Forgiveness

“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” – Matthew 6:14-15

“But does it teach that I am forgiven only because I have forgiven? No, the teaching is, and we have to take this teaching seriously, that if I do not forgive, I am not forgiven. I explain it like this: a man who has seen himself as a guilty, vile sinner before God knows his only hope of heaven is that God has forgiven him freely. The man who truly sees and knows and believes that, is one who cannot refuse to forgive another. So the man who does not forgive another does not know forgiveness himself.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p12

This verse has always bothered me, because it makes God’s forgiveness sound conditional. But, like Lloyd-Jones likes to say, “If you find yourself arguing with the Sermon on the Mount at any point, it means either that there is something wrong with you or else that your interpretation of the Sermon is wrong. I find that very valuable.” There’s something to that. The parts that grate on me the most are probably the parts worth pressing in to.

This verse bothered me because it seems like Jesus is saying, “if you do it for others, then I’ll do it for you,” like a bargain. But I think he’s actually saying, “if you do it for others, then you’ll know that you understand what I did for you,” like a fact, a statement of truth. 

I think too often, I don’t really receive God’s forgiveness as much as I bestow forgiveness on myself. It’s a kind of self-absolution, to avoid feeling guilty, so I can make myself feel better rather than truly change. I don’t see the depth or true nature of my sin, and I don’t see the cost of the forgiveness I receive. 

Reminds me of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in The Cost of Discipleship about costly grace: “Instead of following Christ, let the Christian enjoy the consolations of his grace! That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves… Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has… It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him… Such grace... is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life… Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of His Son… and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.”

Somehow, I think forgiving others should come easily to me, but in fact it should not. It cost Jesus his life. It should cost me something. It should cost me my life; it is the way of life as I follow Jesus. Just like receiving forgiveness from God can be a process—as I see and understand more about my own sin, as I learn and practice confession, as I open myself to receiving grace and forgiveness—forgiving others is a process. This is a good place to start, a kind of litmus test: if I cannot forgive someone else, how have I failed to receive God’s forgiveness for myself?

N.T. Wright writes that forgiveness is not a moral rule with attached sanctions: it is a way of life, God’s way of life, God’s way to life—“and if you close your heart to forgiveness, why, then you close your heart to forgiveness.. If you lock up the piano because you don’t want to play to somebody else, how can God play to you?... Not to forgive is to shut down a faculty in the innermost person, which happens to be the same faculty that can receive God’s forgiveness.”