Forgiven, Forgiving and Free
Teachers
Lesson Summary
Larry Johnson’s class on April 20, 2022 revisited the four foundational questions about forgiveness before focusing on why God forgives. He explained that forgiveness stems not from human merit but from the very character of God—His mercy, grace, and steadfast love—citing Exodus 34:6‑7 where God declares Himself merciful and gracious. Using the Exodus narrative, Larry illustrated how God’s desire to “let‑him‑alone” (Exodus 32:10) led to Moses’s intercession and the ultimate need for a perfect mediator, Jesus Christ, who turns away divine wrath. The lesson also traced the events surrounding the golden calf, the breaking of the stone tablets, and Moses’s plea to be blotted from God’s book (Exodus 32:32), underscoring that even when sins are forgiven, consequences may remain. Larry emphasized that God’s forgiveness is a gracious pardon that sends our sins away, enabling believers to become new creations. He concluded with a practical invitation to the Wednesday morning Gospel study, encouraging participants to embody forgiveness in daily life and experience the freedom that comes from being forgiven by a loving God.
Key Scriptures
The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation.
Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, that I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.