I was born and raised in a sincere, practicing Catholic community where we were all taught about God from our mothers’ knees. I had been growing in my walk with God since I was 5. I was devout as a youth and was an altar boy. In the seventh grade, I rang the church steeple bell at 6am, noon and 6pm every day calling all the Catholics in our little town to stop and spend a moment in prayer. I still remember that singular honor and what it meant to me. I had a key to the church. In the early morning, I would let myself in, usually while it was still dark, and position myself just beneath a rope that was about as thick as my wrist and rose four stories into the darkness.
When both Mickey’s big hand and little hand went straight north I would leap into the air, grab the rope, hold on for dear life and let gravity work the miracle. As I came down, the huge carillon bell would rise and as I went back up, the bell would ring. The church lobby would fill with an enormous sound and the people in town would realize that while I knew how to ring the bell, I knew little or nothing about daylight savings time. For several days each year, our little community celebrated the Angelus at the ungodly hour of 5am. The early risers felt vindicated and everyone else had to deal with the Christian call to forgiveness.
I had received a good Christian education as a youngster at home, at church and at school. At age 14, I went off to study for the priesthood. I knew the Lord in a general way and I knew a fair amount of theology for a kid. I knew my prayers and my church rituals and I valued both. However, I did not know the Bible. I didn’t even have one. It was not something our denomination emphasized. Like most people, I accepted a lot of religious and moral principles without really understanding them. I consigned many things into that bucket of concepts that I would get clarified in Heaven.
One such concept was the principle or the doctrine of forgiveness. I knew from the Lord’s Prayer that we needed to ask God for forgiveness, and that we, therefore, needed to forgive others in the bargain, but the deeper implications of that disappeared in the mindless repetition of the prayer. The problem with religion is that it can be practiced quite actively without any understanding of what it means. Real understanding of religion only comes in a real relationship with God.
In the process of studying to become a priest, I began to have an increasing level of confusion over why we believed some of what I had been taught. Then there were 3 encounters with priest/molesters that confused me even further so that in 1968 I found myself out of the seminary, out of organized religion and living by a moral code. Many of my former operating principles seemed untenable to me, including the idea of forgiveness. Some things just seemed unforgivable. I found myself questioning all doctrine with an increasingly cynical eye. Interestingly, I never gave up on God, just on organized religion.
In May of 1971, I had an encounter with the Lord that was spiritually awakening and life-changing. I began to understand that all salvation is based in relationship and that all relationship is based in trust (faith). In the process of building that relationship, I discovered that God was fully revealed in the Bible which I came to see as the Manufacturer’s Handbook for all of creation. I began to read for information rather than for confirmation and criticism of existing beliefs.
That led me to a cognitive dissonance in many areas concerning what the Bible actually said versus what I believed. I began to study the scriptures intensely to try and solve that cognitive dissonance; i.e., to make sense out of my confusion. After coming to understand that the Bible was the revealed authoritative word of God, I realized that when the Bible and my beliefs conflicted, it was my beliefs that needed to change. This revelation has defined me and has impacted my life, my behaviors and my basic operating principles dramatically. One of the areas where this process occurred was in the area of forgiveness.
The plain and consistent teaching of Jesus is that we must forgive everyone unconditionally and that our own forgiveness from God is dependent on it. I will not be forgiven if I do not actually and fully forgive others.
Matt 6:9-15 “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. 10’Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11’Give us this day our daily bread. 12’And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13’And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.]’ 14 “For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 “But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive you. NASB
Say, “Amen!” or oh, me!” because it is true. It does not get any clearer. But just in case this is not as clear as we want it to be, Jesus tells us a parable.
Matt 18:23-35 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a certain king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 “And when he had begun to settle them, there was brought to him one who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 “But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. 26 “The slave therefore falling down, prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will repay you everything.’ 27 “And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. 28 “But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ 29 “So his fellow slave fell down and began to entreat him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ 30 “He was unwilling however, but went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. 31 “So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. 32 “Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you entreated me. 33’Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, even as I had mercy on you?’ 34 “And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. 35 “So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.” NASB
Our own eternal forgiveness is 100% and totally contingent on our forgiveness of others; i.e., all others and all the time. Jesus’ own disciples found this astounding and Peter asked Jesus how many times we needed to forgive. Surely there is a limit. Surely it depends on sincere repentance on the part of the offender. Jesus’ answer was startling to them.
Matt 18:21-22 Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. NASB
The numbers here are meant to be descriptive and metaphorical as is often the case in the Bible. Seventy times seven actually means without limit and regardless of the offender’s sincerity. Anyone who asks to be forgiven repeatedly after committing the same offense 490 times cannot be sincere about their sorrow. Peter and the others understood this completely, and it confused them until much later.
By the time I went to Asbury Theological Seminary in 1999 at age 50, I had been teaching the Bible for over 25 years. My wife Nancy and I had been the beneficiary of some really great biblical teaching in the church we attended. It was evangelical and practiced what it taught. I taught multiple home bible studies to about 150 people each week from 1973 forward. I was a fulltime pastor from 1978 – 1983.
My study habits were focused and intensive even as a layman and I read voraciously, but I still did not understand forgiveness. I just handled it the best I could. Seminary teaches one many things that are not directly related to the Bible or to Christian living. There are numerous practical courses designed to prepare a man or woman to become an effective minister. One studies languages, administration, preaching techniques, counseling practices, etc. I found all of this useful, but what I really valued were the courses on the Bible and the teachings of Jesus.
Be careful what you ask for. Many of my Bible courses challenged my basic understandings, resulted in a lot of soul searching and no little maturing of my beliefs. Asbury does a good job of challenging you in a way that is helpful versus destructive. Many seminaries take you apart like a 57 Chevy and spread you out on a workbench. The good seminaries put you back together again and you emerge with a degree and your faith intact. (Not all seminaries do this.)
By far the most important class I took in seminary was the one I took on “Forgiveness.” Most of my biblical and doctrinal courses tweaked my understanding. The class on “Forgiveness” revolutionized it. Here is what I learned.
Most of us have trouble with the teachings on forgiveness because we confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. We think of them as one and the same or as inextricable connected, but they are not. Forgiveness is a gift given by the offended to the offender. Reconciliation can only occur after the offender makes restitution.
Forgiveness is an act of the will. That is why God can command it. It is a pardon without respect to guilt. The governor pardons a criminal even though it may be clear that the criminal was guilty. He pardons because of extenuating circumstances. You can forgive a dead man who is long past the ability to express remorse. You can forgive an evil man who is totally uninterested in expressing remorse. But you cannot be reconciled to either one. We make the mistake of thinking that to forgive is to offer reconciliation. It is not. Let’s use an example.
A woman gets beat up by her drunken husband for the xxxth time. Her children are terrorized, so for their sake and her own, she checks them all into the battered women’s shelter. Once he sobers up, the husband, full of remorse, seeks her out and asks her forgiveness. As a good Christian, she gladly forgives him. Then he wants her to come home again. She wisely declines to do that until he has successfully participated in a recovery program and has demonstrated for some time that his change is real and has some permanency about it.
He clouds up and exclaims, “I thought you were a Christian! You are supposed to forgive me!” He is making the classic mistake. He is equating forgiveness with reconciliation. Because she understands how God has forgiven her, she does indeed forgive him and holds no animosity against him. She pardons him like the governor does even though he is guilty and for extenuating circumstances (more on that in a minute). However, she cannot and will not be reconciled to him unless and until he makes restitution or reparation, something far more tangible than remorse. And nothing in the Bible or the heart of God requires her to go home and get another beating the next time he buys a bottle.
Abusers, broken people, bullies and other “devils” will always try to leverage our Christian requirement to forgive in order to make us do what they want, but there is no requirement to be reconciled with the devil or any of his minions. Reconciliation only comes when the offender repents and does as he is required. You want some Bible on that? Try this one.
Luke 23:33-37 And when they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. 34 But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves. 35 And the people stood by, looking on. And even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One.” 36 And the soldiers also mocked Him, coming up to Him, offering Him sour wine, 37 and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!” NASB
From the cross, Jesus demonstrates His own teaching. His enemies are taunting Him. They are dividing His personal belongings among themselves and in front of His grieving mother. They challenge His trust in God and attempt to provoke a response in Him that would disqualify all that He has taught. They goad him physically and emotionally. Satan has them whipped into a frenzy. Jesus has already told Pilate that if He wanted, He could call for legions of angels to deal with all of this. How tempting that must have been. But instead, Jesus demonstrates forgiveness, saying “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
Jesus died and offered forgiveness to every one of us in every age. All are forgiven, but not all are reconciled. Jesus offers reconciliation to everyone, but not everyone will do what is required to receive it; that is, surrender to God.
2 Cor 5:18-20 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. NASB
Paul tells us that Jesus came with a ministry of reconciliation and gave that ministry to us. But he also tells us in verse 20 that we must “be reconciled” to God. There is an action required on our side. God’s forgiveness is a universal gift, but reconciliation only happens when the offender (us) makes restitution or reparation by giving our life to God and accepting the Lordship of Jesus. In some ways, it is not much, but it is required. God does all of the work of salvation, except that which only we can do. Unless we do what is required (repent and submit to His Lordship), we cannot be reconciled to God even though Jesus has forgiven us.
Jesus hanging from that cross looked down and forgave everyone there and everyone here and now and everyone everywhere in every age. Why did He do that? He did it because even though they were all guilty, there were extenuating circumstances; i.e., “for they do not know what they are doing!” Obviously on some level, they all knew what they were doing and they knew on some level that it was wrong. But it was a much deeper level that Jesus was addressing. It was at the level that caused God to send His Son in the first place. Jesus knew that His tormenters were captured, not evil. God does not look upon people as evil. He looks upon them as captured by Satan; i.e., unable to keep the Law as Paul told the Romans. For this reason, Jesus grants us forgiveness and offers us reconciliation which is God’s ultimate reason for sending Him.
In the same manner, when God requires us to forgive others, He is requiring us to recognize the same extenuating circumstances; i.e., “for they do not know what they are doing.” He expects us to pardon them because He has pardoned us. He wants us to see our enemies as captured in their sin, not intrinsically evil. Having demonstrated to us His forgiveness of a huge unpayable debt (see the parable outlined in Mt 18:23-55 above), He expects us to forgive those offenses that, no matter what they are, pale in comparison to our offenses against Him.
When I was in seminary, I was wrestling with a specific issue of unforgiveness that was eating me up inside. I felt that a certain lady had betrayed me and it involved a lot of money, a boatload of money to me. There are always two sides of every story but I could only see my side. I “knew” I was right and I “knew” she was wrong and I was pretty sure she knew she was wrong. I knew I was required to forgive her, but it was a lot of money. I wrestled with the Lord over it.
I realized conceptually that “a lot of money” paled in comparison to my eternal redemption, but I could not get past it. I thought that if I forgave her, I was saying it was okay. I was somehow agreeing that she was right and I was wrong. I could not do that because I did not believe that. It seemed impossible to obey God in this matter. I enrolled in this class on forgiveness with this situation in mind. My lights came on as I understood that forgiveness and reconciliation were two different things. I was confusing one for the other and lumping them together as if forgiveness and reconciliation were the same thing. I learned that they are not the same thing. I learned that we are required to forgive unconditionally, but not to be reconciled in the absence of repentance, reparations or restitution.
Forgiveness is a pardon. It is not a justification of the behavior of others. I forgave the lady and peace came into my life. She did not know I had forgiven her. She probably did not even know I was mad at her ?.
After forgiving the lady, I lamented our lack of reconciliation, and I asked God to work it out some day, and God did. She later asked for a meeting and shared her view of the issue. It had more merit than I had originally supposed and we agreed to disagree about the rest. The money was eventually restored and recompense has been made many times over. She would tell you that she had originally done the best she could do under extenuating circumstances. She would tell you that, in her mind, there should not have been anything to forgive, and she may be right. It hardly matters anymore and probably mattered too much at that time.
The unforgiveness was my issue, not hers, and that is a very important point. Unforgiveness is never from God. It always comes from our enemy, the Devil. No matter how right we think we are and no matter how just seems our cause, unforgiveness is a sin. Truth is, we are not even supposed to allow ourselves to be offended by others, at least not for very long.
Eph 4:26-27 Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not give the devil an opportunity. NASB
Paul tells us that it is okay to be angry, but not to let it last. By sundown, we must have gotten over it or we will give the Devil an opportunity to work evil in it and in us. The measure of our Christian maturity is how long it takes us to get from an offense to “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” No one is requiring us to be reconciled with anyone we think is abusing us, but we are required to forgive; i.e., to pardon, our offenders and the sooner the better.
We cannot even bring our worship to the Father if we remember there is ought between us and another. We must leave our offering of worship to God at the altar, go work it out with the other and then return to worship God. If we are the offender, it means going to offer reparation. If we are the offended, it means forgiving totally and completely in our heart. No words need be spoken if the circumstances do not allow it. We can forgive the dead man as well as the unrepentant man, and we must if we want God to receive our worship. Our trespasses will not be forgiven if we do not forgive the trespasses of those who sin against us.
When I was a boy, my father worked 6am – 10pm six days a week. On Sunday he would cut the grass, read the paper and, in his exhaustion, stare at the TV (whether it was on or off). The only time I would see him was when he woke me up to spank me for something I did that could not be satisfied by my mother’s discipline. There were numerous such events. She used him as a bogeyman to control my behaviors. My mother and father argued and she always painted him as an ogre. All the evidence supported that idea, and I hated him.
Once a year we would go to Kentucky Dam Lake for about two weeks of vacation. About 4 days into the timeframe, My Father would thaw out and become a nice guy. He would whistle and sing when he drove. He would buy us nickel Cokes. (We usually only got sodas at Christmas and on our birthdays.) He would tousle our hair and tease us. It was confusing. As soon as we got back from vacation, it was over. he ogre returned with a vengeance.
When I went away to seminary at age 14, part of it was, I know, to get away from home. Once I understood that as a Christian I must honor my parents and forgive them, I was in a quandary. How would I ever forgive my father?
Then a funny thing happened. I grew up and became a father myself. I began to understand the pressures of trying to provide for a family. I began to feel what happens to you when you work long and hard without a respite. I began to cut my father some slack. By that time, I had begun to see that my father was often being misrepresented by my mother; i.e., that there were two sides to every story.
My mother struggled with alcoholism and it became more obvious and more pervasive in her life. I became the unwilling referee in their marriage and while I could see both sides, I was able to see, for the first time his forbearance and his love for her. My child’s view of the world gave way to an adult perspective and I cut him some more slack. After they divorced, he came to live with us for the first year. By then his work load was 8am-5pm, five days each week. As we all sat around the table at dinner, he would regale my children with the colorful stories of my childhood. He would tell them how clever I was and how humorous were all my childhood escapades.
I later reminded him that he had beaten me to within an inch of my life for many of those “humorous” escapades. He clouded over and said that he was too hard on me. He had let my mother provoke him to anger and had taken the easy way out. He said he was sorry and, on one such occasion, he wept. I only saw him cry twice in his life; i.e., when he heard of his mother’s death and on that occasion. As I pondered this strange process of restoration between me and my dad, the Lord began to speak to me rather pointedly. He showed me that my dad was trained from the time he was born that the main function of a man was to provide for his family. Lacking education and the kinds of opportunities that I had, he had done that very well. Nowhere was he trained to be a scoutmaster or a baseball coach, things that were almost expected of fathers in my day. He was not trained to take me fishing or to be a buddy. He was the “captive” of his upbringing and the culture of his day.
My dad grew up on a farm as “a slave” among six other brothers. His father whipped him harshly, sometimes with a tobacco stake and worked him like a dog, with nary a word of praise or encouragement. In short, my father was the prisoner of his training. I on the other hand, had much different training. I was raised in front of a TV set where I saw a different kind of fathering. I was taught by my culture to spend time with my sons playing football in the street, coaching their ball teams and spending quality time with my children. I was the beneficiary of a more enlightened parenting style, and I was unfairly holding my father up against that standard and judging him badly.
I realized that I had no right to nurture anger against him. I realized that my unforgiveness was sin, pure and simple. I repented to God and to my father. Our relationship was totally healed from that time on. It was only later at Asbury at age 52 that I could understand this biblically and theologically, but the truth of it was revealed to me with my dad. I regret all the years I lost as this man’s friend because of my unforgiveness.
Unforgiveness eats our lunch. It steals our joy and demands our focus and attention in ways that are detrimental to our well-being. Unforgiveness actually harms us more than it harms the offender. Often the offender is either physically or emotionally beyond caring. There is an old story that speaks to this issue. When the Romans consigned a man to the copper mines, it was a lifetime sentence to hard labor and suffering. The prisoners did not have much to live for and not much to deter them from killing one another. Slaves were valuable, so it behooved the Romans to find a motivation to keep the men from killing each other. However, the slaves had little, if anything, to lose.
So the ingenious Romans devised a motivation for them. If one man killed another, he was required to live with the corpse for up to several months. He had to carry it around all day strapped to his back, eat with it and sleep with it at night. As it got rotten and stinky and as it became worm-eaten, it provided a lot of motivation to others to avoid killing anyone.
Unforgiveness is like that. We carry the corpse of it around with us always. It pervades our waking hours and shows up in our dreams. It pollutes our view of everything and robs us of our happiness. It pops into our mind like bad computer spam, interrupting what we are about. It steals our good moments and blocks our fellowship with God. It is dead carrion, pure and simple, rotting, smelly wormy stuff that does us no good. We are not only commanded to forgive, we are enabled by God’s grace to forgive. He knows that it is best for us if we will.
Forgiving others is a blessing beyond compare. It allows us to live in the presence of God and causes us to become more like Jesus. It teaches us about His nature and informs our heart about how it should think and feel. It recognizes that we, too, have been forgiven and allows us to give the Godly gift of forgiveness to others. It helps us be happy and bears witness to the work of the Holy Spirit within us. It costs us nothing to forgive, but it costs us everything if we do not. Paul encourages the Romans with these words.
Rom 12:17-21 Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. 19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. NASB