The Hebrew Prophets On God's Forgiveness [#JesusFollowers Weekly Message]:
All the prophets bear witness to the merciful Nature of God. They set forth His Mercy as the only ground of hope for sinners and speak of his acting merely from the dictates of his mercy and pardoning and saving the penitent. Without hesitation, they speak of God's rescinding his threats when the threatend become penitent. Not seeming to suppose that for him to do so could be the least violation of his Justice.
They lthat you've learned to divine supremacy, his sovereign will come unfettered, and seem to conceive of no end in threats of God but the reformation of the offender. If that end is obtained, punishment is a period of the efficacy of repentance, and the consideration of pardon, they seem to never have doubted.
The penitent they always encouraged to hope in the divine mercy and always exhibited mercy and forgiveness to the rebellious sinner on the condition of their repentance and turn to God without discovering the least apprehension that He required anything more in order to pardon offenders.
That God would accept anyone who discontinued their disobedience, they constantly affirmed. That God would never fail to accept those who obeyed Him, and that obedience is the condition on which his favor is enjoyed, they uniformly asserted. Such was the doctrine of the Prophets, such was the view they had of God, and of the way in which we are received by Him.
As the writers of The New Testament were Jews, and their first rudiments of religious knowledge from the Law and the Prophets, they professed no other things as leading points of doctrine. than what Moses and the Prophets had written.
And as they frequently brought the proof of their doctrine from the old Testament, It is reasonable to conclude that whatever particular forms of expression they might use on certain occasions, they agreed, in all leading points, with the ancient Hebrew writers.
by Richard Wright
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