What if I told you that you, as a Christian, were not pardoned for your sins?Wait a minute! You might say. I know I’ve been forgiven of my sins. The Bible says so!
Right. But I’m not saying you’re not forgiven. If you have repented and trusted in Jesus, you are forgiven. What I am saying is that you have not been pardoned. A pardon is not the right word for your forgiveness. Christians are justified by God, but not pardoned by Him.
Here's how Jerry Bridges puts it in The Discipline of Grace:
A pardon is excusing an offense without exacting a penalty. It may be granted gratuitously by a president or governor for no reason at all, and sometimes has been done at the expense of justice. For example, there was a great outcry when the late President Nixon was pardoned because many felt, rightly or wrongly, that justice had been violated by the granting of his pardon. In God’s plan of justification, however, justice is not violated by a gratuitous pardon of the convicted sinner. Rather, justice has been satisfied, the penalty has been fully paid by the Lord Jesus Christ. In a sense, to justify is to declare that the claims of justice have been fully met (Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace, pp. 55-56).So I started thinking about Presidential pardons. Bridges referred to Gerald Ford’s famous pardon of Richard Nixon. Maybe you remember how Jimmy Carter, on his first day in office, pardoned all those who had defied the draft laws by failing to register or by fleeing to Canada. Or did you know that President Clinton pardoned his own brother Roger for cocaine possession? You can see why a pardon may not have a lot to do with justice. It may be more of a “get out of jail free” card.
On the other hand, justification means that God declares us righteous because of the atonement of Christ. Look carefully at Romans 3:23-26:
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.We are justified, declared righteous, because Christ paid our penalty. It's not a "get out of jail free" card. Sure, it’s a gift, but it’s based on a real payment being made. Justice was done. That’s why it says that God “might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."
Someone was punished for our sins. Jesus was. To quote Bridges again, “God sees us legally as so connected with Christ that what He did, we did…When He died on the cross to satisfy the just demands of God’s Law, it is just as if we had died on the cross” (p. 53).
We have been justified, not just pardoned! All praise, glory, and honor to our Savior!
