Why I disagree that God is the God of 'second chances'

God desires to make friends with people, even if they have offended Him.

When the first humans transgressed, God immediately reached out and inquired, “where are you” (Gen. 3:9)? Jesus and the Apostles emphasized that God always dealt personally, and they noted Him as the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob (Mark 12:26; Acts 7:32). Particularly, Abraham “was called a friend of God” (James 2:23).

God has always taken personal interest in people, “calling as at other times, Samuel, Samuel” (1 Sam. 3:10). So God continues to invite people “to come now and let us reason together ... though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Is. 1:18).

Surely, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Yet God is gracious, and I believe that the beauty of His forgiveness can continue to be manifested in people.

I don’t need to convince anyone of the universal fact that people experience moral wrongdoing, actively and passively. It’s not that we are made to feel guilty by someone’s criterion, or by some moral theory or even a religious dogma, but that we are inherently wired with a conscience that experiences undeniable right and wrong. Humans “show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness” (Rom. 2:15). It’s interesting how cultural thought is always ready to finger-point the moral shortcomings of people, while being dismissive of the implicit appeal to objective moral law. Even when theorists speculate that people may be genetically predisposed to certain immoral behavior, the moral law is invoked to identify what is objectively immoral.

So why should it be incredulous that in a world of objective moral brokenness God can remove a person’s sins and create redemptive beauty? What’s so strange about it? Perhaps it’s really about a twisted belief that repentance will result in doing less life, whereas His grace actually provides new beginnings and genuine fulfillment. As the distinguished Harvard psychiatrist, Dr. Armand Nicholi wrote about God’s grace, “I know that he always offers forgiveness followed by the opportunity and the resources to start again.” ^[1] Nicholi’s essay unpacked psychologically how Christ provides the inner “resources” that fulfill the beauty God intended.

Sin causes emotional weight, and its removal by God’s forgiveness is characterized by inward peace; peace which is not a temporary or therapeutic fix. Neither is this peace a human fabrication, precisely because it doesn’t originate from any human effort or initiative. The American deep Christian thinker, Jonathan Edwards explained in his Religious Affections: “These are principles which are of a new and spiritual nature, vastly nobler and more excellent than all that is in natural man.”^[2] The power of God’s grace is applied by His Spirit and the repentant experience a transition from the heavy burden of sin to the inward peace of forgiveness.

I will never forget the first Sunday that I attended church as a Christian. I returned home with this beautiful sense of peace and emotional lightness that my burden of sin was removed by Jesus. Like the feeling one gets when carrying heavy luggage and then putting it down to relax at a vacation resort. What John Bunyan’s Christian said rhetorically in 1678 when encountering God’s grace has remained relevant: “Must here the Burden fall from off my back? Must here the strings that bound it to me crack? Blest Cross!” ^[3] Indeed, the experience of God’s forgiveness has transcended time, cultures, and persevered over philosophical and psychological oppositions throughout history.

It's also beautiful how God’s work of grace strengthens the repentant to forgive themselves, for remorse can be burdensome. C. S. Lewis aptly commented in a personal letter to a friend, “I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.” ^[4] I remember as a young Christian attending a Bible study where I learned for the first time that the great Apostle Paul was formerly Saul of Tarsus, who persecuted Christians. I honestly couldn’t believe it. Then I realized that if Paul authored all of those inspired letters and taught the world about personal peace with God, then he must have surely forgiven himself. I then took great encouragement and completely forgave myself. When we are at peace with God and ourselves, it’s also much easier to forgive others.

Finally, the beauty of God’s forgiveness is that it’s absolutely free. “Thanks be to God,” exclaimed Paul, “for his inexpressible gift” (2 Cor. 9:15)! So why is God so generous? What’s the catch? What’s in it for Him? Nothing at all. In fact, it’s expressive of how much He loves us unconditionally. Paul explained, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). God desires that we be regenerated and walk in the path He intended for us, “for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6).

I disagree, however, that God is the God of “second chances,” because I believe that He is the God of innumerable chances, longsuffering and of great mercy. So even in this chaotic and rebellious world people are welcome to experience the beauty of knowing that “as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12).

Notes

1. “Hope in a Secular Age” In Finding God at Harvard, ed. Kelly Monroe (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 1996), 111-120.
2. (Multnomah Press: Portland, OR, 1984), 82.
3. The Pilgrim’s Progress (Barbour and Company: Westwood, NJ), 36.
4. The Quotable Lewis, Wayne Martindale & Jerry Root, eds. (Tyndale House Publishers: Wheaton, 1990), 221.