May 1991 - Editorial

Our main series article this month has some helpful thoughts on three major aspects of forgiveness: the comprehensive forgiveness granted to us at the new birth, the continuing forgiveness through divine grace upon daily confession by the disciple (1 John 1:9), and finally the forgiveness the Christian should freely extend to those who sin against him. The apostle Paul sums up the matter in that lovely verse in his Ephesian letter:

Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ for gave you (4:32).

Who but the hardest of hearts could read those words without being softened by the thought of divine forgiveness expressed in its fulness at the Cross? That intercessory prayer "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do", spoken on behalf of the murderers of the holy Son of God, illustrates the scope of divine grace extended to all. How many persecuted Christians since Stephen have made that same supplication on behalf of their tormentors?

Focus in this issue highlights the difficulties facing Israel in coping with the continuing influx of Soviet Jewish immigrants. That such a vast movement of people should take place at all is a reminder of God's sovereign rule among the nations. "It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers" (Is. 40:22). Whatever Israel's present problems, all the might and boastings of nations against them will fail in the final outcome. God's ancient people will be purged of iniquity and settled securely in their land for Christ's millennial reign.

unknown | May 1991
Editorial