The Heart of Forgiveness
Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the sea of forgetfulness. – Micah 7:18-19
It has been said that an act of forgiveness restores both the transgressor and the transgressed. When one considers that in forgiving those who have hurt, betrayed, disappointed, used, failed, denied, abused, or cheated us, we are performing the unilateral act that most reflects our divine influence. “To err is human, to forgive divine” is how the poet Alexander Pope phrased it in 1711. But what is the standard for forgiveness? How should one formulate the availability and application of forgiveness in the dynamic of human relationships? What does it mean to forgive- to really, genuinely forgive- someone who has so offended us that the thought of extending an olive branch of peace and reconciliation is nearly impossible to fathom? One approach is to explore the concept of forgiveness from God’s perspective, and as is typically the case with the Divine example, it begins with humility.
In a prior essay, I had presented the example of the woman caught in the act of adultery (see the Gospel of John at 8:1 – 11). The woman’s accusers challenge Jesus to opine on whether it is right to stone her. Jesus responds by directing that “he among you who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.” The men one by one, beginning with the oldest, drop their stones, and walk away. In considering Jesus’s request, they contemplated their own litany of sins, and realized they were in no position not only to not stone another human being, but not even to judge another person.
To that very point, Jesus establishes the standard for forgiveness in the prayer (commonly referred to as the Lord’s Prayer) that He taught all of us as an example of how we can converse with our heavenly Father:
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. – Matthew 6:12
In that single verse of Scripture, Jesus establishes the bar for which we ask God to forgive each of us as an individual: Father, only forgive my own sins against You as much as I forgive anyone who sins against me. We would expect God to forgive us for all of our sins, great or small; Jesus is teaching us in the Lord’s prayer that if we have that expectation of God, then God’s expectation is that we will extend that same degree of mercy and forgiveness to one another. Basically, if you hold a grudge against someone who has hurt you or taken from you or humiliated you, and you won’t forgive that person – then you are saying to God, don’t forgive me either.
With that standard in mind - that God should only forgive us as much as we would forgive our transgressors - then what does it mean to truly forgive someone? Or more pointedly, what is God’s standard of what true forgiveness is?
First, let us examine the quantity of forgiveness. The apostle Peter (who is likely the ideal candidate for representing the human foibles that we all share in common) has the following exchange with Jesus:
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” - Matthew 18:21-22
It is interesting to note that the Pharisees at the time of Christ taught that you only had to forgive your brother three times; Peter was trying to impress Jesus by adding a few more chances. However, Jesus rejects the flawed thinking of the Pharisees as well as the proud thinking of Peter: no, not three times, not seven times but seventy times seven. The inference being that there is no limit to the number of times we are to forgive one another. Getting back to the example of the woman caught in the act of adultery and her accusers: in examining our own personal record of sins against God – do any of us want God to only forgive us a set number of times? Or do we prefer that God forgive us infinitely? We would say that we want God to continuously forgive us any time we should fall and sin. Now, using the standard of forgiveness from the Lord’s Prayer, should we not then also always be open to extending forgiveness to anyone who sins against us, no matter how many times they fail us? Of course, we should. Otherwise, we would be asking God to limit the number of times we should receive His forgiveness when we fail Him.
What of the quality of forgiveness? In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, we have that familiar quote that speaks to the quality of mercy:
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes; - Act IV, Scene I
In a conversation quite some time ago with a very good friend of mine, he related a story where his younger brother had done something to hurt him, and he made the comment “I forgive John but I won’t forget it.” I questioned him as to whether he had actually forgiven his brother, if he was going to not forget his brother’s transgression. He was insistent that he had forgiven him but he was not going to forget it in case he did it again. My point in raising this story is that I would contend that this standard of forgiveness falls short of the standard that God requires. In the opening quote above from Micah, the prophet extols how God treats the memory of our transgressions: He casts them into the sea of forgetfulness and remembers them no more. God who is all knowing and omnipotent, does not keep a record of our wrongs. In fact, He who is Love, sets the standard of what Love is:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. – I Corinthians 13:4 -5
Again, we arrive at the crossroads of how we want God to treat our sins against Him. Do we want God’s act of mercy and forgiveness to include a retention of our failures and sins? Or do we prefer that God blot them out and remove them from any record file – daresay, as if we had never committed them – and give us a complete, totally clean slate? The answer is clear, based on the Scriptures, as how God treats our sins when we have asked His forgiveness:
For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. – Hebrews 8:12
The quality of our forgiveness, if we are to follow the example of our Heavenly Father, is to forgive one another in a way that we not only truly forgive the transgressor but we also completely forget the transgression. How do we forget it? Like it never happened. Again, the consideration is simple: do we want God to forget our own sins against Him? The genuine spirit of remorse and shame would respond with a resounding yes. Then that is how we are to treat one another: forgive the transgressor and cast the transgression into the sea of forgetfulness.
Corrie ten Boom, the author of The Hiding Place, tells the experience that she had where her faith in the power of forgiveness was put to the ultimate test:
It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear.
It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.
It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown.
“When we confess our sins,” I said, “God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever”.
The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.
And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones.
It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!
Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbrück concentration camp where we were sent.
Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: “A fine message, fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!”
And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course–how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?
But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.
“You mentioned Ravensbrück in your talk,” he was saying. “I was a guard in there.” No, he did not remember me.
“But since that time,” he went on, “I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein”–again the hand came out– “will you forgive me?”
And I stood there–I whose sins had every day to be forgiven–and could not. Betsie had died in that place–could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?
It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
For I had to do it–I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. “If you do not forgive men their trespasses,” Jesus says, “neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war, I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality.
Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.
And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion–I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.
“Jesus, help me!” I prayed silently. “I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.”
And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
“I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!”
For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.
And having thus learned to forgive in this hardest of situations, I never again had difficulty in forgiving…
-Guideposts, Nov 1972
An awesome example of the power of forgiveness – as the quote from Shakespeare state: “it is twice blest; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
The ultimate example, however, of forgiveness comes from He who is Love – Jesus. And this example is provided while He is dying a slow and horrific death on the cross.
While on the cross, Jesus makes seven statements. One of them is “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
While on the cross, suffering the agony and pain and humiliation of a Roman crucifixion, beaten and scourged and mocked, completely and totally humiliated, hung Jesus – the Son of God. He had preached love and healed the sick, the crippled, the blind, the deaf, cast out demons, and raised the dead – and who had asked nothing in return but that we love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and to love one another as God loves us - and did not deserve to die. While dying on a cross, Jesus asked God to forgive those responsible. If Jesus who had every right to judge and condemn those responsible for His pain and suffering and death on the cross, could ask that they be forgiven while still in the midst of such torment and hurt – how could any of us balk at the opportunity to forgive one another? In truth, we have no justification for withholding forgiveness, in any degree.
Yet, this utterance from the cross is somewhat problematic. Jesus is basically asking God not to hold this transgression – the scourging and crucifixion of an innocent man - against those present. It could be argued that His request is for all those who partook in the act that resulted in His crucifixion including the trial - the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, the Romans, the people who mocked Him on the way to Calvary and those mocking Him there at the actual site. Yet, Jesus has that power to forgive and make that request of God - not just Jesus in His Divinity - but Jesus in His humanity as well. For Jesus is God incarnate: God who dwelled within a human body to take on the sins of the world. Why? So that we, through Christ’s death and resurrection, can be forgiven of those sins.
Is there a message in Jesus requesting that God not hold this sin against them? To take the question further, can forgiveness be extended to those who have not asked for forgiveness?
For example, say I sin against my neighbor. I commit an act of transgression against my neighbor that defies the command of our Lord to love my neighbor as myself. By the standard of God’s value system, not only are we to love one another by not doing things to hurt each other, we are bound by His example to proactively help and be there for one another. It is the standard of sin by commission - doing hurtful things - and of omission - by not doing loving things when we could.
Say I never ask my neighbor for forgiveness. Never even acknowledge my transgression to my neighbor. But my neighbor in her heart - forgives me; and to take it further – asks God to forgive me as well.
Am I forgiven - in God’s eyes?
I would argue, yes. Because of the very example of Christ on that cross. My neighbor as an obedient servant and child of God is asking God to not hold my sin against me – a fellow child of God. Forgiveness is the most divine unilateral act we can commit. God is pleased that my neighbor forgives me - because a key aspect of the true Godly definition of love is being in a state of constant forgiving. God who is honored by my neighbor’s request to extend mercy, will in turn honor my neighbor by granting her request. God is pleased because my neighbor has embraced the example of Jesus on the cross, and has conformed to the character of His Son. My neighbor’s faithfulness has made her a true daughter in the eyes of our Heavenly Father. How can this be? Because God, through the sacrifice of His Son, will extend true mercy through the power of His Holy Spirit by taking the good work started by my neighbor, by setting out to transform my charcter as well. That is the power of my neighbor’s act of forgiveness, consistent with the example of Christ’s request on the cross: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. But give them the knowledge of your love and forgiveness, so that they may recognize their sins, repent of them, and reconcile to you, Father. That was the price of forgiveness Jesus paid on that cross, and that is the example of forgiveness He established.
God does not desire for any of His children to be separate from Him in this life or the next. And it is this same desire that God calls upon each of us to have for one another. We are all part of the family of God: it should be our desire that our family be united and together for all eternity with our Heavenly Father. This is the heart of forgiveness: reconciliation with loving mercy by the power of grace through Christ Jesus.
It is the power of Corrie ten Boom’s proclamation to her former Nazi Tormentor: “I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!”
