Before we consider Samson, let us look at TWO very important ASPECTS OF FORGIVENESS. We can call the first aspect JUDICIAL or ETERNAL forgiveness and the second aspect PATERNAL or RESTORATIVE forgiveness.

1) JUDICIAL FORGIVENESS takes place when a “sinner repents of their sins before God” (who is their JUDGE) and God forgives them. The moment they do take their place before God as a lost sinner their sins are eternally forgiven. David wrote of this forgiveness in Psalm 32:1-2, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity.” David further described what God does with those sins in Psalm 103:2-3, 10-12, “Bless the LORD, O my soul…Who forgives ALL YOUR INIQUITIES…He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” We see here that God has not only “FORGIVEN all the iniquities of the repentant believer”; He has also “REMOVED our transgressions from us.” This is why God can say, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Hebrews 10:17).

2) PATERNAL FORGIVENESS takes place when a “child of God confesses his sins before his heavenly Father” and God the Father forgives him. We see this aspect of forgiveness in 1st John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The “we” in this verse refers to “children of God” and the “He” in this verse is “God the Father.” God is no longer our JUDGE (since the believer has already been “JUDICIALLY forgiven by God) but when we do sin after becoming a child of God, we need to confess it in order to receive our “Father’s forgiveness” so we can be “restored back into fellowship with our Father” and “cleansed by the Word of God from sins.”

As for Samson, from his birth he was set apart to God as a Nazirite (see Judges 13:2-3, 5), for God was going to use Samson to deliver His people from their enemies. As we study Samson’s life in Judges chapters 13-16, we see that he was indeed used of God as a “deliverer of His people” from the Philistines. This is why God gave him supernatural strength (see 14:19; 15:14-15; 16:4-8). At times, Samson failed to honor the Lord in his life, especially when it came to his love for ungodly women (see 14:1-3 and 16:1-4). But Samson was a man of faith, for he is listed among the faithful believers in Hebrews 11:32. When we come to the very end of his life, Samson was in a very humiliating state. As a Nazirite he was not to cut his hair (Judges 13:5), yet he had divulged to Delilah that his long hair was “the secret to his strength” and while he slept his hair was cut off, his strength left him, and the Philistines captured him, put his eyes out, and put him in prison (see Judges 16:15-21). By God’s grace his hair was able to grow back and when he was brought into a large gathering of “the lords of the Philistines” to entertain them, he cried out in true humility and repentance, “O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray! Strengthen me, I pray, just this once, O God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes” (16:22-28). The Lord answered this cry of a righteous man (see Psalm 34:17-19) and thus we read, “And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars which supported the temple, and he braced himself against them, one on his right and the other on his left….he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life” (verses 29-30). Samson was then brought home and buried “in the tomb of his father Manoah” and we read that “he had judged Israel twenty years.” He was a “man of faith” and was honored as such by “his brothers and all his father’s household.”

Now let us end this meditation where we started. We saw that JUDICIAL FORGIVENESS is a one-time act when a sinner comes to God in repentance and faith and receives the “forgiveness of ALL of their sins.” We are not told when that occurred in Samson’s life but we saw that he was a “man of faith” (Hebrews 11:32), so we know he was eternally forgiven. We also saw that if a child of God sins, he must confess his sins to receive PATERNAL FORGIVENESS and be restored to fellowship with God. I believe Samson’s last prayer (which we read) was “his prayer of repentance” that expressed his desire to be forgiven and have his strength restored so he could glorify God in his last hour and we read that his prayer was answered and once again he became “the deliverer of God’s people.”  (DO)  (570.5)