The Trinity’s Work in Forgiveness

As a work of divine grace, forgiveness involves all three persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And it began with the Father. The Father is the great architect of redemption. It’s his gracious plan and merciful desire to forgive our sins and to bless us. And it’s his authority that makes salvation both possible and certain.

The divine grace that accomplishes our forgiveness also involved the Son, who is our Redeemer. In fulfillment of the Father’s promise, the Son was sent into the world, becoming incarnate as Jesus, the long-awaited Messiah, in order to atone for human sin. As Redeemer, Jesus saves us from our guilt and corruption; he reconciles us to himself; he restores our ability to turn the world into his earthly kingdom. God’s plan does not rely on the ability of mere human beings to merit our own salvation. It relies on God’s grace, his unmerited favor, granted to us through our special representative: the Lord Jesus Christ.

Besides depending on these works of the Father and Son, forgiveness is also the result of divine grace from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity who actually applies forgiveness to our lives. The Father laid the plans, and the Son accomplished the atonement, but our sins are not actually forgiven until the Holy Spirit does his work.

When we first come to faith, the Spirit reconciles us to God by forgiving all the sins we have committed up to that point. He also gives us new spiritual life by regenerating our spirits, as Jesus talked about in John 3:5-8. Acts 11:18 speaks of this experience as “repentance unto life” because regeneration and faith will always involve sorrow and confession of our sinfulness. This idea is confirmed in many passages, such as 1 Corinthians 6:11. And the Spirit continues to apply forgiveness to us throughout our lives. He is the one that maintains our faith, that leads us to daily repentance, and that continually applies forgiveness to us. We see this in places like Romans 8:1-16 and Galatians 5:5. As just one example, listen to what Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2:13:

God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.

Here, Paul wrote that believers are saved by the works of the Spirit that cleanse us from sin and unrighteousness, that is, the works of the Spirit that apply forgiveness to us. And the Spirit continues to apply forgiveness to us as we continue to believe in the truth.