Hi Arsenios
I agree with you that God is always willing to forgive; however, I think I may differ with you as to when that forgiveness takes/took place. When I read in 2 Cor 5.19 (as in other places), "that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them," I take that to mean the sins of OT saints as well, as in it was at the cross that their sins were forgiven.
I understand the sacrifices of the OT as coverings for sins that would be forgiven in the Christ event, he being the substance of those sacrifices. Would you mind commenting on this?
Have you considered why we are no longer under the Levitical Law of Moses according to Paul? The REAL reason? It is not because the Law cannot save us, or make us righteous, or any of those true things with which Paul argued against the Circumcision... Paul carefully explained that it is because the Law only pertains to those who are alive... And we, in that lifeless corpse, that dead Jew hanging from the Cross, are DEAD... And this because we are baptized INTO Christ, and into His Death on that Cross - A long, slow and painful death - THAT is the mark of the witness [martyr] of the Christian Saint...
We need and receive forgiveness, but what is needed, beneath forgiveness for sin, is to DIE to sin... This means to die to the world, (where our feet walk, but where we are now strangers, hidden in
Christ)... If we but confess, God forgives, but we are not yet healed, and we will offend again... It is the healing that the Church disciples, administering the medicines of immortality of repentance through the Holy Mysteries of the Church... It is our infirmities that we need to heal, which is far beyond merely being forgiven... And this is the healing of the soul of man in the discipleship of the Church in obedience to the commands our Lord gave to His Apostles, and indeed gave to Paul, and to all those called to be Apostles...
Gotta run...
Arsenios
