The Constitution may be a revolutionary document, but it certainly isn’t entirely just.

Anyone who balked at Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal – or who has questioned any presidential pardon before or since – understands what I’m saying. It’s natural for us to want justice served to criminals (assuming, at least, that the criminal in question isn’t us or someone close to us), and any outcome short of this rubs against the grain of our sensibilities.

CNN published an article this week detailing some of the most notable presidential pardons: Not only Nixon but also Samuel Mudd, Edmund Spangler and Samuel Arnold, convicted conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; Peter Yarrow, one-third of the 1960s folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, who was convicted of taking “improper liberties” with a 14-year-old fan; and Roger Clinton, who received clemency for cocaine distribution from his half-brother Bill – to name just a few.

Of course, not everyone convicted of a crime is fortunate enough to have his slate wiped clean. Statistics from the United States Department of Justice show that presidents receive thousands of pardon petitions during their time in office, and a majority are denied.

I don’t know what criteria are used in determining whether to forgive a crime – but I do know that I’m in need of a pardon that even than the president of the United States can’t grant.

It’s not hard to see the parallels between the pardon granted by the president and the pardon that’s at the heart of Christianity. Both are unfair. Both are undeserved. Both ensure justice isn’t done – at least not to the person who deserves it.

In the eyes of God, we’re all in need of pardon, because we’re all criminals. Even if we haven’t committed a crime that breaks the laws of the United States, we’ve still fallen short of God’s standard of goodness. We’ve broken his law. We’ve turned away from him, and we’re all destined for an eternity without him (also known as hell) unless this wrong is made right.

This is where justice comes in. Because God is perfectly just, he can’t let crime go unpunished. But because he’s also perfectly loving, he took that punishment upon himself – in the person of Jesus – and offers this as pardon to the whole world. All anyone has to do is accept it. And unlike the many criminals whose petitions are rejected by the president, no one who asks to receive God’s pardon will be turned away.

Pardons, of course, aren’t always accepted, as is shown by the case at the top of CNN’s most-notable list. In 1830, Andrew Jackson pardoned a murderer and mail-train robber named George Wilson of his capital crimes – telling him he would have to serve 20 years for robbery but forgiving what would have earned him a death sentence. Wilson, for some reason, refused this offer. After the Supreme Court decided there was no legal way to make him accept it, he was hanged.

Crazy, right? But anyone who doesn’t accept God’s pardon is doing the same thing: choosing death rather than life, justice rather than mercy, what’s deserved rather than the free gift of something so much better.