The Answer
For the sake of Your name, O LORD, may You forgive my crime, which is great. Psalm 25:11 Robert Alter translation
For the sake of – Why does God forgive? What benefit accrues to Him for this act? He has nothing to gain by forgiving those who despise and resist Him. There is no guarantee that forgiven men and women will not once again rebel against His desires. In fact, far too often those who claim to have been forgiven live in such hypocrisy that God’s name is slandered by their claim. So why should He remove our guilt?
If you answered, “Because He loves us,” you might find less support for that idea in the Tanakh than you imagined. From Moses to David, forgiveness is essentially a matter of the honor of God’s name, not our need. In order to understand why this is the case, we need to examine the underlying relationship that defines God’s interaction with men.
God is good. He defines goodness. Because He is good, He extends Himself toward us in a covenant commitment. That commitment is independent of our actions. The covenant God makes on our behalf is with Himself. Therefore, honoring the covenant is a matter of performing according to the covenant as a party of one. Any behavior that violates or diminishes the covenant denigrates the reputation of the parties in the covenant and since there is only one party, anything God would do that weakens the covenant would affect His reputation. God keeps the covenant because He never breaks a promise, but keeping the covenant also honors His own name as the covenant-keeping God. God forgives because if He did not continue the covenant His own name would be tarnished and forgiveness is a benefit of the covenant. In other words, God does not forgive because He must forgive nor does He forgive because we need forgiveness. He forgives because the self-proclaimed covenant requires maintaining the promise for the beneficiary and we, as adopted children, are the beneficiaries. “For the sake of Your name” means forgiveness is essential to the very being of God.
The Hebrew text, lema’an, is derived from the verb ‘ana. The pictograph of Ayin-Nun-Hey could be “to see life revealed” as one possible expression. The word means “to answer, to respond, to speak, to testify.” If God speaks or answers, His words are true and they reveal the meaning and patterns of life. Lema’an is a combined expression that implies that the answer God gives testifies to His covenant of life. All of this confirms the basic biblical perspective that God provides a life-giving covenant to men in the hope that we will see the efficacy of His words and choose to obey Him. To do that, we must be ushered into hesed through the covenant and that requires restoration of the relationship by the divine act of forgiveness. It is all about the covenant and the covenant is all about who God is.
God forgives because He answers the challenge to His own promise. We benefit because God is exactly what He says He does.
Topical Index: forgiven, covenant, for the sake of, lema’an, ‘ana, answer, Psalm 25:11
O that we would be committed to keeping the covenant we make with both Elohiym and each other:(
Hi Skip,
Excellent blog, as usual!
Again, you make an important point of the theological significance of God’s Name to Him (and us too). We know that it is abundantly clear in the WORD that God’s Name is important to Him. It has to be. It’s a reflection of the quality of His character and reputation. This, of course, filters down to all of us on a human level too. If we are a liar, a cheat, a thief, an adulterer, or a murderer, our name and reputation do not count for much, do they? Makes me ponder why people continue to vote for and elect to political office candidates whose “names” are shot. There is no surprise that God tells us not to profane His Name in His Third Commandment!
On a personal note, this point of theological importance that God Himself attaches to His Name is no small part of my reasoning for accepting the notion of Universal Reconciliation of all of humanity. Because of His Great Name He will not annihilate humanity. Neither will He subject humanity to an endless torture time without end. To do so would impinge His Name!
Am I missing something here, John? The idea of universal reconciliation seems to smack of Calvin. How do we “reconcile” that idea with the absolute necessity of shema — to hear AND obey?
If God is true to His Word (and I believe He is), there must actually BE a choice if a choice is offered. Historically we also have to acknowledge that God did destroy all but 7 people with the Noahic flood, so there is a precedent. And if salvation was offered before the foundation of the world, those pre-deluge human beings must have had a chance to change their minds. How do they fit in to universal reconciliation?