November 19, 2004
FORGIVE AS THE LORD FORGAVE YOU.
Selected Scriptures
Two weeks ago, we concluded our series of messages on the life of Joseph. As I pointed out repeatedly from Joseph’s life and the lives of the other patriarchs, the main character in the story is God. It is a story of the sovereignty of God at work in the lives of men.
Before we leave his story, however, I want to take note of one act of Joseph. It’s not really highlighted in the story. In fact it is more implied than stated. But that one act of Joseph’s was a simple, human act that transformed the story from a tragedy into a triumph. That act was Joseph’s decision to forgive his brothers.
Using Joseph’s act as a springboard, I want to focus this morning on the act of forgiveness. I want to focus on how we can turn our own personal tragedies into triumph. We have all been hurt. It is the one universal experience of human existence. It is an inevitable consequence of living in relationship and in community with other sinful human beings. We have all experienced the garden variety of small hurts and wounds and insults and slights inflicted on us by others’ thoughtlessness, negligence and selfishness.
But in addition to those kinds of hurts, I know that many, if not all of you, have also experienced the kind of bewildering, soul numbing, paralyzing hurt and pain that comes from betrayed trust; the kind of pain that Joseph experienced when his brothers sold him into slavery.
I remember when I worked as a counselor for a couple years in California before we came to the U.A.E. I would ride my bike home from work in the evening almost numb, thinking to myself, “There is just so much pain in the world!” And many times that pain has been inflicted by other human beings, often times by those who are closest to us; those whom we love; those whom we trusted.
One of the hardest things God ever asks us to do is to forgive those people who have hurt us. Forgiveness does not come naturally to any of us. It goes against the very grain of human nature. Yet the message of Scripture is clear and unequivocal. Colossians 3:13 speaks so simply and yet so radically to us: Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
One of the reasons forgiveness is hard to do is because there is a lot of confusion about what it is and what it isn’t. What I want to do in this message is share with you the basic concept of forgiveness as it is referred to in the Bible, based on a study I did a number of years ago
I want to discuss forgiveness under 3 headings. The Act. The Fact. The Feelings.
First is I. The Act of Forgiveness
According to the Biblical evidence, forgiveness is first and foremost an act of the will. I base this statement on the fact that we are repeatedly commanded in the Scriptures to forgive one another. All the commands of Scripture are addressed to our wills. The commands of Scripture address things we can do, things we can control, choices that we can make. If God commands us to forgive, then it must be something we can do. We can choose to forgive. We can choose not to forgive.
Secondly, based on the Biblical evidence, forgiveness is an act of the will that takes place at a point in time. It is not a process. In saying that, I realize that I am parting company with most books and articles I have read on the subject of forgiveness. Almost all of them define forgiveness as a process. But I base my conclusion on two sources of evidence.
First of all, the use of the Greek tenses. Most of the of the uses of the verb to forgive in the New Testament use the Greek tense for point or summary action; action that takes place at a point in time. Now there are some excellent tenses available in Greek for expressing a process, or an ongoing, repetitive action. But the New Testament typically does not use these when it speaks of forgiveness. It uses the tense for point action.
The second reason I have concluded this is that we are told to forgive one another as Christ has forgiven us. Now I ask you this question: How does the Lord forgive us when we confess our sins to him? Does he say to us: “Well, that’s a big one. That’s going to take me some time. I will start today, but it may be a while before I’m finished.” Is that how he does it? No. The Scripture tells us in I John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Both the word “forgive” and the word “cleanse” are in the tense expressing point action. And we are told to forgive each other in the same way God forgives us.
So, based on the Biblical evidence, I believe that forgiveness is an act of the will that takes place at a point in time. Forgiveness is not a process. But I think it is important to clarify something. There may well be a process that leads up to forgiveness. And there is certainly a process after we forgive, in which we work out the implications of that forgiveness in our lives and relationships. But in between the process that leads up to it, and the process that follows after it, there is an act that takes place at a point in time which is the act of forgiving.
Maybe I can illustrate by comparing forgiveness to a wedding ceremony. For most of us, there was a process that led up to marriage. We met. We fell in love. We got engaged. We planned the wedding.
What about after the wedding? Men, did you turn to your new bride, shake her hand and say: “Well, that was a nice wedding. Thanks for coming. Maybe we’ll see each other again some time.” Of course not! After the wedding came the whole process of learning to live together as husband and wife, and of working out the implications of what being married really meant.
So, there was a process that led up to the wedding. And there was a process that followed as a result of the wedding. But in between there was an event. It was a very significant event, in which we stood before witnesses and spoke vows of commitment, promises that bound us together as husband and wife. So it is with forgiveness. There is an act, an event that is the act of forgiveness.
But what exactly is it? What are we actually doing when we forgive? There are several words, in both the Old and New Testament that are translated into English as “forgive”. In comparing all these different words, both their origins, root ideas and usages, I found that the Biblical concept of forgiveness contains three basic ideas.
Several of the parables Jesus told about forgiveness had the idea of debts and of debts being canceled or forgiven. A couple of the Biblical words for forgiveness have the idea of taking away, laying aside, letting go or dismissing.
The concept here is that an offense or sin or wrong against another creates an imbalance in a relationship. Justice and society require a balancing, a payment to set things in order. This is the basis for much of the Old Testament civil laws. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Under this concept of justice then, forgiveness is the act of canceling the debt. Of saying to another, “You don’t have to pay. I set you free from obligation.” This is the concept expressed in the Lord’s prayer: Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. “God, cancel our debts toward you, just as we cancel the debts of those who owe us.”
Let me tell you how I discovered this one. We’ve all heard the phrase, “Forgive and forget,” haven’t we? Have you ever tried to do that? Were you successful? Yet we are often told that we have to forget, just as God forgets our sins.
So I decided to see just what the Bible says about God forgetting our sins. I did a study of the word “forget” in the Bible. I found an amazing thing. Not once in the entire Bible are we told that God forgets sins. Not once. The Bible was amazingly consistent on this point. Now before you run to your concordance, let me tell you that what it does say in a number of places is that “God does not remember our sins” and then adds the significant phrase: “against us.”
Am I just playing a game of semantics with you? I don’t think so! I think there is a significant difference in meaning. To forget is a kind of unconscious act in which something fades from our consciousness. I suppose we might compare it to pushing the “delete” key on a computer. It’s gone. But our minds don’t work that way. In fact, the harder we try to forget something, the greater place it seems to occupy in our conscious minds. So trying to forget an offense is a futile exercise. But choosing not to remember something against someone is a deliberate act of the will, in which we choose to set aside an offense as a factor in our relationship with a person.
But there is more here. I looked at all the Bible verses that talked about God remembering or not remembering sin. They were all in passages of Biblical poetry. So we know figurative speech is being used. As you may know, Hebrew poetry uses parallelism. I found a very consistent pattern. When the Bible talked about God remembering sin, frequently the parallel line would speak about punishing it. And whenever the Bible spoke about God not remembering sins against someone, the parallel line would speak about his forgiving it, or not punishing it.
So, at the heart of the Biblical concept of forgiveness is the decision not to punish. You see, when we are hurt, there is stirred up in us a desire to hurt back, to punish. It begins on the nursery school playground. One child pushes another. What happens next? The other child pushes back. That impulse stays with us as we grow up. It gets more sophisticated, but it is still there. In extreme cases it erupts in actual physical violence. Far more frequently we punish with words, either with open attack and verbal abuse, with covert attacks such as sarcasm, hidden barbs, and subtle put-downs. Or we go behind someone’s back with gossip, destroying their reputation with others. We may even use silence and withdrawal as a means of punishment. Our methods are many and diverse, but punish each other we do. We are masters at it.
That is what is so remarkable about the story of Joseph. After all the wrong Joseph’s brothers had done to him, they had every right to fear his vengeance. Look at Genesis 50:15: When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?” What are they afraid of? They are afraid that he will punish them. But look at Joseph’s response in verse 19: But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? (In other words, punishment is God’s domain, not his personal prerogative). He goes on in verse 21 to say, “So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.
When we forgive, we do what Joseph did. We voluntarily decide not to punish the other person or to get even with him/her for the hurt they have inflicted. We decide not to remember his sin against him, and not to retaliate.
Paul says it this way in I Corinthians 13:5, in the middle of the Love Chapter: Love keeps no record of wrongs. Now, why would someone keep a record of wrongs? So he can punish them, right? Bring them up at just the right time to wound the other person and get even with them. Love doesn’t do that. It has no need to keep a record, because there is no plan to punish.
The root for one of the most common New Testament terms for forgiveness is grace. In fact it is just the word grace in the form of a verb. We could actually translate Colossians 3:13: Gracing them, just as the Lord has graced you.
Grace is unmerited favor, isn’t it? It means treating someone with kindness when they deserve punishment. That’s forgiveness. This ties in beautifully with the other two concepts, doesn’t it? An injustice has been done which cries for payment. That debt is cancelled by forgiveness. A hurt has been inflicted which cries out for punishment. Grace chooses not to punish, not to remember, and responds instead with kindness. Forgiveness is really grace in action. It is treating the offender with favor he does not deserve.
Let’s be very clear about this point. Grace, by its very definition, is not fair. In fact, grace is the opposite of fairness. If we insist on fairness, we are not going to forgive. We are going to insist on payment of the debt and on punishment of the offender. That’s fairness. But grace is not about fairness. Forgiveness is not about fairness. Forgiveness means to extend grace. To treat the person with kindness when he has hurt me. To act graciously when he has acted with malice and selfishness toward me. This is what God has done for us. It is what he commands us to do for those who have sinned against us.
So that is what forgiveness is. That is what we do when we forgive another person. We make a conscious decision of the will that we are not going to insist on payment of any debt, we are not going to punish the other person in any way, and we are going to extend grace (unmerited favor) to that person who has harmed us.
That is the act of forgiveness. I next want to consider II. The Fact of Forgiveness.
After the act, forgiveness becomes a fact. This is an important element of understanding forgiveness. When the act of forgiveness has taken place, something has happened. Things have changed. The act of forgiveness is now a completed transaction. We must now begin to view that forgiveness as a fact and behave differently toward the person we have forgiven.
Maybe another illustration will help. Imagine a couple who has lived in the same home for 30 years. In their retirement years they decide to sell the home and move into a smaller place. So the papers are signed and they move away. Now I want you to imagine what happens a few months later when the couple drives by their old home. They will be hit by many emotions. “Look! They’ve chopped down our favorite old tree. And they’ve repainted the house. Oh, what a hideous color! And they’re sure not keeping the garden in very good shape.” These and many other thoughts and feelings may come. And those feelings are real. But the fact of the matter is that the house was sold. It no longer belongs to them. If they fail to act on this new reality and try to march into the house and to berate the new owners, they will only stir up all kinds of trouble. You see, the facts have changed. It just sometimes takes time for our feelings to catch up with those new facts.
So it is when we forgive. We make a decision to forgive; to cancel the debt, to not punish, to extend grace. That is now the fact. That is your commitment to a new way of acting. But feelings often take time to catch up with the facts. The challenge before us is to act on the basis of the new fact, and not on the basis of our feelings.
That brings us to the third subject I want to consider: III. The Feelings of Forgiveness
I want to state, as clearly and as plainly as I can: FORGIVENESS IS NOT A FEELING, either for the forgiver or for the forgiven. I believe this is where a great deal of confusion creeps in. Deep hurts leave deep wounds. Deep wounds take time to heal. That healing is a process, and it is a process that takes time. But here’s what is important. FORGIVENESS SHOULD NOT BE CONFUSED WITH THE HEALING PROCESS. Let’s not confuse these two. Forgiveness is a decision and commitment to treat the offending person in a different way. It is not a feeling. It is an act of the will. When we confuse the act of forgiveness and the healing process, it leads to two common errors.
The problem with that is that hurt comes in waves of pain that can last for months and even years. Angry feelings can emerge as we are tossed by those waves. That process can go on for a long time. If we have to wait until all feelings of hurt and anger are gone, we may never forgive. What do we do in the meantime with God’s command to forgive one another? So to our pain we add guilt.
So, because we want relief from the pain and because we believe God commands it, we forgive. Only after we have forgiven, we find that the hurt is still there. So, at times, is the anger. So we begin to question our forgiveness. “I must not have really forgiven them. There is something wrong with me. I am not a very good forgiver.” Or we are forced to suppress those negative feelings. We cannot acknowledge them, even to ourselves, because, after all, we have forgiven that person.
This dilemma leads many writers and speakers on forgiveness to define forgiveness as a process. The fundamental error is to equate forgiveness with the healing process. They are not one and the same. Forgiveness is the decision not to punish or get even. It is the decision to act in ways that are in the best interest of the other person, regardless of how we feel.
Now, while forgiveness is not a feeling, when we forgive, our feelings will change. But here’s the thing. These feelings will change gradually as the healing process takes place. The key is to remember that the feelings are not synonymous with the act of forgiveness. The feelings do not follow immediately or automatically. The feelings are a part of the healing process. Forgiveness is only one step in that healing.
Forgiveness can be related to the removal of shrapnel from a wound. As the wounded soldiers are brought in from the field, the surgeon’s first concern is to locate and then remove the shrapnel. Without that there is almost no hope of recovery. But think for a moment. When the shrapnel is removed, is the wound immediately healed? Is the pain immediately gone? No. In fact, in some cases the pain may actually be worse for a while due to the cutting the surgeon had to do to remove the bits of metal. The healing process still needs to take place. But now the healing can take place, cleanly, and with less risk of infection.
So, there are feelings that we can associate with the act of forgiveness. But the absence of these feelings does not mean that forgiveness has not taken place. It just means that the healing process is not complete. Understanding this distinction leaves us free to be honest with our feelings even after we have forgiven the offender. We don’t have to bury them. We can continue to acknowledge our feelings to God in prayer. We can discuss them with a counselor or mentor. In some cases we might even discuss them with the person we have forgiven (as long as we are sure we are not using this as a subtle way of punishing them.) But the key is, we don’t have to question the validity of our forgiveness while we allow God to heal our wounds. We can afford to give ourselves and our feelings time to heal.
I started out by saying that forgiving another person is one of the hardest things God asks us to do. It is my hope that, by gaining a better understanding of what forgiveness is and what it isn’t, we now have a better idea of what it is that God is asking of us. But even with this understanding, it is still a very difficult thing. So where do we find the strength and ability to do it? We can find that strength only by drinking deeply at the spring of God’s forgiveness for us. Only by fully comprehending the incredible grace and mercy that God has extended to us will we find the strength to reach out and extend that grace to those who have wounded us.
If you are wrestling with a forgiveness issue, and we all do from time to time, I would encourage you to take that struggle to the foot of the cross. Go on your knees before the Savior. Meditate on the reality of his forgiveness of your sins, and of what that forgiveness cost him. Contemplate his grace. Then, and only then, will we find the strength to turn and extend that grace to others. And there at the foot of the cross is where the act of forgiveness can take place. Let me conclude this message by leaving you with a sample prayer of forgiveness:
Lord, in your presence and by your help, I here and now choose to forgive ___________ for ____________. I cancel the debt I’ve been trying to collect. I renounce all attempts on my part to punish him/her for what he/she did. I extend grace to him/her, just as you, O Lord, have shown grace to me and forgiven me.