Micah 7:18 Who is a God like to you, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage?… In this marvellous and mysterious world alone is mercy harmonised with justice, and it is manifested that "there is forgiveness with God that He may be feared." None pardons like God. This is the sublime import of the text. I. NONE PARDONS SO FREELY AS GOD. He acts self-prompted, self guided. Free must His salvation be, for it was devised before earth began. There is no other fountainhead whence the tide of boundless love gushes forth to a ruined race. Will it be thought any let or bar to the freedom of God's sovereign love in our salvation, that His love flowed to us through the channel of His own Son crucified for us, bringing to us pardon and forgiveness? II. NONE PARDONS SO GRACIOUSLY AS GOD. Freely as He has prepared forgiveness, so freely does He dispense forgiveness. If we think to purchase it with a price, God will say unto us, "Thy money perish with thee." It costs the poor suppliant sinner nothing but acceptance, — nothing but simple, humble, self-abandoning reception. III. NONE PARDONS SO PROMPTLY AS HE. God's promptness in forgiving is a striking peculiarity which ought not to be passed over. "Before they ask, I will answer." This is the rule of God's dealing. IV. NONE PARDONS SO PERFECTLY AS GOD DOES. It is a pardon that He represents as so absolute that it utterly puts away all that is past as if it never had been. The sinner is pardoned completely, accepted completely, in the very righteousness of God — the Divine righteousness wrought out by Immanuel, in our nature, for us, and imputed to us when we believe in Him. V. NONE PARDONS SO CONSISTENTLY AND MAJESTICALLY AS GOD DOES. "A God all mercy were a God unjust." God might cease to be, rather than cease to be just. VI. NONE PARDONS SO EFFECTUALLY AS GOD DOES. Then "shall we sin in order that grace may abound"? Nothing slays the carnal mind in us like sovereign grace. (Hugh Stowell, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. |
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