Forgiveness, Part Four

Adequate Forgiveness

Adequate forgiveness involves God, God’s people, and oneself. If any one of these is omitted, then serious problems will result. Every sinner needs to find at least one person who is willing to listen and, while knowing the very worst, will still love and respect the sinner. Such a person is God and the church is such a society.

Every person needs a social context in which he can openly admit how far s/he has fallen. Yet s/he must still feel loved and accepted in spite of her or his shortcomings. S/he must be supported in developing the kind of God-approved behavior s/he really desires. God’s people believe that sinners are worth saving. They do more than support; they motivate each other to self-control and will power. The church is to help people rise above their failures.

Saul of Tarsus was adequately forgiven because he dealt adequately with his guilt. In Acts 24:16 Paul said, “So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward God and toward man.” Paul dealt with his guilt by confessing it to God, to God’s people, and to himself.

Forgiveness, Part 3

Inadequate Forgiveness

Inadequate forgiveness occurs because we deal inadequately with our guilt. Guilt is a part of every human’s make-up. Personal guilt occurs when people fail to live up to their own moral ideas. They violate what they believe is true and are thus self-indicted. Guilt is the sense of wrongdoing. It is the difference between what we are and what we know we should be. A person who lives with his guilt lives in a self-created prison.

There are three kinds of guilt.

Appropriate Guilt

Appropriate guilt occurs when we actually transgress God’s commandments, harm our fellow human beings, or violate our own consciences. Appropriate guilt must be dealt with by confrontation, confession, forgiveness, restitution, and reconciliation.

Neurotic Guilt

1. Neurotic guilt occurs when we do not involve God, God’s people, and ourselves in the forgiveness process. God showed His willingness to forgive on the cross. The church we read about in the Bible shows that God’s people openly admitted sin and yet were accepted and loved (Gal 6:1f. Read; Jas. 5:19f.). But to enjoy the blessing of forgiveness, one must be able to forgive oneself. Neurotic guilt is cured by accepting God and His forgiveness, God’s people and their forgiveness, and finally by self-acceptance and self-forgiveness.
2. There are several examples in the Bible of remorseful people who refused to forgive themselves. Judas Iscariot is the prime example (Matt. 27:1-5). The Bible explicitly teaches that Judas repented and confessed. He could have been forgiven. But he would not forgive himself.
3. There is such a thing as psychosomatic or functional illness - illness that has no physical basis. Headache, upset stomach, and heart palpitation are just as real as if the physical organs were damaged or diseased. Yet these illnesses clear up almost overnight when adequate forgiveness is attained. So sometimes even our bodies condemn us!

Complete Lack of Guilt

1. A lack of guilt occurs when we do not respond to the forgiveness process. Many people endeavor to conceal their guilt by denying it. They will never know the blessing of forgiveness. They live lives of hypocrisy and lies. They soothe themselves by saying, “We all sin from time to time.” But when a person is unable to admit his guilt, he is also unable to find forgiveness. The more he denies his need for forgiveness, the more unforgiving he becomes. Isaiah prayed, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins” (Is. 58:1).
2. The parable of the unmerciful servant illustrates a person with a complete lack of guilt (Matt. 18:23ff). A debt of ten thousand talents represents a billion dollars. One talent was more than fifteen years’ wages. A man would have to work 150,000 years to pay off such a debt and even then the interest on the money could not ever be paid back. It would take 8,600 men each carrying sixty pounds to equal such a debt. With this enormous debt forgiven, the same man would not forgive a small three-month debt of his fellowman. He lacked a complete sense of his guilt. The point of the parable is that if God can forgive our enormous burden of guilt surely we can forgive each other our everyday mistakes. When we need forgiveness we expect God to generously and freely grant it. We must learn to care more for each other and care less about each other’s mistakes.

Forgiveness, Part Two

The Conditions of Forgiveness

What a wonderful blessing complete and absolute forgiveness really is. Forgiveness is beautiful (Ps. 32:1f). But as with all of God’s blessings there are conditions for forgiveness. What are God’s conditions for forgiveness?

God’s forgiveness is conditioned on our ability to forgive others (Matt. 6:14f). The unforgiving heart is of necessity a heavy heart. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” That is, the forgiving will be forgiven.

Another condition for forgiveness is that men may preach forgiveness only through the name of Christ; that is, by His authority.

The apostle Peter said to Cornelius, “To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name” (Acts 10:43). The apostle John wrote, “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for His sake” (I John 2:12). The apostle Paul preached, “Let it be known to you therefore, brethren, that through this man the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you” (Acts 13:38). “In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:14).

The forgiveness of sins is conditioned upon the blood of the covenant. “For this is My blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). The conditions of forgiveness are emphatically and repeatedly discussed in the Book of Acts. The various accounts of conversion teach that faith, repentance, confession, and baptism are all prerequisites to forgiveness. “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us” (Eph. 1:7f).

Forgiveness is conditioned upon repentance. Complete and absolute forgiveness is conditioned on complete and absolute repentance. Notice how closely repentance and forgiveness are tied together in the New Testament: “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins” (Mark 1:4); “And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47; cf. Acts 2:38); “God highly exalted Him at His right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31). God’s forgiveness is unalterably tied to man’s repentance.

Forgiveness is also conditioned upon confession. For adequate forgiveness to take place, there must be adequate confession. Confession is not complaining. It is not blaming other people. Confession is not substitution. It is not replacing a bad deed with a good one. Confession is not plea-bargaining. It is not pleading guilty to a lesser charge. Confession is not camouflage. It is not exhibitionism or boasting. Real confession is cleansing for the soul. It is catharsis. It cleanses the emotions. Confession is not the cure for the problem; it is only the admission that the problem exists. The goal of confession is to receive forgiveness and not to develop the details of the sin. Forgiveness requires humility but not humiliation.

Genuine confession has a sound Biblical basis: “They were baptized in the Jordan confessing their sins” (Matt. 3:6); “Many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices” (Acts 19:18; cf. I John 1:9f; Jas. 5:16).

Finally, forgiveness is conditional upon reconciliation (Matt. 18:15-17). If a private meeting fails to bring about forgiveness, then arbitrators are to be consulted. Arbitrators are not to take sides. They are not to prove a point, but they are to help in the process of reconciliation. Reconciliation means to bring back harmony, to end alienation, and to begin a brand-new relationship. If this meeting also fails, the personal matter is to be brought before the church. And if this third meeting does not succeed, then the effort is to be abandoned as hopeless until there is an attitude change. This then becomes a condition for forgiveness.

Forgiveness, Part One

Forgiveness

While Jesus was on earth He preached in many places: a crowed street in Jericho, a boat by the seashore, a mountainside in Galilee, a well near Samaria, and the temple at Jerusalem. But Jesus’ last sermon was preached on a cross outside of Jerusalem. There was never a pulpit like the cross, never an audience like the one assembled there, and never a preacher like the dying Savior.

The Bible records the dying words of only four men: Jacob, the first Israelite; Moses, the first lawgiver; Stephen, the first Christian martyr; and Christ, the only Savior. After being raised on the cross, Jesus opened His eyes and probability in the back of the crowd He could see the curiosity seekers. As He looked closer, He could see a little group of His disciples, made up mostly of the women from Galilee. Closer still were the priests who were ridiculing Him and the Roman soldiers who were crucifying Him.

Christ’s dying words are the foundation of Christianity. Perhaps everyone expected Him to say something, but no one expected Him to say, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). The Greek verb here is in the imperfect tense which indicates continuance of action. Each time an insult was hurled, a snide remark was made, a tongue-lashing was given, Jesus repeated His prayer. These dying words have become the standard of Christian forgiveness. Jesus wanted Pilate forgiven for his failure to enforce justice. Jesus wanted the house of Caiaphas forgiven for hitting and spitting on Him. Jesus wanted the soldiers forgiven for ridiculing and finally crucifying Him. Jesus wanted both Judas and Peter forgiven.

Jesus never withheld forgiveness from anyone who sincerely asked for it. Jesus came to teach about forgiveness. He came both to forgive and to tell us we are forgiven. Human nature has not changed through the centuries. We have the same needs, the same drives, and the same capacity for good or evil. The sins of Jerusalem, Corinth, and Rome are the sins of New York, Chicago, and __________, U.S.A. So when one preaches on forgiveness he is preaching an all-important phase of the gospel.

The Meaning of Forgiveness

There are four words in the original language translated forgiveness in the New Testament. The first is a legal term, the second is a gracious term, the third and fourth are synonymous with the removal of guilt. Let’s look at each one of these:

The legal term for forgiveness, apoluo, means to set free, to dismiss, to release, or even to divorce. It is the term used in Matthew 5:32. In John 19:10, Pilate said to Jesus, “Do you not know that I have power to release (legally forgive) you, and power to crucify you?” Paul said in Acts 28:18, “When they had examined me, they wished to set me at liberty, because there was no reason for the death penalty in my case.”

The gracious term for forgiveness is charizomai. It means to freely grant as a favor, to remit, to forgive, and to pardon. Jesus graciously restored sight to the blind (Luke 7:21). God freely gave His Son and will He not freely give us all things (Rom. 8:32). The disfellowshipped man was graciously forgiven when he repented (2 Cor. 2:7, 10). Christians are to have this attitude. In Ephesians 4:32, “and be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” And in Colossians 3:13, “forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” In Colossians 2:13, “And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses. . .”

The third and fourth words for forgiveness are the most common in the New Testament: aphiemi and the noun form aphesis. These words have to do with the removal of guilt. “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us” (Luke 11:4). Peter’s question about forgiveness involved these words (Matt. 18:21, 35). This is the word Jesus used on the cross (Luke 23:34). Every Christian needs and receives this kind of forgiveness (I John 1:9; 2:12). The Jews began to question Christ’s authority because He so easily and graciously forgave sin and removed guilt (Luke 7:47ff; Mark 2:5-12). Jesus repeatedly told His apostles, disciples, and all Christians to forgive. This means to remove the guilt and refuse to hold it against one another (Mark 11:25).

How wonderful it is to be released, divorced from sin, and unconditionally forgiven, removed from all guilt.