The sermon centers salvation on God himself: sin is, before anything else, an offense against God’s own person, law, and authority, “a practical declaration that he was not, by nature, God, and ungod himself in the sight of all his dominions to gratify a rebel.” Because God’s law is a real, binding standard reflecting who he is, the greater the authority behind a command, the greater our guilt in disobeying it, making every sin, ultimately, a sin against an infinitely holy God.
This is why forgiveness could never be a matter of God simply overlooking sin. As Romans 5:12 traces sin and death spreading to the whole race through one man, Galatians 3:13 shows Christ redeeming us from the law’s curse by becoming a curse for us on the tree. In Christ, God himself is “the Forgiver,” and his people, forgiven at such cost, are called to respond with obedience to his law and the same forgiving grace shown to them.