“No one can move from conviction to pardon simply by examining one’s own conscience or by the force of will or by limited human reasoning. Pardon is exclusively an act of grace offered and revealed by the incomparably holy and merciful One who pardons.
My own word of pardon to myself is always finally self-contrived, hence insufficient, artificial, shallow, and ungrounded. Pardon must be based upon the valid pardoning agent. This can only be the eternal One who is infinitely just, holy, and merciful. Only this One can be full of grace without ceasing to be full of truth.”
—Thomas Oden, The Justification Reader (Grand Rapids: Eeerdmans, 2002), 90
Knowing God through His Word ... Day by Day 