Christian teaching

We are dealing with community life skills that we all need to be able to be a healthy church community in our relationships with each other.

We talked about repentance last time and ended with Luke 17:3 – “If a fellow believer sins, tell them to stop; if they repent forgive them.” To heal a relationship damaged by sin you need both repentance and forgiveness. And so we look at forgiveness today.

Jesus has some strong things to say about our need to forgive others their wrongs against us

1. If the person repents – you must forgive. As we just saw, “If a fellow believer sins, tell them to stop; if they repent forgive them” – Luke 17:3.

2. If you don’t forgive – you won’t be forgiven by God for your sins. Jesus says, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” – Matthew 6:14-15.

3. You should forgive whenever someone comes to you in repentance. In Luke 17:4 Jesus says seven times in one day. In Matthew 18:22 Jesus says, seventy times seven – or 490 times. These are both meant as overstatements to make the point – forgive whenever someone comes seeking it.

If we ask, “why forgive?” the answer comes in the parable of Matthew 18:23-35. It is an evil hypocrisy and inconsistency to receive forgiveness from God for what is a huge debt that you owe to God and not forgive others what is relatively speaking a small debt. You can’t receive mercy – and then not give mercy.

Three components of forgiveness

So, a person comes to you – with repentance – and you want to forgive them – what does this look like?

1. Set aside your anger and the desire for judgment. When you have been wronged, anger is the natural response. In fact it’s the way God has made us. Anger is given to us as a way of stirring us up to seek out what is right for ourselves and others.

The problem, of course, is that we can’t usually handle our anger, because our fleshly desires corrupt it and turn it into a vehicle to simply get back at those who hurt us. So our anger leads us to seek out judgment of the other person. We want to get even; to make them pay; to harm them in return. We stew in anger and hostility until judgment is done or we sink into bitterness if it is not done.

But Jesus tells us in Luke 6:37-38-

Judging and condemning are the same thing here and they are the opposite of forgiving and giving mercy. Jesus teaches us that we have to choose. You can’t have both at the same time. Forgiveness means setting aside this anger and desire for judgment

This is not based on emotions – you most likely won’t feel like doing it – it’s a decision you make. Also, this is not an overlooking of the wrong that was done. It is a search for a different kind of resolution – other than payback. One that brings peace and wholeness rather than more wounding and harm.

2. In mercy release the person of their debt to you. There is actually an economic background to the idea of forgiveness in Scripture: Sin is seen as a debt that is owed – Matthew 6:12. The word that Jesus uses here – “forgive” means to release someone of a debt.

This shows us that we owe each other to do what is right and good. And when we fail in this by wronging them we are in debt to them. To forgive someone is to release them of this moral debt to you.

So when someone comes to you with genuine repentance, seeking mercy, “I owe you and I can’t ever really make it right” – forgiveness means releasing them of this debt that they can’t pay.

But note, it has to be real, not a show or a put on, or a social courtesy. It has to be “from the heart” – Matthew 18:35. Also, once it is dealt with and you are satisfied that there is real repentance – you must really let it go. You don’t keep bringing it up.

3. Begin the relationship anew. The goal with any broken relationship is reconciliation. As Jesus says in Matthew 5:24 to the one who does the wrong – “leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother.” He also says in Mark 9:50 – “Be at peace with one another.” This can happen when you have true repentance and true forgiveness  – the relationship can heal.

Now this doesn’t mean that you can always pick right up where you left off. Some wounds go deep and need time to heal, time to reestablish trust – and that is fine. It’s a process. The key is that you are in relationship – and you are working at healing.

 Clarification: What if there is no repentance?

In popular language “forgiveness” is something we can just do internally by ourselves – an inner release of anger and debt. But in Scripture “forgiveness” has to do with all three components. There has to be repentance that deals with the issues and leads to reconciliation. Both parties need to be involved.

What should we do when there is no repentance? It is similar to the teaching on forgiveness:

• We give up our anger and desire for judgment.
• We choose to love them even as we are to love all our enemies. (And what is an enemy except one who harms you and doesn’t care or repent.)
• And we stand ready to forgive them if they ever repent and work toward true reconciliation.

Finally –

What is more powerful –  the evil deed or love that forgives?

In some cases forgiveness is seemingly unthinkable – the pain is too deep. I think of sexual abuse, child abuse, or the murder of someone you love. But even in these catastrophic cases, each of us have to choose:

• Will we allow the evil done to us to be the most powerful reality – and let it enslave us and twist us and deform us and make us bitter?
• Or will we act on the belief that love is more powerful – and choose to make the hard choice to forgive and allow God to set us free?

It can be an incredible struggle to forgive. We could say like Jesus said to the rich man, “with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” – Matthew 19:26. It takes God acting in us and through us to make the decision to forgive and to live out that decision throughout our lives.

But if we make the choice we can put into practice the admonition of Paul in Romans 12:21 – “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Instead of being overcome by the evil done to us, we can overcome it with good – the power of love and forgiveness.

William