Who Can Forgive Sins but God Alone? (Mark 2:7)

 Who Can Forgive Sins but God Alone?

Sunday, April 3, 2022

Leading up to Easter (April 17) I’m reading a chapter a day from Mark’s Gospel, and so I thought I would look at my homemade list of “critical questions in the Bible” and see what I had marked. One of these questions come from this morning’s chapter: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (2:7)

You might remember the first “critical question” in the Bible is voiced not by God or man but by the serpent, or Satan. This question in Mark’s Gospel also comes from those who have enmity against God and His Son: “some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts” (2:6). They had an attentive attitude toward the text of the Scriptures, but they did not have an attentive attitude toward God. They were critical experts, intent on keeping out the riffraff (Jesus) and cementing their own position. Unfortunately, they seem to have cemented their own hearts. 

This is not the main point of this post, but it is important for you and me: does this apply to us? We carry and study and teach our Bibles, but do we love Jesus as we should? Do we allow Him to stand in judgment over us, directing us and changing us, or do we tend to stand in judgment over Him, or others who follow Jesus?

Now back to the major point of the question, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”, are we clear on this? Sometimes we hear people say, “You need to forgive yourself.” It is God (and the Son of God) who forgives, not you. Now someone could think that if God forgives us, then who are we not to accept this forgiveness and forgive ourselves. Fair enough. Though the Bible doesn’t use the “forgive yourself” language. It is God who forgives. And the larger problem is that many in our culture are continually giving themselves a pass, saying things like, “I’m only human,” or “everybody does it,” essentially, forgiving themselves, as though they have the authority to do so.

At least the scribes still acknowledged that God had the prerogative to judge sin, and therefore to forgive sin. But once we occupy the seat of judging for God, we can easily slide into the seat of excusing actions (forgiving) for God. And we don’t have that authority. And again, a personal application, are we remembering day by day that we are accountable to this God who has provided forgiveness through His Son, and that He will forgive, but only on His terms, which is by faith in Jesus, accepting what He has done for us?