Have you ever been in a situation where something really horrible happens to you and you find it impossible to forgive a person who has wronged you?
It happens to most people sometime in their lives. The hurt, embarrassment or pain can be psychologically excruciating. You can even, in your own mind at least, justify wanting that person to be taught an extreme lesson, or come falling on their knees begging for forgiveness.
Is that how Bible forgiveness works, though, and why is forgiveness such an important issue for the follower of Christ?
The marks of offence
We may want the sky to fall down on someone, or for balls of fire to consume them, but this is not something Jesus advocates when it comes to being offended or treated badly. His response to offence is instant and decisive. We have to forgive.
This is not always a simple matter for us, depending on the level of offence we have had to face. No one you know has not been offended by something or someone in their lifetime. Sadly, it even happens for Christians. In fact, we are told we will be persecuted for our faith, which could be an opportunity for offence.
If you ask anyone to reveal their greatest hurts they will tell you in detail what happened to them and how unjust that situation became. Most offence leaves a mark, a scar, a trace of pain or discomfort, places we do not ever want to revisit.
Always remember that Jesus still retains the marks of the cross, His hands and feet with the scars of the nails, his head with the grooves of the crown. The remembrance remains, but as marks of victory over sin and death. That is why we have to learn to crucify the flesh, so that we can live in the liberty of life (Rom.8:13).
How often should we forgive?
Jesus was once asked how many times a person should forgive another. “Seventy times seven,” was His response (Mat.18:22). Seven is the number of completion or fullness. He meant that we should always forgive without exception. Every time. Always. Without fail.
He took it further than this. He told us that if someone struck us on one side of our face, we should offer the other. Can you imagine? Many of us would offer the other side of our fist. Yet Jesus says that we should offer the rest of our face for equally bad treatment as an indication of instant forgiveness.
Does this mean that we should put up with continually abusive situations. No, not at all. We should walk away from them if they are unresolvable. Separate ourselves from harms way as much as possible, for our own wellbeing as well as the protagonists’, who will be held accountable before God for their actions.
What it means is that we should do so with a forgiving heart and not seeking reprisals. There may be situations of no seeming escape for believers, of death for the gospel’s sake. Consider Paul who was imprisoned for his faith, and ultimately martyred. He considered it part of the victory walk in Christ, and never stopped preaching the gospel, even from the prison cell.
Answered prayer
Jesus said that for our prayers to be answered we need to forgive those who despitefully use us. We always want our prayers to be heard and actioned through the Word of God. Faithless prayers are mere words in the air. It is the same with unforgiving prayers.
“And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
Mark 11:25-26
It’s not that God wants to torture us further by instructing that we forgive. He wants us to walk clear of all pain, hurt and harm, even to our own selves. Forgiveness is freedom.
Lack of forgiveness stops us in our tracks, gets us bogged down in a mire of confusion, limits our effectiveness and progress as believers, turns us, unwittingly, into unbelievers, in fact, because we find it hard to believe that we can forgive in many circumstances, even though He teaches us to forgive in all.
However, if it were impossible to forgive every offence Jesus would never have admonished us to forgive and walk in forgiveness.
Someone says, “You don’t know how awful my situation was, what they did to me, and how much I suffered.”
No, that’s very true, but consider Jesus on the cross, having been betrayed, denied, falsely accused, sentenced to a severe scourging with a barbed whip to within an inch of His life, a crown of piercing thorns embedded in His skull, nailed to a tree, the greatest curse for any Jewish man, and reviled by all and sundry apart from His disciples.
Yes, and bearing the sins of every person who ever lived, separated for the first time in history from His Father. Consider what a terrible offence this could have been for anyone, let alone the Son of God. It was our sin, your sin, my sin, that put Him on the cross. Our guilt was laid upon Him.
Yet, what did Jesus say, even in the midst of His suffering? “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Think about this for a moment. He lived what He preached. We, through sin, crucified Him, yet He forgave.
Liberty
For us forgiveness is liberty, as it is for those we forgive. Letting go of the offence is a key to successful living. Holding on to grudges and keeping people bound to our offences negates our prayers. Let God be the Judge of all things. He is the One who vindicates us when we are guiltless.
So Jesus empowers us to forgive. This is such a privileged and powerful position in which to be. Being filled with the Spirit authorises us to forgive others in the same way Jesus forgave.
So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
John 20:21-23
Forgiveness is essentially a New Covenant principle. It is a higher degree of righteousness. It is a testament to the strength of character and commitment of the true believer and follower of Christ. It takes great faith and a merciful heart to forgive some situations. Jesus is our great example.
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
Ephesians 4:30-32
Think about how much God forgave you when He received you as His son or daughter at the new birth. He cast your sin, all of it, as far as the east is from the west (Ps.103:11). He released you from all obligation, all guilt, all shame. Forgiveness, for the Christian, is more than a suggestion. It is a requirement.
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.
Colossians 3:12-14
Love is the great key to forgiveness. Walking in love is walking in the Spirit. He makes the way for us to be able to forgive everything and everyone, just as He has done when we draw near to Him.
