Matthew 18:35 is one of the scariest verses in the Bible. Jesus has just told a parable about a servant who refused to forgive the debt of a fellow servant, after his master had forgiven him of a massive debt. Jesus says this:
“So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.””
(Matthew 18:35 ESV)
God will not forgive us, if we do not forgive our brother or sister? How? In the parable, WE are the servant who owed the master an insurmountable debt. We owe God a debt we can never repay. When the curse of sin entered the world, we were all infected. We all broke God’s law and thus we incurred a sin “debt” with God that no man could ever pay. God is the gracious master in the story, who forgive the servant his debt knowing full well that he couldn’t pay it back. In the story, the king apparently absorbs the loss, but in the gospel story God goes one better. God PAYS the debt himself, by offering his own Son, Jesus, as payment for our debt. We can have the debt fully paid by, like the servant in the parable, throwing ourselves on the mercy of God through faith in Jesus. Our debt can be paid in full by the blood of Jesus!
However, this means that since we have been shown so much mercy, we are to show mercy to others, particularly in the area of forgiveness. If not, Jesus says that we face Hell. Why? Because it proves we don’t understand the gospel – we don’t understand the depth of our sin towards God. Anyone who sins against us, even in tragic and horrific ways, is still not at the level of how much we personally have sinned against God! Therefore, we are commanded to forgive others. (See Colossians 3:12-14; Ephesians 4:32).
But what is forgiveness and how do we do it?
First, let’s look at what forgiveness is NOT. (NOTE: Adapted these points from ACBC Biblical Counseling seminars)
- Forgiveness is not a feeling. It’s an action, a transaction actually.
- Forgiveness is not forgetting. “Forgive and forget” is not Biblical. The notion that if you haven’t forgotten it you haven’t forgiven is not Biblical. If you have been sinned against in traumatic ways, you are not forgetting…but you can forgive.
- Forgiveness is not excusing sin. It’s not just sweeping it under the carpet and saying “Don’t worry about it.” And stuffing it down. It’s not going to stay down, it’s going to come back up and come back up in twisted and harmful ways.
So then, what IS forgiveness? Here are two helpful definitions for us. First, Jay Adams writes that “Forgiveness is a lifting of the charge of guilt from another, a formal declaration of that fact and a promise (made and kept), never to remember the wrong against him in the future.” When someone sins against us, there is guilt there. An offense has happened. They are guilty of sinning against us. Forgiveness is a lifting of the charge of guilt…after that, we have to walk thru the emotional and relational issues, but forgiveness at its core is a legal transaction.
Chris Brauns, in his helpful book, Unpacking Forgiveness, defines forgiveness this way – “Forgiveness is a commitment by the offended to graciously pardon the repentant from moral liability and to be reconciled to that person, although not all consequences are necessarily eliminated.” You see that – there are two parts here and in our emotionally driven world, we focus too much on the second part – the feelings. Yes, sin is destructive. It causes emotional pain and suffering, and we want that to go away. But to biblically understand forgiveness, we have to realize that emotional pain will never go away unless the actual guilt is removed first. That’s why a secular, humanistic, or atheistic worldview cannot truly forgive. What do you do with the actual guilt? Who pays for that? Forgiveness, by definition, requires that someone pay for the guilt – only a biblical worldview has that payment – it was thru the precious blood of Jesus on the cross. Forgiveness is an act of the will, not emotions. Forgiveness is costly.
So how do we forgive? Let’s say that we have sinned against someone and we both know it. Hopefully, we are dealing with two Christians here, and two members of the same local church. We go to that person and we say (using Biblical language) – “I sinned against you by ___________. I feel convicted about this, and I am confessing my sin to you and need to repent of this sin. I do not want to do this to you. I’m sorry. I understand that I hurt you. Will you please forgive me?” For a deeper dive into what makes a good confession, check out this blog post summarizing the “Seven A’s of Confession” from the book Peacemaker, by Ken Sande.
Depending on the sin, the person is being asked to absorb a minor offense (such as someone being irritable or angry with you) or a major offense (such as adultery). How can you forgive that person in either case? Because you trust in the blood of Jesus which forgave you of so much more sin against God. Yes, even a “big sin” against us, is no comparison of how much we have sinned against God. We have to realize the depth of our sin against a holy God, and that any sin against us, big or small, is paid for in full by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. This isn’t taking anything away from the trauma and damage that sin inflicts on us, but rather it points to the incredible depth of the gospel to forgive any and all sin and reconcile relationships. In the cases of “major” sin, lots of rebuilding needs to occur. We will need the help of others and lots of time, but God is faithful. We cannot start to heal from a traumatic sin unless first we bring it to the cross of Christ.
We then declare the other person “innocent” of the sin against us. Just like Jesus declares us innocent of our sin, we so declare others innocent. We keep our promise to never remember the wrong against them in the future. If it happens again, we can repeat the process…we aren’t saying we are a door mat…but are committing to not throwing it back in their faces after the matter has been settled. We absorb the hurt and are reconcile with them. There are dramatic stories of reconciliation from adultery that took years, but slowly relationships were rebuilt on the foundation of forgiveness in Jesus.
Sometimes, it’s not that easy though, right? Even though the transaction of forgiveness may be complete…it takes a while for the hurt to go away. Often it never goes away completely – but know this…it can NEVER go away at all unless it is dealt with by the blood of Jesus. Sometimes, we need more help in reconciling, and that’s where a good biblical counselor, pastor, or friend can help us process.
Sometimes, people refuse to repent and that’s why we have church membership and church discipline. (Matthew 18:15-20).
Sometimes, the transaction of forgiveness is impossible. Maybe the other person is not a Christian, or has moved away, died, or refuses to own their sin, or maybe even is in prison for thief offense.. In those cases…we have to rest in the grace of Jesus. If forgiveness is at all possible, we have to be ready to forgive and have forgiven them already in our hearts…and pray for the day we can forgive them with our words. If nothing else will resolve it, rest your hope that Jesus knows the truth and at Judgment Day, all will be revealed and evil will not get away with anything. We rest in the assurance that Jesus, our King, knows the truth which will one day be revealed.
Romans 12 has much to encourage us here.
“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
(Romans 12:14–21 ESV)
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