Validation or Forgiveness?
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8
Do you know how a presidential pardon works?
The intent of the pardon isn’t to say that the person was wrongly convicted or what they did was actually ok. Here is the description of a pardon from the Department of Justice website:
A pardon is an expression of the President’s forgiveness and ordinarily is granted in recognition of the applicant’s acceptance of responsibility for the crime and established good conduct for a significant period of time after conviction or completion of sentence. It does not signify innocence.
The pardoned person still did what they did. They committed the crime. What the pardon does is remove the penalties for the crime.
Sometimes, it is easy to twist Jesus’ love and pardon into validation. To think, “I can do whatever I want because Jesus will still love me.” It is even easy to forget the need for forgiveness and to see Jesus only as proof of validation for who you are.
We can become like Ron Swanson in an episode of Parks and Recreation. He ironically wins the award for Woman of the Year (because the grantors of the award are trying to shake things up. His colleague Leslie Knope calls him out on passing off work to someone else by saying, “That’s not really the attitude I expect from an award winner.”
And Ron retorts, “Everything I do is the attitude of an award winner because I have won an award.”
We might change that to say, “God validates everything I do because I am a child of God.”
Not so. Jesus doesn’t come to bring validation. He comes to bring forgiveness. Though we are truly guilty, he took our guilt on his shoulders. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Because of Jesus, the penalties for our sin are removed forever, and we are made God’s children.
Understanding Jesus’ forgiveness changes how we live. Rather than doing whatever we want in an abuse of God’s paternal love, we now strive by God’s grace to do what God wants. We have been changed. The Holy Spirit dwells within us to produce fruits of the Spirit, to help us resist sin, and to live at peace knowing that all our sins are forgiven and that we stand righteous before God because of his Son.