken when Adam and Eve listened to Satan in the form of a serpent, and disobeyed God by eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

They rebelled against God and disobeyed His command. He had told them that they could eat from any tree in the garden, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He had given them free will, and free choice to obey Him or disobey Him. They chose the latter and at this point sin came into the world, and so did death. This meant that Adam and Eve were no longer eternal beings, but would face physical death eventually. But this is not all, they also experienced spiritual death because their relationship with God was destroyed and He threw them out of the Garden where they had known perfect relationship with Him.

As human beings we are created to know God; to worship Him, and to live forever. This is wired into the way we have been made.

We will either live forever in heaven after we die, or our spirits will live in a state of eternal torment and separation from the God who made everything good that we have ever known in life. Rejecting God is also a rejection of all His good gifts like love, friendship, pleasure, family, beauty, creativity etc. Hell will have none of these things. Without God’s forgiveness all sinners are destined for separation from Him eternally. This means that hell is full of unrepentant sinners who are guilty of all different types of sin. These people could include murderers, liars, people who practiced the occult, paedophiles, the sexually promiscuous, adulterers, gossips, bullies, proud/ arrogant people, selfish people….. Hell will be full of people who had sin in their lives that they were not willing to repent of. This means that people who have committed different types of sin of seemingly varying degrees of seriousness will all be in the same place, where God is not.

Eternal life and forgiveness is available only through faith in Jesus Christ who suffered for our sins, and made a way for us to have peace with God once more. God doesn’t want anyone to be separated from Him forever which is why He planned for a Saviour to rescue us from our sins and to save us from our right and just destination: hell. God desires to forgive people and unite them with Christ so that they can serve the Prince of Peace instead of the Prince of Demons.

This offer of grace and forgiveness is through the Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour of all the world. When we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s perfect Son who lived a holy life; died a sacrificial death, and was resurrected to life, we receive forgiveness for our sins because Jesus took on the sins of all the people in the world when He hung on the cross and died for us. This can mean that the sin that separates us from God can be paid for, by the death of Jesus when we believe in Him and in all that He has done for us. We can also trust in Jesus to give us eternal resurrection life because He was raised from the dead and went ahead of us to prepare a place for us in heaven if we believe in Him.

God doesn’t just turn a blind eye to sin and overlook it. He forgives people and gives them the power of the Holy Spirit to live a good and Holy life. He doesn’t forgive sin and tell people to carry on in their sinful behaviours. He gives them the power, the will and the self-control to live a good life for His glory. When we believe in Jesus we are released through the grace of God to go forward and stop sinning with the power of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul is a perfect example of this. Paul was actually originally called Saul and was one of the worst persecutors of Christians during the time of the early church. He supported the murder of Christians and even looked on as Steven the Christian was stoned to death. Some time later, He experienced the presence and power of Jesus Christ and became a Christian. He became one of the most prolific Christian missionaries and is responsible for writing a large portion of the New Testament letters. He went from being a murderer and persecutor of christians to one of the most influential Christians in history. He called himself the chief of sinners because he recognised that he had been saved by grace. God used a murderer to become one of the most influential Christians in the world.

God can forgive people of every type of sin when they place their faith in Jesus Christ after truly repenting of their sin.

Have you repented of the sin in your life? Or are you content to turn a blind eye to your own sin, whilst pointing the finger at those whose sins seem more serious than your own. When you meet God face to face, He will not ask you if you were better than other people in the world… He will not ask you if you think you are good enough to be in heaven and then allow you in. He requires that you have repented of the sin in your own life, and have turned to Him in faith in Jesus who took the punishment for the sins of the world.

If you have ever seen the film ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ you might remember a scene where the lion Aslan, dies in the place of the little boy Edmund. Edmund was guilty of betraying his siblings and the creatures of Narnia to the witch who had destroyed the peace and happiness of Narnia, bringing a perpetual winter. But Aslan, dies in the place of Edmund to reverse the effects of his wrongdoing. He allows his own life to be taken so that Edmunds can be saved and takes the penalty that was rightfully Edmund’s. This is what Jesus Christ has done for us. He died a death of substitution where He became the substitute for us, and took the punishment that all of humanity deserves for their sin and wrongdoing.

God states in the Bible that He so loved the world, that He sent His one and only Son so that WHOEVER believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Have you believed in His Son?