Article for New Hope Fellowship newsletter in Nov 2008.
Genuine Forgiveness
Let us consider what really counts, real forgiveness.
Sure, there are trivial situations where someone may have slightly offended us, and we can forgive them simply because they have done us no real harm, but presented mere inconvenience.
We can even turn up the offense dial a bit more, but still we can forgive based on our own strength, perhaps requiring us to be in good conditions emotionally, physically, and spiritually. i.e. Our tolerance level is high when we are in a good mood, well nourished and well rested, and perhaps just came out of a sermon, bible study, or personal meditation. In this regime, we forgive because we can afford to forget, because the offense is ultimately insignificant to us.
But when we are faced with real offense that carries real cost, the burden of forgiveness will entail real sacrifice and personal absorption of the cost, and we will encounter the limits to our natural ability. While we know exactly what the bible teaches about forgiving others up to 70 times 7 times, practicing it is always difficult.
At the Family Life marriage conference it was pointed out that we get offended and angry when our rights are violated. Consequently, we demand justice, which implies retribution and revenge.
We can approach the situation prayerfully, re-assess whether we are correct to demand the rights that have been violated, or whether we are the instrument to uphold justice. Following biblical directions, we are challenged to trust that God will uphold justice ultimately. Furthermore, we are reminded that we have also trespassed against God and against others, and that our sins have been forgiven by God. He who forgives much has been forgiven much more. By focusing on the price that Jesus paid for our sins, we are far more equipped to offer forgiveness to others.
Love vs Pride At the core of an unforgiving heart is pride, that we are so much above reproach, and the trespasser so much beneath us to be granted mercy and forgiveness. When we feel that our assailant has hurt us so much that there is no way we could forgive him, we are giving up hope for that person to change, to be someone better, and to be worth any more of our effort and consideration. In essence, we consider ourselves far more worthy to interact with the other person anymore.
In contrast, the power that enables us to forgive is love. Forgiveness to the prodigal son is based on the father's deep love for his son, to overcome any anger and resentment that the son would have induced for being disrespectful, selfish, abandoning the family, and valuing only his inheritance. Forgiveness up to 70 times 7 is imaginable when we were first dating or courting our spouses, when love can cover a multitude of sins. Therefore, the key to forgiveness is God's empowering love, and we can condition ourselves by dwelling constantly in His richness of love and forgiveness.
The real challenge
We may understand these from a theoretical level, and even practice them on a rational level. However, what if we are facing a level of hurts and wounds that goes so deep to the heart, done by someone closest to us, that the immense pain and sense of betrayal and injustice causes too powerful a primal emotion for us to respond rationally with any of the above tactics?
How can we possibly forgive on this deepest level? Such issue filters out the mere theoretical, and allows us to discover the ultimate source of power behind genuine forgiveness.
For concrete illustration, let us consider the situation of spousal conflict, in which your spouse has wounded you deeply to the level just described. Are you able to genuinely forgive, and bear the burden and the cost of the immense offense? (If you answer yes, you are probably not thinking of a bad enough scenario or offense.)
Continuing in this illustration of spousal conflict, forgiveness is in a bind: if we were in love with our spouse, we would probably not be struggling with the issue of forgiveness to begin with. We are in this conflict and struggling with forgiveness most likely because we feel hurt and isolated, not wanting to love the other person. Yet the source of power for that forgiveness is precisely the love that is lacking. How can we possibly break this tangled bind of catch-22?
This is where a life of faith in Jesus Christ makes all the difference in the world. Let us focus again on the Cross.
Before we put our faith in Jesus, we were, as the old hymn portrays, among the scoffers who jeered at Him on the Cross. When God illuminate to us our sinfulness, we welcomed Jesus into our hearts for saving us from the tremendous burden of sin and death, and offering us the gift of a new and eternal life. When we now ponder Him on the Cross, we acknowledge that he died for the sins of everyone. When we realize how much Jesus has paid for our sins, we are able to genuinely forgive others.
Now back to the situation of our spousal conflict: When our spouse has wounded us so deeply that even the pondering of the price Jesus paid for us is insufficient, (because our perception, assessment and appreciation for what Jesus did is clouded by the pain and anger), how can we go forward? When we are facing strong emotional resistance, we need equally strong emotional force to overcome it. Let us focus deeper on the Cross.
Jesus dying on the Cross paid not just for your sins, but for the sins of everyone, including your spouse. In God's justice, He punished Jesus for what you are demanding from your spouse. Jesus suffered for the price of the wounds that your spouse inflicted on you. All the injustice and retribution that your revengeful heart demands will be paid in full by God through Jesus on the Cross.
If we say we love Jesus, do we love Him enough to say He has paid enough? For if we do not forgive, then we are in essence recrucifying Jesus on the Cross, continue to demand from Him the price that our spouse owe us. Let our love for Jesus be the powerful and emotional force to counteract the destructive force of revenge, and be the genuine power to forgive even the unforgivable.
As believers in Jesus for what He did on the Cross, we do not need to wait til judgment day to know that our hurts and wounds have been repaid. Jesus has intervened within our conflicting bind: Out of our love for Jesus and our trust in Him, we can allow the power from that love to enable our forgiveness, not because our spouse is worthy, but because Jesus is worthy, and we are enabled to forgive, not through the love for our spouse, but through our love for Jesus.
Now that we are done with our spousal illustration, we know to extend our Christian faith into all our relationships. Whenever Jesus is a mediator in our relationships, we can love and forgive one another, even when people are faulty and not worthy of love, because when we love Him, we can transfer that love to enable us to love one another. In fact, isn't this the salvation story? God forgive us of our sins, not because we are worthy, but because Jesus is worthy: when we put our faith in Jesus, He became the mediator between God and us, so that when God judges us, He judged Jesus on the Cross instead, and on the flip side, God choosed to forgive us and displayed His perfect love for His Son lavishly on us.
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