When God forgives us, he takes our sins away and treats us as if we had never sinned at all.  We see this from the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which also teaches us what we have to do to get God’s forgiveness.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, there was a well-to-do farmer who had two sons.  One day the younger son came to him and asked for the money which was to come to him when his father died.  What it came to was that he wanted the money there and then without having to wait until his father was dead.  You can see what an awful thing it was to ask.  So his father gave him his share.

Good times became bad times

A few days later the young man, having packed his things, left home and set off for a far country to have a good time.  He had never had so much money in his life and it seemed as if it would last for ever.  So he spent it like water and he soon found he had plenty of friends to share it.  But gradually it got less and less until it was all gone.  Then came the famine.  Food became very scarce and cost more than it had ever done before.  Now that he had no money, his so-called friends had no more use for him.  He tried to get work, but all the best jobs were given to the local inhabitants and he was a foreigner.  In the end he had to take the worst job a Jew could do, looking after pigs – for the Jews regarded the pig as an unclean animal.  And even then he was glad to eat some of the pigs’ food.

He was sorry for what he had done

It was then that he thought, perhaps for the first time, of his father and his home, and as he thought he at last realised how badly he had treated his father.  As the parable puts it, “he came to himself” (NRSV, Luke 15:17), and was sorry for what he had done.  As soon as he was sorry, he decided to go home and say so.  And in order to prove to his father that he was truly sorry, he made up his mind to ask his father not to treat him as his own son any more but to take him on as a farm labourer.  “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands’ “ (NRSV, Luke 15:18-19).

His father forgave him

So he started out to walk back home.  When he was nearly there, he saw his father running to meet him, and he started to say his piece: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son” (NRSV, Luke 15:21).  But his father stopped him before he could ask to be taken on as a farm labourer.  Instead, he treated him at once as his own son, and in order to show it he called the servants to put the best robe on him – his own was in rags, and to put a ring on his hand – he had sold his own long ago, and shoes on his feet – his own had been walked to pieces, and to kill the fatted calf for dinner so that they could celebrate.

So the young man was forgiven, which meant that his relationship with his father was exactly what it was before he thought of leaving home.  The only thing that remained was the effect of his sin – the money was spent and his father would always be that much the poorer.

Gaining forgiveness

Contrition, confession and purpose of amendment

From this parable we see the three things we have to do in order to be forgiven.  First, we have to be sorry, like the Prodigal Son who “came to himself”.  Until we are sorry we are not in a state to be forgiven, for forgiveness means that everything is as it was before we sinned, and that cannot be if we are still against God.  Secondly, we have to say we are sorry by owning up to all we have done wrong.  And thirdly, we have to show we are sorry by making up our minds not to sin again.  These three stages, which we have to go through in order to be forgiven, are contrition (being sorry), confession (saying we are sorry), and purpose of amendment (resolving not to sin again).

And when we are forgiven, everything between us and God is as if we had never sinned at all – except, that is, for one thing, the Crucifixion.  Jesus was crucified to save us from our sins, and nothing can undo that fact.

We ask for God’s forgiveness in our private prayers (including our preparation for Communion); when we join with others in making a general confession in church services; and when we go to Confession (the Sacrament of Reconciliation/Penance) and receive God’s forgiveness from a priest for our particular sins.  Forgiveness is very important indeed.  Jesus gave his Apostles the power to forgive sins at the very first opportunity he had, on the evening of Easter Day itself, barely 48 hours after he had been crucified to win forgiveness for us.

SUMMARY

1. As our sins take us away from God, so forgiveness brings us back to him again and he treats us as if we had never sinned.

2. In order to be forgiven, we have to be really sorry for our sins (contrition), own up to them all (confession), and make up our minds not to sin again (purpose of amendment).

3. Jesus gave his Apostles the power to forgive sins at the very first opportunity he had, on the evening of the first Easter Day.