AN SMALL INDICATION OF ONE SINGLE DIVINE PLAN

While there is a lot in the Old Testament about God forgiving Israel, I was surprised that I could not locate a single verse directing the Israelites to forgive one another.

Yes, there is a lot about Israel’s responsibility to care for the alien and even their enemies. For example:

·       “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.” (Exodus 23:4-5; ESV)

·       “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 19:33-34)

However, not a word about forgiving one another as God had forgiven them! How amazing! It is as if God purposely left this essential provision out. But why? Perhaps because the basis of true and complete forgiveness - the Savior – had not yet come.

However, God did forgive Israel before Jesus, right? In the Book of Leviticus, we often read about God’s promise of forgiveness in conjunction with animal sacrifice:

·       “Thus the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he has committed in any one of these things, and he shall be forgiven. And the remainder shall be for the priest, as in the grain offering.” (Leviticus 5:13)

However, the New Testament consistently taught that this forgiveness was not the same as the forgiveness that came through the Cross:

·       For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. (Hebrews 10:1-4)

Instead, of an eradication of the sin, the Old Testament forgiveness merely covered over sin:

·       [Jesus] whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (Romans 3:25)

Because their sins were merely “passed over,” Jesus’ atonement had to work retroactively to cleanse the sins of the OT saints:

·       For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. (Hebrews 9:13-15)

It is only through Christ that our sins are cleansed and purified so that we can confidently enter into the presence of God (Hebrews 10:19-22). Instead, OT forgiveness was only a matter of God passing over sins, not purifying them:

·       Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. (Psalm 32:1;)

·       Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? (Micah 7:18)

The OT saints would only experience a “passing over transgression,” but they were also promised a New Covenant through which God would “remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34).

Meanwhile, even the OT saints who had died could not come into the presence of a God whose righteousness had not been satisfied by the Cross:

·       And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:39-40)

Consequently, after Jesus proclaimed that “It is finished” and the veil of the Temple was torn in two, symbolizing the fact that the way to presence of God was now opened, there was a great earthquake to reinforce this lesson:

·       And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. (Matthew 27:51-53)

Do you see the way that the Old and New Testaments gradually unfold and reveal God’s one plan for humanity, which culminates in our being made one with our Savior? It’s a puzzle with Christ as the center piece. It is not a hodge-podge, constructed by 40 different authors over 1500 years, but a single vision that moves irresistibly to take hold of eternity. I think that this says something about Divine authorship.