Which Comes First: Forgive or Forgiven? Is the Church debilitated and susceptible to the wiles of the devil because of a poor understanding about forgiveness? Most believers know and confess the Lord’s Prayer—and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors (Matt. 6:12)—but if armed only with this knowledge, they will see God’s forgiveness as conditional on their ability to forgive. This faulty understanding can then be extended to a belief that God won’t love them unless they first love others. If this is the case, I could hold a fierce grudge against someone, and without a full understanding of forgiveness, my confession might be, “What those people did is so evil, I just can’t possibly forgive them…and therefore God won’t forgive me.” The fact is, unless I come to understand the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I won’t be set free of condemnation (feeling unforgiven) or be able to set other captives free into the liberty of the children of God. So why did Jesus give such a teaching? After giving this famous prayer in response to the disciples’ request to teach them to pray, Jesus goes so far as to emphasize this difficult teaching by saying, “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” (Matt. 6:14,15). Then, at another time and location where Peter points out a withered fig tree that Jesus had previously cursed, Jesus talks first about faith that moves mountains and then says, “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11:25). This is obviously important to Jesus. Okay, if all of this is true, how do we understand that on the cross through Christ, God once and for all forgave the sins of the whole world? After that, on the road to Damascus, Jesus tells Paul to open folks’ eyes so they will turn from darkness to light and “receive” forgiveness. That’s right: turn to God from the power of Satan and simply receive forgiveness (Acts 26:18). And then Paul tells us to forgive one another, “as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32). No word about doing forgiving to get forgiving. In fact there are exhortations to forgive others, but nowhere does it say to ask God for forgiveness. It seems to do so is to ignore or deny the forgiveness God in Christ did on the cross for everyone (Col. 2:13,14). Instead, we are to turn to God and simply receive the cancelation of the record of our sin debts, and then turn to others and cancel any record of their sin debts against ourselves. That’s it. So what do we make of this contradiction? Do we have to forgive first to get forgiven? Or do we receive forgiveness in order to have the grace to forgive others? I think there is a simplicity to it. No need for mental gymnastics. In the same sense that the Mosaic Law is not only canceled, but also fulfilled in “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”—when we receive the cancelation of our sin debt from God and in turn forgive everyone’s sin debts against us, we have resolved and fulfilled that difficult teaching. For every believer, being forgiven and forgiving should be a once for all done deal! This is how we let love pour from our hearts and love one another so we are not easily provoked or impute evil to others (1Cor. 13:5); and, so we are always in face-to-face prayer with God. This is how we come into agreement with the law of the Spirit of life and discover there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1). Now, armed with this simple truth let’s go and set others free!
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 18:50:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015