Bible Commentaries

PARDON WITH PUNISHMENT

Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions.’

Psalms 99:8

The truths that lie in the text are these: pardon and retribution are ever united. They spring from one source of holy love, and they ought to become to us the occasions of solemn and thankful praise. ‘Exalt the Lord our God, for He is holy.’ ‘Thou forgavest them, and didst punish their inventions.’

I. Notice, first, that forgiveness is at bottom the undisturbed communication of the love of God to sinful men.—We are too apt to think that God pardons men in the fashion in which the sovereign pardons a culprit who has been sentenced to be hanged. Such pardon implies nothing as to the feelings of either the criminal or the monarch. There need neither be pity on the one side nor penitence on the other. The true idea of forgiveness is to be found not in the region of law only, but in the region of love and fatherhood. The forgiveness of God is over and over again set forth in Scripture as being a Father’s forgiveness.

II. Such pardon does necessarily sweep away the one true penalty of sin.—‘The wages of sin is death.’ What is death? The wrenching away of a dependent soul from God. How is that penalty ended? When the soul is united to God in the threefold bond of trust, love, and obedience. The communication of the love is the barring of the hell.

III. The pardoning mercy of God leaves many penalties un-removed.—Forgiveness and punishment both come from the same source, and generally go together. The old statement, ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,’ is absolutely true, universally true. The Gospel is not its abrogation. God loves us too well to annihilate the secondary consequences of our transgressions.

IV. Pardoning love so modifies the punishment that it becomes an occasion for solemn thankfulness.—Whatever painful consequences of past sin may still linger about our lives or haunt our hearts, we may be sure of two things about them all: that they come from forgiving mercy; that they come for our profit.

Illustration

‘Every sin, whether of omission or of positive transgression, has serious results on the life of the social organism. No part of the organism can be diseased without affecting other parts. And the social consequences of sin cannot be overtaken. Reformation and restitution may do much, but they cannot do all. Whilst the scars of sin cannot be removed by an outward application, yet by the energising from within of the Spirit of Christ the great and dread disease can be cured. It may be a long work and will require patience, but the results are sure. We shall be satisfied when we awake in His likeness.’