Monday 28 January 2008

The God Who Forgives

The God Who Forgives
"Canonize the Lord, O my being, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Canonize the Lord, O my being, and do not skip all his benefits-who forgives all your corruption, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with strapping love and pity, who satisfies you with good as hunger as you get on so that your pubescent is renewed would like the eagle's" (Psalm 103:1-5).

As I carry on demonstrated in my survive post, in this psalm the psalmist speaks out of his characteristic exhibit with God. His refrain of current comes at what time he informed the affliction that comes from sinning in opposition to God and from the examination and distressed caused by an queasiness that had brought him to the sidle of death.

His try out led him to pray to God and ask for divine help. As soon as his prayer was answered, he found forgiveness and freedom from his try out. This refrain of clemency is a law of his fastest about God's gracefulness and pity. The psalmist's words come from a in somebody's debt essence.

As the psalmist reflects on his exhibit of the gracefulness of God in his life, he injunction his whole nucleus to worship God. And for that reason, individual contemporary in the temple, he gives the reasons for his refrain of current. In his refrain, the psalmist opens his essence and proclaims the a range of reasons he calls himself and others to current God. In this study, I chi commentary one of the reasons he praises God otherwise ancestors assembled for worship in the temple and why he exults God in the apparition of ancestors who dread the Lord. In resultant posts, I chi study the other reasons the psalmist praises God.

The top rumor for the psalmist's current was equally he had informed God as a God who forgives sins. He said: "Canonize the Lord, O my being, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Canonize the Lord, O my being, and do not skip all his benefits-who forgives all your corruption."

The rumor for his refrain of current was equally the psalmist had informed the forgiveness of God. The word for "pardon" in verse 3 is a very special Hebrew word, a word that is deserted cast-off for the action of God in the Old Gravestone. The verb sala is cast-off to notify forgiveness by God that is prompted by his hesed, God's finish love. The word sala for that reason describes God's act of offering amnesty and forgiveness for the criminal.

In the Old Gravestone, God is portrayed as a God of forgiveness: "Impart is no other God would like you! You pardon sin and amnesty the disturbance of ancestors who resolve concerning your populace. You do not resolve distinct evermore, but gratify in display veritable love" (Micah 7:18 NET).

Newborn psalmist wrote, "If you, O Lord, call for bring into disrepute iniquities, Lord, who might stand? But contemporary is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered" (Psalm 130:3-4 NRSV).

In this estimate, the word "revered" moderately income "to dread." However, the word does not mean that a play a part call for be dire of God, but it income to be in awe of Him. The word "respect," or "dread" (in the Old Gravestone), is the quintessence of worship. Every time someone informed God's morality and God's power, that living being spoken dread and reverence-worship of God. Consequently, Psalm 130:3-4 might be translated as follows: "O Lord, if you call for bring into disrepute imbalance, who might stand? But contemporary is forgiveness with you so that each one of us may well learn how to worship you in the correct way."

Leniency is realistic equally the God of the Bible is a God of gracefulness. Nehemiah understood of God, "But You are a God most important to pardon, praising and congenial, weak to bother and resonant in strapping love" (Nehemiah 9:17).

The psalmist began his refrain of current by talent himself and others not to skip what God had done. The exhibit of Israel had been one of forgetting the overpowering acts of God. The best quality God had blessed his populace, the best quality they tended to skip what God had done. But it is in his gracefulness that God comes to distinguish the wishes of his populace. In his pity for Israel, at times God even fitting their petitions and delivered them from their tribulations.

Israel held that their God was a yielding God and in the manner of God forgives the sins of his populace, not a sin shell unforgiven. This is the rumor the marker of Psalm 103 understood in verse 12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us." The psalmist had informed God as a God who forgives. And equally of that he was so in somebody's debt that he receive to consortium with others this exhibit of knowing God personally.

Time the Bible presents God as a God who forgives, God's forgiveness might not everlastingly be taken for granted. In some passages, the word sala is cast-off to attend to to the lack of forgiveness (Deuteronomy 29:20; Jeremiah 5:9). Yahweh's forgiveness was denied to Israel whenever Israel was badly behaved of taking into account the gods of the nations, whenever the populace loyal apostasy and went impossible from the Lord and in the manner of virtuous blood had been shed in Israel.

But Yahweh's support to pardon is the yardstick of God's figure. In his prayer to God, Nehemiah said: "But you are a God of forgiveness" (Nehemiah 9:17). Nehemiah's words reveal one of the divine attributes. Fancy Nehemiah, the marker of Psalm 103 emphasizes the yielding life of God's personally. The God of the Bible is a God who forgives.

Consequently, the Bible teaches that at times, God let his populace exhibit his bother in order to formulate them to exhibit his pity. The rumor God forgives his populace in the manner of they sin is equally of his compassion: "The Lord is congenial and praising, weak to bother and resonant in strapping love" (Psalm 103:8).

The psalmist knew that the Lord had not dealt with him according to his sins; he had not normal from God's hands what he deserved equally of his iniquities. The Lord's resonant love was distant outsized and best quality firm than his bother at the sin of the psalmist. It is this overwhelming love that is the wits and yearn for of forgiveness for sinners.

"Canonize the Lord, O my being" for God is a God who forgives. "Canonize the Lord, O my being" and skip not all that God has done.

Former Studies on Psalm 103:


1. Canonize the Lord, O My Mainstay

2. The God Who Forgives

3. The God Who Heals

4. The God Who Redeems

Claude Mariottini


Lecturer of Old Gravestone

Northern Baptist University


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Tags: Hebrew Bible, Psalm 103, Reason, Leniency