This past Sunday, Pastor Walt preached about forgiveness. And there are few things harder.
TWO WORDS FOR FORGIVENESS
There are two words for forgiveness in the NT.
The first word is charizomai. The Greek word for grace is charis. This word comes from the same root (as you can probably tell) and is often translated forgive. It means to treat someone graciously and generously, not according to what they deserve.
Ephesians 4:32 uses this word: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
We are commanded to treat others as Jesus has treated us.
Imagine if we all treated everyone in our lives with the same never-bringing-anything-back-up, never-holding-anything-back kindness that Jesus has shown us. The world would be a very different place!
The second word is aphiemi. It means to send away, release, or set free. It occurred three times in our passage from last Sunday (vs. 5,7,9,10). In fact, it has occurred numerous times already in the Gospel of Mark to refer to things left behind—Simon and Andrew’s nets (1:18), James and John’s father (1:20), Simon’s mother-in-law’s fever (1:31).
But, in Mark 2, Jesus tells the paralytic to leave behind and send away his sin.
This word associates the need for forgiveness with debt. Jesus taught us how to ask forgiveness by using this word: “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debts.” Literally, this verse could be translated: “release us from our debt of sin to you, as we have released others from their debt of sin to us.”
However, this word implies that we forgive by releasing others of the wrongs done against us without retaliating, just as God has done with us through Jesus.
FORGIVE ≠ FORGET
If forgive means either to treat others graciously or to release others from their debts to us, forgiving does not mean forgetting.
It means something harder & better.
Isaiah 43:25 says, “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”
What does it mean that God will not remember our sins?
We know it does not mean that he cannot recall them anymore. God knows everything. If he forgot anything, he would not be God. Rather, God is speaking in this way to make an important point to us.
This verse uses a literary device called anthropomorphism, a way of attributing human characteristics to God for the purpose of making a point.
Just as we choose to not remember the sins of others we’ve forgiven, by refusing to harbor them and refusing to bring them back up, God chooses to do the same thing with us. God chooses not to harbor our sins or bring them back up to condemn us after we have been forgiven.
But, how could God just forgive? How could he just choose not to bring back up our sins to condemn us?
This is where it gets even better.
Before the coming of Jesus, God was patient. He didn’t retaliate, or at least not as much as he should have. He withheld his judgment for sin in divine forbearance (Rom. 3:25). But, in the substitutionary death of Jesus, God poured out the punishment—the wrath of God—for all of our sins upon Jesus (Rom. 5:9). And if he has punished Jesus, then he will not return to ever punish us.
In the court of law, you cannot be tried for same crime twice. To do so would be double jeopardy. In the same way, God will not try us and condemn us for our many sins because of the full payment secured through the substitutionary death of Jesus in our place!
Therefore, when God forgives us, he doesn’t forget our sins. He looks to the finished work of Christ and chooses not to hold our sins against us ever again.
SO HOW DO I FORGIVE?
We forgive by imitating God.
The same motivation is behind both of these words for forgiveness. We are commanded to treat others as Jesus has treated us. We are commanded to give people grace, as we have received grace from God. We are commanded to release people from their debts, as we have been released from our debts by God.
But, in order to do this, we imitate God by absorbing the wrong done against us. By letting it go. By burying it. By not bringing it back up.
And letting the person who offended you go free.
If you try to forgive in this way, you’ll realize it is incredibly painful:
One author captures the pain of true forgiveness by saying,
“I asked a few people if they’d ever forgiven anyone and what it felt like. They gave me answers so pious I know they’d never done it. . . . Forgiveness is a brutal mathematical transaction done with fully engaged faculties. It’s my pain instead of yours. I eat the debt. I absorb the misery I wanted to dish out on you, and you go scot-free.” Andreé Seu Peterson
It’s hard.
But, if you try to forgive in this way, you’ll realize it is so much better.
To whom much is given, much is required. May God help us.
“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
EPHESIANS 4:31-32