GOD READY TO PARDON

God ready to pardon is a God prepared to pardon. Everything is prepared by which God can forgive sin. The road used to be blocked up. But Christ has, by the blood of his cross, tunneled every mountain, filled every valley, bridged every gulf and cleared away every obstacle. Now all things are ready. God, for Christ’s sake, is “a God ready to pardon.”

A God ready to pardon is a God who can easily pardon. Though he could never pardon sin without the satisfaction of his justice, now that justice has been satisfied by the death of Christ as the sinner’s Substitute, God can easily pardon us for Christ’s sake. It takes nothing but his word. — “Thy sins are forgiven thee!”

A God ready to pardon is a God who quickly pardons. There is no need for any
sinner to wait, even for a moment, for pardon. The pardon of sin is an instantaneous work (1 John 1:9). In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, God gives pardon to the believing sinner.

A God ready to pardon is a God who cheerfully pardons. Can you grasp this? —
“He delighteth in mercy!” As God loves a cheerful giver, he is a God who cheerfully pardons guilty sinners for Christ’s sake. It is more the nature of God to forgive sin than it is the nature of man to commit sin. His forgiveness is infinite! — “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save; he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love; he will joy over thee with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). Can you imagine that? — The triune God singing because of us whom he has pardoned! What a thought! As God pardons sinners, he bursts into a song! This is “a God ready to pardon!” — And he is our God!

CHRIST IS ALL

If salvation depends upon our being or doing anything, we shall inevitably be lost. Thank God, it does not; for the great fundamental principle of the Gospel is that Christ is all; man is nothing. It is not a mixture of Christ and man – it is all of Christ. The peace of the Gospel does not rest in part on Christ’s work and in part on man’s work; it rests wholly on Christ’s work, because that work is perfect, perfect forever; and it renders all who put their trust in Him as perfect as Himself! Christ must either be a whole Savior or no Savior at all. The moment a man says, “Except you be this or that, you cannot be saved,” he totally subverts the Gospel; for in the Gospel I find Christ coming down to me, just as I am – a lost, guilty, self-destroyed sinner; and coming, moreover, with a full remission of all my sins, and a full salvation from my lost estate, all perfectly wrought by Himself on the cross.