Sin was the air we breathed, and the god we served. And if God had not intervened, it would have dragged us, lifeless and hopeless, to hell.

I believe in…the forgiveness of sins. (Apostles’ Creed)

An awful storm fell on the still fragile church in Rome. The emperor had demanded that Christians be arrested, their books burned, their churches destroyed. Only those who defied God and made sacrifices to the Roman gods were released. Many bowed in fear, with blood on their hands. Some were even clergy.

Like Daniel, however, many refused to bow to any god but one, relinquishing any claims they might have had on this life, knowing that they had “a better possession and an abiding one” (Hebrews 10:34). And some of them did lose it all — their freedom, their possessions, their families, their very breath. Executed for pledging allegiance to Jesus. Others watched, and wept, from prison, knowing full well that they might be next. The blood of their martyred loved ones left painful stains on their hearts.

Then, like the unusual calm after an awful storm, the persecution subsided. Christianity was once again tolerated in Rome. And as the fires died down, and the dangers evaporated, those who had betrayed Jesus, those seeming sons and daughters of Judas, showed up to church again. What would the church do? Should those who were steadfast under trial, even under the threat of death, receive back those who had abandoned them and denied Christ? After all, Jesus himself had warned, “Whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father” (Matthew 10:33). Could betrayers, even betrayers, be forgiven?

Who Can Be Forgiven?

That sensitive, disturbing, and volatile dilemma in the fourth century eventually prompted the addition of four words to the Apostles’ Creed: the forgiveness of sins was not included in earlier versions of the confession, perhaps for hundreds of years. And then those early believers were forced into the deeper, more harrowing waters of sin and mercy.

Some insisted that the recanters were unforgivable, irredeemable, damned. Others pleaded that the fountain of blood at the foot of the cross could cover even this — even these. In the end, according to Ben Myers, the church decided that

failures in discipleship — even dramatic public failures — do not exclude a person from the grace of God. As Augustine insisted in one of his many sermons against spiritual elitism: “We must never despair of anyone at all.” (The Apostles’ Creed, 115)

Through faith and repentance, those who had deserted Christ were welcomed into Christ and heard the unthinkable: “Your sins, which are many, are forgiven” (see Luke 7:47). Thus, the church drove a merciful, durable, and scandalous stake into the soil of our confession: when others might recoil from this outrageous mercy — ignorant of the lumber in their own eyes, ready to cast their self-righteous stones, to cancel fellow sinners because of their failures — we believe in the forgiveness of sins.

What Is the Forgiveness of Sins?

What is the forgiveness of sins? While simple on the surface, those words represent at least three profound truths: First, man, every man, is born in sin, enslaved to sin. “None is righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). “No one does good, not even one” (Romans 3:12). We are totally depraved. Second, our sin deserves the righteous wrath of God. God cannot be God if he simply excuses or overlooks our wickedness. Judgment must and will be served. And third, for all who believe and repent, judgment has already been served — when the Son of God absorbed the wrath of God so that the children of God might be reconciled to God. In Christ, God has “forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13–14).

We could explore any number of texts that walk the valleys of our sinfulness and soar the heights of our forgiveness, but Micah 7:8–9 in particular has become a treasured guide over the years.

Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;
when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be a light to me.
I will bear the indignation of the Lord
because I have sinned against him,
until he pleads my cause
and executes judgment for me.
He will bring me out to the light;
I shall look upon his vindication.

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