Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness
- Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God. We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway. We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway. As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others. In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
The trio
of families listed here in this chapter can teach us quite a bit. First of all, we are told about Rueben. We are reminded that he was supposed to have
the birthright, but he lost it. He sinned. Furthermore, notice that within the genealogy
listed here, there is a descendant with the name Ba’al, which was a Canaanite
god. In fact, it was the father to the
person who was in charge of the family when they were taken into captivity
under Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria.
Not only was the line of Reuben tainted with sin, it was actively
turning from God at points in its history.
Yet, it is still here, listed among the remnant that God loves.
In the
listing of the half tribe of Manasseh, we hear that they broke with the will of
the Father and chased after other gods.
There doesn’t get much more serious accusations than that. Yet, they are still listed here among the
tribes of Israel. They aren’t written
out.
You see,
God holds us accountable for our sin. He
does care. But His forgiveness is
greater. His compassion exceeds His
wrath. The people rebelled. Some of their rebellion was quite great. God sent them into captivity. But He did not abandon them. He still loved them and extended forgiveness
to them.
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment