{"id":10791,"date":"2026-11-02T23:48:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T03:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=10791"},"modified":"2026-11-02T23:48:00","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T03:48:00","slug":"reflecting-gods-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=10791","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting God&#8217;s Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Hamilton14.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Hamilton14.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"533\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-10792\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Hamilton14.jpg 400w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Hamilton14-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Jesus routinely announced God&#8217;s forgiveness without requiring punishment.  Again and again, he tells people their sins are forgiven.  And he teaches his followers to freely forgive.  We don&#8217;t say to those who have wronged us, &#8220;I&#8217;ll forgive you, but justice requires that first I have to punish you.&#8221;  Forgiveness freely given is called grace or mercy in Scripture.<\/p>\n<p>Did God <em>need<\/em> Jesus to die in order to forgive us?  Did Jesus die in order to placate God&#8217;s wrath?  Asked another way, Did Jesus die for God?  Did Jesus&#8217; death change God&#8217;s heart, or did it, rather, reflect God&#8217;s heart?<\/p>\n<p>I believe it is <em>we<\/em> who needed Jesus&#8217; death, not God.  It was to change our hearts, not to change God&#8217;s heart.  God can forgive anyone God chooses and does not require God&#8217;s Son&#8217;s torturous death in order to appease his anger.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Adam Hamilton, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Nonfiction\/why_did_jesus_have_to_die.html\">Why Did Jesus Have to Die?<\/a><\/em>, p. 27-28<\/p>\n<p>Photo: South Riding, Virginia, October 30, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jesus routinely announced God&#8217;s forgiveness without requiring punishment. Again and again, he tells people their sins are forgiven. And he teaches his followers to freely forgive. We don&#8217;t say to those who have wronged us, &#8220;I&#8217;ll forgive you, but justice requires that first I have to punish you.&#8221; Forgiveness freely given is called grace or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,11,13,57,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atonement","category-forgiveness","category-god","category-grace","category-jesus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10793,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10791\/revisions\/10793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}