What Is Forgiveness?

Blog | Pastor Duane Smets

Most definitions of forgiveness go something like this… “Letting it go.” “Getting over it.” “Moving on.” Maybe in some way they describe some of the results of forgiveness but they don’t really get into the how and there’s actually still a note of hurt and pain still involved in those sentiments.

In last Sunday’s sermon text we read in Matthew 18 of Jesus saying to Peter that his followers are to forgive 70×7 (490 times, a euphemism for as many times as it takes) when they are wronged and that God the Father will eternally sentence us if we “do not forgive our brother from our heart (Mt 18:35).” What we didn’t have time to look at was what exactly forgiveness is and how it works.

One of the most common things we hear today is that sometimes a person just needs to “forgive themselves” and then they’ll feel better or be better. Is such a thing possible? How does forgiveness actually work inside of us?

In Tim Keller’s book “The Reason For God” he says that real forgiveness is “costly suffering.” For example, say my neighbor is having a party and one night a drunk dude is leaving his house and he accidently puts the car in drive rather than reverse and crashes into my parked car in my driveway. Someone is going to pay for the car to get fixed. Either the drunk dude, my neighbor, me or a combination of people. But it will cost some money to get it fixed even if I don’t get mad at the dude for jacking up my car.

When we’re talking about wrongdoing that needs forgiveness though we’re usually talking some inter-personal pain or hurt we’ve experienced relationally. When someone really wrongs and hurts us there’s a couple ways to respond.

One, you can seek to may them pay by…withholding relationship, say/do mean things in return, talk trash about them to other people etc. If it works and they are hurt, you think you will feel better.

Two, you don’t do anything to make them pay but simply internalize it…get more guarded, closed off, feel sorry for yourself, etc.

Forgiveness isn’t in either of the two. Forgiveness is when you simply absorb the pain and hurt done unto you and yet continue to love and serve the person who wronged you. The problem is we don’t naturally have the capacity to do this. We tend to always lean to either punishing the person or punishing ourselves.

The Gospel

In the gospel there is a God, one whom we have all eternally wronged since he is our Creator and we have not worshiped and loved him rightly. This God became a human being in Jesus and thus a God-man. This God-man Jesus then died on the cross for our eternal wrongdoing against God. He absorbed it into himself and could do so because he was eternal God. Jesus paid the price needed so that true forgiveness could take place.

The gospel shifts the way we feel and react when we’re wronged because when we’re wronged we’re reminded of the wrong we have done to God and how he has treated us in response. When we remember that we remember that he paid a price to forgive us, absorbing the debt of wrath we incurred and as a result spilling his blood on the cross. That great act turns our heart and truly enables us to forgive others.

You see we could never forgive ourselves and just make the pain and the hurt go away. Pain, hurt and wrongdoing has to paid or absorbed. When we try to absorb it ourselves we just end up bitter and resentful. When God absorbes it, he punishes it in himself in His Son and then restores relationship with people he created. If we’ve been restored to God we can be restored to others who have wronged us because there is a true source available for the cost forgiveness requires.

How could Jesus say to Peter forgive seventy times seven? Because the eternal Jesus paid a cost with his perfect life, worth an infinite amount of wrongdoings going far beyond 70×7. That in turn changes us so that we can “be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven us (Eph 4:32).”

A Story

Maybe you ask, what’s this look like in real life…in real relationships? Here is a story of one of my friend and former professor mine about him and his dad.

“I was raised by a stepfather who caused my family and me a great deal of pain. He left our family when I was in my early teens, and I carried a deep animosity toward him for years. When I was in Vietnam, my animosity become almost obsessive, and I vowed that the first time I saw him on my return, I would kill him. I would make him pay for what he had done to our family. I returned a few months later and within a year had become a Christian. My world began to change and I put that stepfather out of my mind.

I had not thought about him much until about four years later, when he suddenly showed up where my wife and I and our little girl were living. He had tracked us down. My wife, being the loving person she is, invited him in.

As we sat and talked politely, that vow come to my mind. I then told him, ‘I made a vow in Vietnam that the first time I saw you, I would kill you. Today is that day.’ I will never forget the look of terror that came over his face. He started to sweat and slide down on the couch.

I went on, “But I know know that I’m no better person than you. God has forgiven me. And if he can forgive a sinner like me, I can forgive you. I will not allow you to hurt my family again, so don’t think this is made out of weakness. Rather, I forgive you because I have been forgiven.

I probably was as shocked as he was. I had not thought about saying those words of forgiveness, but they came easily. I was deeply aware of the mercy and forgiveness that God had extended to me. I knew my sin better than anyone. I may not have been as abusive as my former stepfather. I may not have hurt people in the same way he had hurt our family. But I had also abused and hurt people in my own self-seeking way.

When I came to that awareness, I knew that I needed mercy and forgiveness. And in receiving the gift of life that Jesus extended to me through his work on the cross, extending mercy and forgiveness to my former stepfather was a natural response. My vow had been the rash, irresponsible reaction of a deeply hurt, bitter young sinner. However, my ability later to forgive came from the eternal, loving grace in Jesus’ sacrifice for my sin.

I discovered that the key to forgiveness is to stop focusing on what others have done to us and focus instead on what Jesus has done for us.”

Conclusion

Lashing out usually ends up making us feel more dirty and dark. But we don’t have the capacity to simply absorb pain and forgive, hurts just cuts too deep. Yet God has made a way by giving up his Son on the cross so sin might be dealt with and we might be forgiven.

Where do you need God to deal with pain and hurt in you? Who do you need to forgive? How have you been trying to forgive but failing? Forgiveness costs a lot and Jesus paid more than we could ever imagine. May God continue to work his forgiveness into our hearts so we might be forgiving toward one another.

- Pastor Duane