Understanding forgiveness from God’s perspective…
When we are asked what forgiveness means, what comes to our minds many times are the past wrongs that have been committed against us and probably what follows are the consequences, the scars and the pain that have been left behind. When we think about these situations, maybe we imagine what our lives could have been without these unwanted wounds that many of us try to forget. Jesus spoke many truths and parables on the topic of forgiveness; one of the most powerful passages in the bible is in
Matthew 6:14 “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.”
From this one passage, we can conclude that our refusal to grant forgiveness to others can and will cost us our pardon from God and eternal life. But before we look further into forgiving others, let’s look at what should take place in our lives first: the receiving of God’s forgiveness for our own sins. A common definition of the word “forgive” means to put away an offense or a wrong done to us. This means completely putting away our thoughts and feelings of anger, resentfulness, vindictiveness or indifference toward the person(s) who committed the offense. Synonyms include: to pardon, excuse and to exonerate. We understand from the Bible that Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life, meaning He alone is how God the Father can legally extend such a great pardon to us in the first place. It’s by Jesus dying on the cross and willingly shedding His innocent blood that we have this great opportunity to partake of God’s righteousness. The bible says: without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22). Another way to put it is, God’s forgiveness to us is free but it’s not cheap! It’s free in that we can’t pay for it or earn it, yet it was provided by the innocent blood of Christ!
That said, what do these truths practically mean for you and me? In order for us to have a need for forgiveness, there had to have been an offense committed first, right? Let’s take a closer look at our offense against God.
Looking at the bible this started in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, Adam being the first representative of mankind. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God (Genesis Chapter 3) sin and death entered into the world, the law of God had been broken, the fact is we are living in the consequences of that fatal decision even to this day. The bible is very clear that Adam was the first man and Eve was the first woman and that every tribe and race descended from them. In fact the name Eve literally means life or the source of life. To be clear, the word “source” here is pertaining to the perpetuation of humanity, for we know from the Bible, that Adam and then Eve were created by God the Father directly and mankind came forth from them through procreation. Now when they sinned, they caused their fallen nature to also be perpetuated throughout the human race right down to you and me. The fact is, we were all born sinners, I know this is not a very popular view of man especially today, but it's what God has said about us. The Bible says “Let God be true and every man a liar”. In Psalms 51, King David said it this way
“Behold, I was shaped in iniquity (evil); and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
So we can conclude that we really never had a chance to be innocent because of our fallen lineage. Much like a baby born with both parents and both sets of grandparents having the same defective gene and passing it on to their child giving that child 100% chance it too will have the defective gene. It matters little of one's race, culture or background, we are all in the same “ sin boat”, we are all spiritually defective and incapable on our own, of pleasing God. (Rom 3:29) And no amount of religious activity or discipline alone will ever make us right with God. But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…
Now that we looked at our lineage of sin, some might say “well doesn't this prove our current situation is not our fault then?” Now, before we go pinning everything on Adam and Eve’s infamous bite of the forbidden fruit from the tree in the garden, we must take a look at ourselves. The truth of the matter is each of us has our own long list of sins, actions, and thoughts that we have committed against God, so we can’t blame anyone else for where we find ourselves! We have all personally broken God’s law, we have all fallen short of the first two commandments alone, the first being to love the Lord God with all of our heart, strength, and mind and the second to love our neighbor as ourselves. That’s not to mention the other eight commandments (Exodus 20-1-17) which we have broken as well. And just in case you are tempted to find one of the commandments you haven't broken, James 2:10 says if we break one of the commandments, even one time, then we are guilty of them all. When Moses dropped the stone slabs with the commandments written on them by the finger of God, he didn’t just drop one he dropped all the commandments when the slabs were broken. And since these laws were given by an eternal God and are in fact eternal commandments, we have an eternal problem that needs an eternal solution. So, we can conclude that we, along with all humanity stand before God guilty and deserving the same punishment that Adam and Eve received, banishment from God which is death (Gal 3:22). And yet just like with Adam and Eve, God had a plan, He foreknew man (and woman) would sin when left to their own resources and reasoning, and for that reason God made a way through Christ for us to be reconciled back to Himself. The bible says that no flesh will be justified by the works of the law, but rather by faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, the way to be right with God and receive an eternal pardon is in believing that God raised Jesus from the dead. That Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and was raised from the dead on the third day, Christ being innocent of sin Himself (Hebrews 4:15), He took our very punishment so we might partake of His very righteousness by faith. I refer to this as the "great spiritual exchange." When we stop and take a long hard look at what Jesus actually did for us on the cross, it is quite humbling and overwhelming! He was beaten, abused, plotted against, lied on, dishonored, accused of having a devil, spat upon and ultimately brutally crucified for you and I, for Adam and Eve, for the Jews and the Gentiles and for all humanity! For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him will have eternal life!
This very truth, when applied to my heart affected the course of my life some 20 years ago, and I pray that you have and will give it significant consideration in your life. Now, if God has done this great thing for me how can I not forgive someone else? The fact is, no matter what someone else has done to me, it doesn't come close to what I have done against God!
It is painfully obvious we live in a fallen world; the world is hostile toward God, and as a result, mankind is drawing closer and closer to total chaos and thus the imminent judgment of God. Because God has given man free will, God has allowed us a certain amount of freedom and time to make choices, those choices come with very troubling and sometimes grave consequences. We see murder, adultery, sexual abuse, lying, stealing you name it, all because of man's ability to choose for himself. And because of our fallen nature, we often desire things that lead to sin and death because we are by nature self-centered and not God-centered as we were originally created to be (before the fall). So is it any wonder that there is an abundance of abuse and pain that you and I experience at the hands of strangers, friends and sadly even at times our very own family members. It is a sad thing, but we often hurt those most that are the closest to us. I’m sure you have been a victim of one of the sins mentioned above, and on the flip side, I’m also sure if you were honest, you would have to admit that you have also hurt and sinned against others as well. I know for myself, I have been on both sides, I have both been hurt and abused and have both hurt and harmed others. I have been sinned against in painful ways and have also sinned against others in painful ways. For me, it wasn't enough to just acknowledge this, I had to repent before God and ask Him for forgiveness for my sins and also ask Him to pardon those that had sinned against me! If we refuse to forgive others of their sins and trespasses then this only proves that we haven't received God's forgiveness as they go hand-in-hand!
As mentioned before, this world is full of strife and hostility, the pain is real and can't be overlooked so I don’t make light of the pain and hurt, but I have come to know that Jesus is bigger than any pain, frustration or hurt that any of us can experience in this life. Some might say yes, there are a lot of bad things happening in the world, but that doesn’t mean that everyone in the world is wicked, surely not everyone is a murderer or has committed adultery. Some may argue, "I see people do good things all the time, like feed the poor, or come to the aide of another during a dire situation or a natural catastrophe." To that, I would say yes this is true, and I get that, I too have helped others in need and made sacrifices. I will only say what the Bible says about all of us and all of our apparent "good" deeds, it says that they are as filthy rags before God" and even more so when we rely on them to make us right with God. Our good deeds cannot be counted as righteousness before a righteous God because the source was always us and we have already concluded that we have been in a fallen state since Adam and Eve sinned. Sure "good" deeds may make us feel better about ourselves but what does God have to say about them is far more important than how we may feel or what we may think, this is where we need true humility before God which comes only from God Himself. The bible says that there is none righteous no not one, none seeks after God...and in another place, in the text, it says that apart from Christ, I (we) can do nothing! That is nothing of eternal value or weight can be done without God doing the work in us and through us, He has to be the source; otherwise, we will not be acceptable in His sight. In fact to believe other than what God has said is unbelief, and this too is also sin: trying to be right with God without His help, without following the Way He has set for us to become right with Him, this is more commonly known as religion and shows our lack of humility towards God. This type of religion ignores what God has declared is the Way to eternal life and instead comes up with its own ideas, rules, and rewards regardless of what God's word says.
During Jesus’ ministry, He took the law of God even higher than the Decalogue (10 Commandments), He made it crystal clear just how short we fall when we try to get it right on our own, listen to what He said... “if a man looks upon a woman to lust after her then he has committed adultery in his heart, and if a man is angry with his brother, he is a murderer. Jesus revealed the biblical standard of righteousness before God, and that is within the heart, it is deep within man, woman and teenager alike where only they and God know, and that being within the consciousness of every living soul (Romans 1-3). We can choose to suppress the truth or choose not to think about the consequences, but it doesn't change the facts. The bible says that it is appointed unto every man to die once and after this the judgment. And just what is that judgment based on? It is based upon whether we truly know Jesus, did we let Him pardon our sins, did we take up our cross and follow Him, did we walk in forgiveness towards others? If we have Christ in our heart and if He is Lord and Savior then our lives will be different, and we will be growing more and more Christ-like; will we still get it wrong at times? Yes, but we will also be eager to repent and desiring to grow and allow the Lord to make us more like Him, even this desire comes from Him! The cross of Christ affords us salvation as well as sanctification, even the day-to-day power to live free from sin and these go hand-in-hand as well.
The bible says to seek the Lord while He may be found…or…we can keep procrastinating, keeping Jesus at a distance while we stay in control of ourlives. We can choose to keep running up our “spiritual credit card” and then choose to “ignore the spiritual bill we owe,” but at some point the full bill will come due, and we will have to give an answer on how we spent our most valuable commodity, our time, we will be required to give an account for the choices we made or didn't make. We will have to answer the question: did we live for God or for ourselves? Was it for ourselves or for the one who created us?
You may say, hey you just don’t understand the pain, the wounds, the cruel and the unfair things that have happened to me, the awful circumstances that I have been through in my life, you just don’t know the pain that this person or situation has caused me! You may be right, you may have suffered much at the hands of someone else or have been through very tough circumstances in your life, I may not be able to relate to your specific pain, but I do know that Jesus absolutely can! The bible says He suffered all things and endured all things for us because He loves us that much. He suffered under every temptation yet He was without sin, so this qualifies and makes Him the perfect sacrifice and example so that no one who can say in truth that “Jesus can’t relate to me.”
I know in my own life, when I truly surrendered to Christ (going beyond religion) He began to show me areas in my heart of unforgiveness. Areas I was previously unaware of. You see, there is a big difference between forgiving and just moving on. Let me explain...
There are some people who flat out refuse to forget an offense, they hold on to it until it eats at them, they carry around grudges for months and years and sometimes decades. They hope their offender gets what’s coming to them and given the opportunity they might even avenge themselves, they would do anything if they could cause pain to that person to make them feel the pain they feel. They may hold on to hard feelings whether aggressively or passively, they look for an opportunity for revenge. This can even get to the point of affecting their physical health if unchecked, and definitely their spiritual health.
There are others who consciously suppress past hurts or choose to "forget" about the offense or situation, but they don’t forgive as God forgives us when we repent. I was a master at this “moving on” type of forgiveness, which in fact is man-centered forgiveness at best. I would just divert my attention, my goals, and energy to something else. I personally was too proud and independent to allow someone's slight, sin or offense toward me to get the best of me. I wanted to protect myself from future pain, rejection, and perceived slights or even other people's opinions. I wanted to rise above the hurt and the pain that they caused me, so I thought. Some might argue, well what’s wrong with that?!? There is one big problem with this method, this type of “forgiveness” is fueled by pride and independence from God and is not the true forgiveness that is demonstrated by Christ to us nor will it be accepted by God. As an example, one of the greatest basketball players of all-time fueled his entire career and made millions upon millions of dollars on the motivation of his perceived slights, which is unforgiveness at its core. You didn’t have to strain to hear the bitterness that was prevalent as he was giving his Hall of Fame speech. Many of us do the exact same thing, we are just less obvious about it. We are duped into believing that this is OK because as humans we may look more at the accomplishments of a person’s life than the source of the achievement, God is not so short-sighted nor as easily fooled.
There is, in fact, a real, genuine, and eternal forgiveness, it is complete and pure. Jesus has called each and every one of us to forgive just as He has forgiven us, completely and thoroughly. When I looked at how Jesus Christ has forgiven me, not only does He remember my sins no more, He treats me as though I never committed them in the first place! He not only wishes no ill-will toward me, nor does He sit by passively until I get my comeuppance, no, instead He goes a step further and calls me His own and causes me to prosper eternally.
It would be like a dad treating his son’s murderer like his very own son. Giving the murderer his son’s old bedroom, then adopting him and giving him his last name, then later giving him a job in the family business and then leaving him his son’s inheritance. That is mind blowing that someone could do that for us! That’s what God’s forgiveness looks like! Yet Christ has done even more for us! That’s the kind of forgiveness that is acceptable to God, it must come from Him, God is love, and He is the source of all true eternal love, yes even Jesus Christ! I don’t know about you but this is incredible, and I know I can’t do anything close to that without Jesus Christ living in me and teaching me how to walk in His ways! Do I get it right all the time, well no, but when I fail to obey God's Word I repent when the Lord shows me where I miss it, and He works in me to strive for the perfection that is in Jesus Christ. Jesus gives the ability for us to have this power to truly forgive when we come to Him and ask Him for it.
The scripture has so much more to say about forgiveness and how important it is. Eternal life depends on our receiving and extending this type of forgiveness. The fact is if I refuse to extend mercy, many times that's an indication that I haven't received it, as mentioned earlier they go together, you can't have one without the other. We can’t use the excuse that we are only human because the Lord has declared that we can do all things through Him if we live in Him (Phil 4:13). Everything starts and ends with Jesus Christ, we must know Him to truly know the Father. If you haven’t made Jesus the absolute Lord of your life yet, and if He and His word are not the most essential thing in your life. Then I strongly encourage you not to hesitate, make things right with God by going to Him and repenting. Asking Father to forgive you not because you and I deserve it but because Jesus loved us first by taking our place on the cross!
Lastly, I would strongly encourage you not to try to “fix” yourself before you come to Christ. Let Him do the work in your heart, we would be wise to give Him a chance and go to Him as we are, He will accept you, but He doesn't leave us like we are, His Word is true! It is one of the hardest yet simplest things for a person to do, to admit that we are sinners, and that you and I need Jesus to come into our hearts and that we need and want to receive the forgiveness of our sins that He has provided for you and I. If you previously surrendered to the Lord but have gotten away from your devotion to Him, then today you have the opportunity to turn back to Him and He will forgive and restore! His Word says that He will do just that, and we know God cannot lie! Remember there is nothing we can do that He will not forgive us of. There is only one sin that will send us to hell, the unwillingness to take heed to the Holy Spirit when He comes to us and bids us to repent while we keep turning away from His pleading then ultimately there is no forgiveness of our sins. Yet we know that God desires that no one would perish but that all would have eternal life, the choice is ours!
But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord because He hath dealt bountifully with me. - Psalm 13:5