How does God forgive sins?

Christ died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3).

How does God forgive us? What is the process that He uses to free us from our sins?

Some people think that God just waves His hand and makes sin go away. But God doesn’t act like that. God values justice; to let a crime go unpunished would go against His very nature. Besides, God never breaks His promises, and He has said repeatedly that sin will be punished. God does not make idle threats; you can always take Him at His word.

So how does God forgive sin? Does He expect us to pay it off somehow? No, because that is impossible. Jesus showed how impossible this is when He asked the question, what can a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matthew 16:26) Everything we have comes from God; whatever we would offer in restitution belongs to Him already.

Does God expect us to earn His forgiveness by working hard for it? Again, the answer is no—such a thing is impossible. God expects us to be holy every moment of our lives. Each minute used to commit sin is lost forever; we cannot add extra years to our time on earth to make up for what’s been wasted.

Does God offer forgiveness when we meet certain conditions? This too is wrong. Paul writes, it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose (Philippians 2:13). Jesus said, I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5). We can only please God when He acts within us; anything good that we do is to His credit, not ours.

God forgives us by transferring our guilt to someone else. This is why Jesus came into the world. The Son of God became our elder brother to take responsibility for our sins. When He suffered on the cross, Christ bore the punishment our sins had incurred. Despite our sins, God loves us; He does not want us suffer, even though we deserve to. There was just one way to punish sin yet spare us at the same time—and so Jesus became our scapegoat. This satisfied holy justice and ensured that God’s promises were kept—yet at the same time, this tremendous act of love spared us from eternal agony in hell.