Why Can’t God Forgive Without Blood?

In discussions with atheists they’ve asked me: “Why couldn’t God just forgive man without the shedding of blood?” They see the shedding of blood in Christ as cruelty on the part of God towards his Son, and unnecessary. “If I can forgive someone who wrongs me without anyone needing to die, why couldn’t God have shown the same merciful and kind nature and forgiven Adam and Eve without Christ needing to die?”

What they’re not understanding here is that it’s not merciful for God to forgive a sinner without Christ dying. Mercy is only true mercy when there is also full justice; love is a two sided coin with mercy on one side and justice on the other. God would cease to be love if he was not both just and merciful.

“Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”

Psalm 85:10

This text in Psalms shows us God’s character as revealed on the cross. Both righteousness and peace; mercy and justice make up his character.

Notice how when Moses asked to see God’s glory and God said he would walk past him and proclaim his name, that he proclaimed justice as well as great mercy:

“The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty…”

Exodus 34:6-7

The name, or character of God, is both justice and mercy. Not one or the other, and they are not contradictory but two parts of one whole.

Therefore for God to have only mercy and no justice would not be love on his part. Allow me to explain…

If God forgave them without Christ’s blood – that would abolish his own law. It amounts to excusing and allowing the sin if the penalty is not enforced. If man could break God’s law, and then just be forgiven, then the law is not in effect. He will continue to break God’s law, be “forgiven”, and break it again for eternity. It’s NOT merciful to allow evil. It’s the opposite of merciful; it’s cruel. To allow sin is to allow murder, theft, rape, etc. God would not do that.

While people have and do sin, sin has never been lawful in God’s universe; people break his law when they sin; it is absolutely not sanctioned by God. To ask God to forgive sin without Christ’s death would be asking God to sanction and fully approve of sin.

Another important point to the discussion is to differentiate between God’s forgiveness and our forgiveness of people. When we forgive others it’s not the same as God forgiving them. Our forgiving nature does not absolve people of sin. It doesn’t wash away their guilt. It can do nothing to change their standing before God. It’s simply an attitude that we harbor towards people, where we keep no record of their wrongs done to us, which we are able to do because we know that Christ died for that person, and that ultimately justice is God’s domain and he will repay. Christians don’t stop caring about justice, we just don’t take it into our own hands.

“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

Romans 12:9

We forgive hoping that person will repent and believe in Christ and be forgiven of their sins, we desire their salvation and their welfare and harbor good thoughts towards them. But if they won’t accept Christ’s forgiveness and turn from their sin, God will take care of the sin that person committed in the judgment fire. Justice will be served for every wrong ever committed. Even as people (and not God who has perfect hate for injustice), we don’t just sweep sin under the rug and excuse it. We don’t have an attitude that what that person did was fine and deserving of no penalty – we just trust God that he as the sacrifice and judge will make sure the penalty for that person’s sin is paid. Similarly when we ourselves sin, we don’t just excuse it, we ask forgiveness and turn from it, fully aware that Christ took lashes and the second death to absolve us of our sin. It did not come free.

What my atheists friends don’t realize is that when they ask for God to forgive without the shedding of blood, they are asking for lawlessness. For the law to be abolished. And remember that the law is perfect goodness and perfect rightness. Remember that the law is all of the loving things Jesus did while he was on earth – all the kind words he spoke, and his own death on the cross. So to ask for the law to be abolished is to ask for love to be abolished. Goodness to be abolished. Right to be abolished. God to be dethroned. It was the breaking of God’s law that brought sin and suffering and death into our world, and all the horrible things we have here. Doing away with the law would not end evil and pain, but make it eternal.

I’m sure you can see now how Christ’s blood magnified the law, established the law, because he paid the full penalty of the law, showing that it was fully in effect. The price was the death of God Himself, and God paid that price. The law was shown to be unchangeable and completely and fully binding. Good and love and right, God would establish as eternal principles. Evil and wrongdoing he would not permit to win the war.

Without the law there can be no Jesus; there can be no Savior. The concept of God dying to redeem sinners makes zero sense. Because, you see, we are sinners because we broke God’s law. We are enemies with God because we broke His law. We are in need of redemption because of our sin. And redemption wouldn’t be redemption if we were just allowed to go on sinning – that would be not being redeemed.  If the law is no longer binding, then people can’t be redeemed as there is nothing to redeem them from. If sin is lawful now, then there’s no need for a Savior and there would be no Savior.