Chapter
17 : Thinking about Forgiveness
“Bear
with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have
against
one another”
(Colossians
3:13)
17.1
Facing Forgiveness
In the last chapter we looked at the means of dealing with
a Conflict situation. Christians so often seem to have difficulties
over forgiveness and so this chapter is given over to that subject.
We seek to flee from people that we find difficult,
whereas God wants to use them to bring us to the end of ourselves and
so rely on Him for grace to cope with them. In that we become more and
more like Jesus. Thus it is that the enemy will try to emphasise our
differences and make us isolationists, especially isolating or pushing
away those we feel are unlike us and lacking the grace we believe we
have.
The
tactics the enemy uses are either
•
to accentuate our differences (or more
particularly from our viewpoint their differences) or
•
to create outright hostility whereby
hurt, opposition or upset cause us to maintain a wrong defensive attitudes
towards others.
Because we have already been thinking about the ‘differences'
issue, we now move to consider the ‘hostility' issue which raises the
whole question of forgiveness.
A
Divine Imperative
Our Colossians 3:13 verse gives us no room for manoeuvre
– we're TOLD to forgive. Part of our ‘putting up with people' is to
be the thing we call forgiveness, and the reason we're to do it is twofold:
•
We're commanded to by God, and
•
He's done it for us, so we should for
others.
This unforgiveness may be ‘baggage' from the past or a present
reality, but it's a power block to the life of an individual or the
life of a church. Obviously if there is unforgiveness there is a blockage
to forming a proper relationship. Many an individual's potential has
been squashed because they have allowed unforgiveness to blight their
life. Many a church has been rendered powerless because unresolved conflicts
have raged and unforgiveness has prevailed.
Earlier in the book we were considering people-quirks or
character blemishes that we've found difficult, but now we need to move
on to consider how we respond to those who specifically offend us or,
to be more precise, who sin against us.
Examples
Audrey gives the impression of being an ordinary, staid, faithful
Christian who never seems to go anywhere with her faith, and she's a
frustration to her leaders who see such potential in her. Inside she's
locked up with guilt that comes from unforgiveness. Years ago she failed
her daughter. The details don't matter. Just know that through it all
she acknowledged her wrong and asked her daughter's forgiveness - but
it was not forthcoming. The bitterness that had grown in her
daughter spat out, “I'll never forgive you. I hate you!” That unforgiveness
from her daughter acted like a heavy weight within Audrey. She did all
the things Christians do, but inside was this weight that was unresolved
guilt. Unforgiveness by another had locked up her life.
For Bob it was the other way around. In a previous church
the leaders had made a promise to Bob which they had never kept, or
so he believed. As a result Bob was harbouring resentment and unforgiveness,
both of which acted like a brake on his life. The fact that the unforgiveness
was based upon a misunderstanding didn't in any way diminish its impact.
Bob was another one of those church members who are there – but not!
Others encouraged him to join in the
life of the church but the grudge from the past somehow acted to dampen
his whole life. The reality is that unforgiveness can be THE major stumbling
block to creating a secure church, yet forgiveness is not an option,
it is a divine command.
What happens in a bad relationship situation
is that one person offends another person and the second person feels
upset with them and harbours bad feelings against them. That's what
we call unforgiveness. So how can we help one another deal with it?
17.2
The Shifting Sands of Offence
Offended?
Before we look at this subject more fully, we need to clarify
in our minds what we mean when we said above “we have been offended”,
because it can mean many things to many people, and before we know where
we are, what appeared to be simple and straight forward, becomes something
quite different. So let's think about it slowly and carefully.
Let's start with that person who seems to ‘rub everybody up the
wrong way'. The fact is that some people simply don't know how to say
things without sounding threatening or offensive. In all honesty, I
think I'm only starting to move out of that mode myself. People who
are naturally forthright can be offensive while being quite unaware
of it – oh yes, they're not being intentionally abrasive.
One of the problems in the church is that so often we are afraid
to pick someone up on the way they speak to us, because we ourselves
lack the grace or the wisdom to do it in a way that will not in itself
create offence.
I used to know someone who, bluntly, was always critical – often
of me, simply because they were always critical! For a long period I
took it without saying a thing, believing it was ‘servant-hearted' to
take it on the chin – and anyway if I confronted them with it, they
would leave, I believed, and I didn't want that to happen. So I tolerated
their sin because I lacked the courage, the grace, the wisdom, call
it what you will, to pick them up on the way they spoke.
Again, if I'm honest, in addition to my general inability to
confront, another reason I didn't do it was because actually I wanted
to tell them their fortune and really chop them to pieces. That's
what we feel like ‘naturally' and so it's an effort to come to God,
confess our own weakness and seek Him for the grace to be Jesus to this
other person.
What I really want to be saying here is that I don't want you
to get into a big “forgiveness meal” over fairly minor things that could
be quickly dealt with by some gracious words from our mouths, coming
from accepting, loving and caring hearts.
In what follows, when I am referring to you having been
“offended”, I really want to deal with serious issues where you have
been abused by another, verbally or physically, and you've been left
marked as a result of it.
If it's a minor misunderstanding thing, then
just get God's grace to talk it out gently, but if it's a time when
you were totally devastated by someone abusing you, then that's what
we're talking about!
17.3
The Basics of Biblical Forgiveness
A
Common Misunderstanding
There is a common misunderstanding about forgiveness that
you hear again and again, but which does NOT correspond with Scripture.
The common version is, “You must forgive people regardless of whether
or not they are repentant.” Now that is inaccurate in one specific way
which is very important to God – it minimises the awfulness of sin.
What it in fact says is, “It's all right that you have sinned against
me, it doesn't matter.”
Biblical
Forgiveness
Biblical Forgiveness is based on God's forgiveness:
Col
3:13 Forgive
as the Lord forgave you .
Now when we examine how God forgives, we see that it is ONLY
after repentance. We mustn't confuse this with two things:
•
God loves us
•
God sent Jesus to die in our place.
Now as we went to lengths to say in Book One, God
loves us unconditionally, but don't let that become ‘God excuses our
Sin'. He never does that, He has too serious a view about Sin, so serious
that the only way to deal with it was with the life of His Son!
Yes, Jesus did die in our place, but it is very clear from
Scripture that to receive the work of the Cross we have to believe it
and come to God in repentance, specifically seeking his forgiveness.
Throughout the Old Testament period the prophets preached repentance.
When John the Baptist came he preached repentance (Mt 3:1,2). When Jesus
came he preached repentance (Mt 4:17). When the Holy Spirit came on
Peter on the day of Pentecost, he preached repentance (Acts 2:38), which
would open the door for forgiveness (see that same verse).
Nowhere in Scripture does God forgive without there first
being repentance, but the moment there is repentance, forgiveness is
guaranteed.
Vine's
Expository Dictionary says, "Human 'forgiveness' is to be strictly
analogous to divine 'forgiveness,' e.g. Matt 6:12. If certain conditions
are fulfilled, there is no limitation to Christ's law of 'forgiveness,'
Matt 18:21,22, The conditions are repentance and confession,
Matt 1815-17, Luke 17:3".
Love
before Repentance
Now if we are to forgive as God forgives, it also means
we are to love as He loves, and He loves before there is repentance.
That's why we said we need to distinguish between love and forgiveness.
You CAN love but not forgive, because forgiveness has to do more with
a judicial proclamation than with feelings.
The Christian requirement from Jesus is that we love our enemies
(Mt 5:44) which means holding a good attitude towards people who are
clearly against us which may go even beyond your offender.
This sort of forgiveness process is much more onerous than the
casual or cheap forgiveness so often expounded. This forgiveness calls
a spade a spade while at the same time holding an open non-hostile heart
towards the offender.
This sort of forgiveness confronts your offender (Mt 5:23,24)
but works for reconciliation, approaching your offender with a gentle
heart (Gal 6:1) looking for their good – because how can love do anything
less than this!
To see a more full description of how this all works
out, you may wish to go to our sister site which has a three part description
of the process. If so, please CLICK
HERE.
When Jesus was teaching, the ‘law' that he brought
sought to counteract any desires for revenge by going much further and
requiring is to do something positive by means of countering the offence
(that was the purpose of ‘eye for eye' – Mt 5:38).
The
Scriptural Strategy for Forgiveness
The following is the process that the Scriptures show us
for properly dealing with offences:
1.
Someone abuses you. (Probably there is a time lag as you cope with
it).
2.
You confront that person with their offence
3.
They repent and ask your forgiveness.
4.
You declare your forgiveness and the two of you are reconciled.
That's how it is supposed to be! On occasion it may be
that stage 2 is omitted because God convicts them before you have an
opportunity to face them up with it.
But it's that stage 2 that most of us would prefer to avoid
and simply say, “Oh, it's all right, I forgive them.” But that's not
forgiveness, that's condoning sin. As we said above, it takes real grace
to confront someone in such a way that you want their good as well as
yours.
What happens if stage 3 doesn't happen? You do one of two
things: you either leave it for the Lord to bring conviction, or you
go to a leader in the church for it to be taken a stage further. We'll
pick up the latter option in a later chapter where we focus more on
correction.
You may have to leave it if the person is not in your church
and having confronted them, there is nothing more you can do.
17.4
The Key to Biblical Forgiveness
Instead of seeing offence and forgiveness as an issue simply
between two people, we need to see that it is between two people AND
God. Where there is an unconfessed sin this is an open issue with God.
It may not be something that affects our eternal destiny (although it
can be) but unconfessed sin means you have an unresolved issue with
God – sin is an offence against God! It is only resolved when you repent
of it, and God doesn't bring judgement then, because Jesus already took
that punishment.
The Biblical teaching is that it is possible to unintentionally
sin and obviously action can only be taken when you become aware of
it (see for example Lev 4:13 ,14). Similarly Paul shows us (Rom 5:12
-14) that sin existed before the Law (knowledge of specific sins) but
wasn't counted against the sinner – yet the effects of sin did operate,
i.e. people still died.
So, as we said above, forgiveness is a judicial pronouncement
on behalf of heaven when there has been repentance. Before the repentance
and after it, the important thing for us, the offended person, is that
we get the grace of God to cope and to hold a non-hostile attitude towards
our offended, wanting them to come through to the good with God and
with you.
Hold on, you may be thinking, surely the end outcome is
the same as if I'd simply said, “It's all right I forgive you” even
if they haven't repented? No, you wouldn't have been part of God's process
of bringing them to the good – they still have a casual attitude about
their sin, because you let them off. God wants them to come into a proper
place before Him where they acknowledge what they have done is wrong
and repent of it. In that way they are reconciled to God AND they are
less likely to repeat it, which again is one of God's goals for them.
From your side of it all, the difficult thing, as we said
before, is for you to hold a right attitude towards your offender
17.5
Helpful Factors
There are a number of factors that might enable us to receive
the grace of God to cope well with the situation:
1.
Realisation of Justice
Many people struggle with
the question of forgiveness, and counsellors sometimes don't help because
they do not follow the Scriptural pattern, because they are being asked
to ignore injustice, and so the offended person says, “But she/he did
me wrong!” and the correct answer is, “Yes, it was very wrong and God
wants them to come to a place of repentance but in the meantime the
important thing is for you to receive God's grace to heal up all you
are feeling about what happened.”
We may subsequently go on to also
suggest that they are to become God's means of bringing that other person
to the good, and when that happens they can then pronounce forgiveness,
but not until then. The focus of the counsel then moves to receiving
grace for today without the need to ignore justice.
[You may be saying, but I didn't get justice
when God forgave me. Oh yes you did, You repented and God forgave you
on the basis that His Son had stepped in and taken the punishment for
the Sin(s) you've just confessed. His work on the Cross only becomes
operative in respect of clear, known sin, when there is repentance.]
2.
Our own unworthiness
The truth is that we have no room to point fingers at other
people. If an angel blew a horn from heaven every time we had less than
a perfect thought or less than a perfect word or less than a perfect
action, there would be a tired and exhausted angel in heaven! We have
been forgiven by God despite what we were like. The parable of the unmerciful
servant (Mt 18:21 -35) is a strong warning.
Again and again in Scripture we are encouraged to act in
a particular way because that is how God or Christ has acted towards
us, e.g. in our Colossian verse it finishes, “ Forgive as the
Lord forgave you ”. These sort of verses remind us that we
are what we are by the mercy and grace of God and so we are to extend
that same mercy and grace to others.
3.
The condition of the other person
Sometimes when we've been counselling someone we've come up against
the stumbling block of pain or anger which seems impossible to surmount.
However what the Lord did was to show them the state of the person who
offended them. One girl who had a major (and genuine) grievance against
her father from her childhood days, found as she prayed that the Lord
allowed her to see the state her father had been in at that time. Instead
of anger against him, she wept with compassion and found it easy
to release him to God (he had already died). Awareness of the state
of that person as seen through the eyes of Christ enables grace to come
much more freely.
4.
The will of God in His command
The Scripture allows
us no excuses. Too many times it commands us to forgive and indeed makes
it a condition of receiving forgiveness (e.g. Mt 6:15 ). But it's not
just a question of Law, for the Law is there to drive us into the arms
of the Father. In that amazing Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says a number
of things that are humanly impossible to do. So why does he say them?
To drive us into the Father's arms where we acknowledge our own weakness
and our own need, and receive through our relationship with Him the
grace to do those things.
Grace in the face of hurt is one
of those things, and if that wasn't bad enough, love for our enemies
is another as we noted previously (Mt 5:44), so if you consider someone
has abused or offended you and has become your enemy, the command is
there: love them, pray for them, and you'll only do that with God's
grace, but it isn't an option!
A
Summing Up Verse
In Book One we noted Peter's security in Jesus' presence
by reference to Mt 18:21 when Peter asks how many times he shall forgive
his brother, but in Luke's teaching in Lk 17:3,4 we find Jesus saying,
“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.
If he sins against you seven times in a day and seven times comes back
to you and says, ‘I repent', forgive him.”
There it is all very clearly laid out – he sins, you rebuke him,
he repents, and you forgive him. Those are all the ingredients. When
Peter spoke about it in Matthew's Gospel, his emphasis was simply on
how many times he needs to forgive. When Jesus spells it out, he gives
all the ingredients for it to be true Scriptural forgiveness – and yet
it has to keep on happening if the forgiveness-repentance cycle is repeated.
17.6
And So?
So, as we conclude this chapter on the matter of forgiveness,
consider the following:
Are there people in my life who
•
are unforgiving of me?
•
that I cannot forgive?
If there is someone who has seriously offended me, what
is it that stops me confronting them in love, seeking to bring a right
resolution?
If there are people who are simply fractious,
what do I need to be able to help them?
If
you wish to check out the Biblical verses on forgiveness in a full study
on what the Bible say about it, then please CLICK
HERE.