What is the hardest thing in the Christian life? Probably a majority of Christians would agree—forgiveness, for it is not easy to forgive one who has seriously and grievously wronged you. Yet, Jesus put forgiveness at the center of Christian living. He forgave men their sins, and for this the Pharisees opposed him and finally crucified him. Their contention was that he was assuming prerogatives belonging only to God; and in a sense they were right for only God, himself being sinless, could truly forgive. But where they erred, of course, was in that they rejected Christ’s claim to be God. It was Christ who put forgiveness central in the Christian life, and it was God in Christ doing it.
Four Sides To Forgiveness
We note that upon consideration there are really four sides to forgiveness. The first is God’s forgiveness of us. The Bible teaches us that God forgives; nevertheless, we know from Scripture that it cost God a most terrible price to forgive us of our sins. It cost him the death of his Son at Calvary. By his very nature of righteousness and holy perfection, God could never at any time condone sin; his attitude toward it was and always will be one of righteous hatred. But when we say that God forgives us of our sin, we are nonetheless uttering a terrible and wonderful truth!
The second side of forgiveness, we note, is our forgiveness of ourselves. To be able to face oneself and at the same time accept oneself is often very hard. But only as we learn to forgive ourselves, can we experience self-acceptance and impose self-criticism at the same time. This side of forgiveness involves a matter of faith, of truly believing that, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Self-forgiveness depends simply upon our truly believing that God has forgiven us as we have confessed our sins, and has cleansed us.
But there, you say, lies the trouble. I did confess my sin, and I asked for forgiveness and cleansing. Then, a few days, or maybe a month later, I sinned again. And with tears I went to God once more in prayer for forgiveness. And for a while I felt clean until—one day I slipped all over again. This has been the story till I’ve lost faith in the promise of 1 John 1:9. If I am cleansed from all unrighteousness, how can I fall again and again?
We are reminded of Jesus’ words in Luke 17:3–4: “If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him: and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent: thou shalt forgive him.” Seven times in a day! Would God do less for us than he asks us to do for others? If I wash my hands this morning and later pick up some object that soils them, this does not mean that my cleansing was ineffective. God does not promise that cleansing “from all unrighteousness” will be permanent. He does promise, however, that it will be thorough when applied, and will be applied as often as we need it and ask for it. How thankful we are that there are no limits to his wonderful grace.
The third side of forgiveness, that which concerns our relationship with others, is the critical realm that matters most for most of us. Many tend to forgive themselves too easily, but are not so quick to forgive others. Scripture is urgent in its teaching about this. Jesus taught us to pray “forgive us our debts (trespasses) as we forgive our debtors (those who trespass against us).” He also said, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:14).
This is not to understand God’s forgiveness as something we may buy provided we meet a certain condition. What is implied in these words is that if we really receive God’s forgiveness for our sins, our gratefulness to him will act as a dynamic within our hearts causing us to forgive others of their sins. If we do not have a forgiving spirit, then it is evident that we really have not received God’s forgiveness for ourselves. God forgiving us and our forgiving others go together; there cannot be one without the other.
The Need For Forgiveness
Most people recognize that being right with God involves being right with man. Even children sense this. One pastor relates that “some years ago, after a vigorous brotherly and sisterly disagreement, our three children went to bed only to be aroused at two o’clock the next morning by a terrific thunderstorm. Hearing little noises upstairs, I called to find out what was going on. A small voice answered, ‘We are all in the closet forgiving each other.’ ”
A refusal to forgive always results in wrong relationships, and this is tragic. W. Waldemar Argow illustrates a rather odd incident: “I passed a building undergoing repairs,” he reported, “and on one side workmen were removing large quantities of bricks which had crumbled away. Why, I asked, had some bricks disintegrated and not others? The foreman answered: ‘Fifty years ago, when the building was erected, there came a day when the laborers at the brickyard had trouble with one another. Now, long years after that single day, a moral is written in crumbling brick.’ ” There is probably some “natural” explanation as to why the disagreement meant an inferior portion of wall. But whatever it is, the illustration fits the principle. Paul wrote, “… be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32).
Jesus gave the Golden Rule: “So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matt. 7:12). The Rule then is a statement of divine law. But as Christians we are not under law, we are under grace; and grace at work in our hearts will lead us to go beyond the law—beyond the Golden Rule. We may hear a lot of preaching that claims all will be well if only we obey the Golden Rule. That is certainly true, but we live also in a world where multitudes do not obey it. We need, therefore, a new principle, one that will meet the situation where people flout the other. And this we find in the Grace Rule: “Do unto others as Christ did for you.” It is the rule of divine forgiveness, and the biblical statement for it is: “forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
Restitution Required
We have hereto considered three sides of forgiveness. There is one more, namely, our seeking the forgiveness of those whom we have wronged. Remember Jesus’ words?—“If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift (Matt. 5:23). We need to be willing to forgive, and we need also to seek forgiveness when we have been wrong. This takes humility and requires the grace of God in one’s heart. To go to another person and admit a sin done against him and ask forgiveness from it is not easy. But it is Christian, and our Christian life begins simply with our seeking God’s forgiveness, and continues with our forgiving and seeking the forgiveness of others.
There is, of course, a danger in forgiveness that must be avoided. Easy forgiveness that becomes merely a condoning of another person’s sin does not help him, and certainly does not rescue him. It harms him, for such forgiveness is not moral and not Christian.
But Christians are called upon to practice moral forgiveness. There is the record of a young man who once burglarized the home of Phillips Brooks. The good bishop, to the amazement of his fellow townsmen, helped to send the youth to prison. But that was not the end of the story. It is said that he wrote to the young man every week; and when the youth was finally released, he secured for him a job. By good counsel, therefore, and understanding on the part of a great Christian, a wayward one was put on solid ground. He became a Christian as well as a solid citizen.
‘Faithful And Just’
The Bible puts forgiveness on a moral foundation. It is a forgiveness that involves the suffering of the innocent. God “is faithful and just to forgive,” and that justification is made possible because Christ bore our sins for us on the cross. In truth God does not forgive the sin, nor does he ignore it; he hates it. And yet he will forgive the sinner; not that the sinner is in any sense “let off,” but that forgiveness is made possible because God has met and overcome man’s sin by way of the cross. We must remember that the cross is both a fact in time and an experience in eternity. God conquered all sin once at Calvary, but the application of that act is ever a continuing process for generation to generation.
When we realize also that sin is not just a surface stain but a deep flaw, then we realize how deep and thorough God’s forgiveness of us really is. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation,” the recipient of redeeming forgiveness. Of course, it does not mean we become perfect. Our slates may still be stained from the world. But if we have had first a true and wonderful change of nature, the cleansing power of God may be repeatedly applied to our slates to offset that stain. By receiving God’s forgiveness we learn to forgive ourselves and to experience, in Paul’s words, the “forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
END
Norman L. Godbey is Pastor of the State Street Baptist Church of Rockford, Illinois, where he has served since 1945. Previous to that he pastored other Baptist churches in Illinois cities and in Kansas. He holds his B.A. from Ottawa University and the Th.B. from Northern Baptist Seminary. He served as President of the Illinois Baptist State Convention in 1950–1951 and has held other posts in the American Baptist Convention.
