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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman
Better
Than A Presidential Pardon I understand the battle
the founding fathers of America
fought among themselves in their attempt at balancing state and federal
rights, and their attempt at balancing the separate branches of
government. What, as a
Canadian I don't quite understand, is why outgoing presidents have the
arbitrary authority to pardon the duly convicted.
Why should the president, as if he was king, override the
judiciary? Was not sovereign
arbitrary rule something Americans were rejecting in 1776?
Laying aside our sin-infected humanistic attempts at government,
there is a pardon that supersedes any presidential pardon.
As a Christian, I am
eternally grateful for the pardon God has bestowed upon me.
Unlike any presidential pardon, God's pardoning of me was more
than a political pronouncement penned on a piece of paper.
Unlike any presidential pardon where no real price is paid by the
president for the act of pardoning, God paid the ultimate price for my
pardon. You might think that God
being the sovereign universal Lord could have simply pronounced my
pardon, as a president pronounces pardons, but He can't.
There are some things that are impossible for God to do, and this
is one such thing. All that
God does stems from who He is, and in part, He is just.
He, therefore, cannot violate His essence of being just by merely
pronouncing my innocence. Justice
demands that I, the convicted, be held accountable and duly penalized
for my sin. So here is what
God did for me. Due to the fact that God
is equally just and loving, He devised a way to simultaneously satisfy
both of these inherent character qualities.
He provided my pardon through an act of love that did not violate
His just nature. He
sacrificed Himself by becoming human, and then, by becoming accountable
for my sin and duly penalized on my behalf.
The price incurred for my pardon was God's earthly existence.
Upon my acceptance of
this pardon, the rightful designation of me being a convicted sinner was
deleted from the heavenly record. My
name was transferred into the Lamb's Book of Life where there is no
designation of sinner associated with my name.
I have been acquitted, set free from the eternal consequences of
my sinfulness. The Supreme
Universal Judge now declares me as being just as righteous and sinless as
He Himself is righteous and sinless, despite the fact that I am far from
righteous and sinless. How
can I not be eternally thankful? All presidential pardons pale in significance when compared to this pardon provided to me by the Sovereign Lord. God, in Jesus, becoming accountable for my sin and duly penalized on my behalf makes all presidential pardons worth only the paper they were penned on. I'm sure it feels good to be pardoned by a president, but I can attest that it feels really good to be pardoned by the Universal President.
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