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Here "forgiveness" is placed in correspondence with "turning His anger away". When
the Publican prayed "God be merciful to me the sinner" (Luke 18: 13), he used the
word hilaskonai, "be propitious", alluding to the O.T. kaphar, atonement. The
forgiveness of sins is impossible without this propitiation.
"He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins . . . . . He is the propitiation for our sins"
(I John 1: 9, 2: 2).
The third word is salach. This word approaches nearest to the English word
"forgive". Although it occurs some 45 times or more, it is not found with such varying
translations as noted in the case of nasa, or kaphar, being translated either "forgive",
"pardon", or "spare". Lexicographers assign to the root of the word the idea "to loose",
"to remit", "to relax" and its frequent rendering in the LXX (aphiemi) approaches very
closely this basic meaning. The Greek word we will consider presently.
Solomon uses this word in his great prayer recorded in I Kings 8: with its solemn
refrain: "And when Thou hearest, forgive." It is the word that comes in Psa. 103: 3:
"Who forgiveth all thine iniquities." So also in the repeated statement of Lev. 4:, 5:,
and 6:: "And it shall be forgiven them."
New Testament reality.
While the sacrifices and offerings of the law could never take away sin or touch the
conscience, they most clearly pointed to the only way of forgiveness, and that by the shed
blood of an accepted offering.
Nasa finds its equivalent in airo, "to bear"; "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh
away the sin of the world" (John 1: 29). Kaphar fins its counterpart and fulfillment in the
"propitiation": "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood,
to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past" (Rom. 3: 25).
The Epistle to the Hebrews testifies that, although the offerings of the old covenant
are of no avail, it still remains true that "without shedding of blood there is no remission"
(Heb. 9: 22).
The two great ideas in N.T. forgiveness are expressed in two passages in Ephesians:
(1). There is forgiveness that releases, sets free, remits. (2). There is forgiveness that is
an act of gracious kindness.
(1). "In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Eph. 1: 7).
This is the word aphesis, meaning release. A good idea of its root meaning is found in
Luke 4: 18: "To preach deliverance (aphesis) to the captives . . . . . to set at liberty
(aphesis) them that are bruised." It will be seen that the very exodus from the house of
bondage was a figure of forgiveness or release. The word is used of the remitting of
debts in Matt. 6: 12, and 18: 32.