Pre-paid Forgiveness

Those who use Pay-As-You-Go phones will be familiar with the concept of pre-paid credit. You pay up front, which gives you air-time as and when you need it until used up. A simple concept that has released millions to use mobile phones across the globe.

Yet like many good ideas God actually thought of it first, long long ago. Towards the end of Deuteronomy Moses was giving final words to Israel before they enter their promised land (chapter 29). The incredible thing in this monologue was that God through Moses predicted that the people would mess up, fall short, and break the gracious deal God was offering them. The whole thing acts as a kind of overview prophecy.

Yet from failure (and accompanying disaster) comes repentance and turning back to God (chapter 30). The deal is that at this point God will restore them (v3), will bring them back (v4). You see forgiveness is a pre-paid choice that God had already made!

Christians know that the 'price' was paid by Jesus dying on the cross. Yet many aren't quite sure what to make of those who lived before Jesus' time. The answer must surely lie in the unchanging character of God - the God who chose to forgive before we had even made a first move. God arranged all the pre-paid forgiveness credit that anyone will ever need. The actual payment was made by Jesus on the cross, but cosmically it was a payment for all time (pre- and post-).

Unlike your phone the credit will not run out ... but as far as we can work out we each have a lifetime in which to benefit from it, before a God-determined moment of credit expiry.