Introduction and questions by Sam Rohrer
Answers by Renton Rathbun
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In part one, we discussed that one of the most powerful forms of witness to the needy world is reflecting God’s forgiveness. So many families are divided, creating broken relationships. Rather than loving to get together with family and friends at Thanksgiving and Christmas time, we try to avoid these often stressful times. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
We’ve all been the offender and the offended. But how is forgiveness or pardon extended?
When it comes to how we forgive someone, we’re reminded of the example of Christ. Christ provides a way of reconciliation. Forgiveness is not simply jumping to the reconciliation part where we’re just saying the words, “I forgive you, let’s move on.” Instead, you’re providing a way. What Christ did on the cross was His provision of a way in which our sins could be forgiven. That way leads to reconciliation with the Father.
What you see in Christ is the burden of responsibility come down on Christ. God was not waiting for us to provide the way. He provided. The how of forgiveness begins with the person who was offended. That’s us. This is why Christ’s example is so radical. We’re not waiting for the person that offended us to provide the way. We are to provide the way.
In providing the way, we have to be the one to approach the offender. We have to reach out, and we have to give them—if I can put it this way—permission to express what they have done wrong. We have to stretch out our hand in the fullest extent of forgiveness. And so, this does come down to us, the offended, to do the work.
When we are the one that extends a way to reconciliation, this doesn’t mean that the other party is going to use the way that has been provided. When we provide the way and we give them a chance to talk, we are providing a platform. If we are to provide a way of reconciliation, they still must be repentant. In the same way, Christ didn’t die for everyone’s sin, and then, unbeknownst to us, we were forgiven—and without even repenting!
Repentance is required for forgiveness. The way must be provided, but forgiveness doesn’t happen unless the person has repented. Asking for forgiveness is paramount in the work that you’re trying to get the offending party to do.
How sincere do they need to be in their repentance?
Scripture tells us we can’t know someone’s motivations. Obviously, you have to be very wise about that sort of thing. And we understand you can’t just take someone’s word for it. There has to be a lot of wisdom behind it and knowledge, but we cannot hold against a person whether we think they might violate our trust in the future. Real forgiveness is forgiveness at that point and not, “I will forgive you, but I have my eye on you.” It’s not, “I will forgive you, but if you do this again, I’m definitely bringing this up again.” Real forgiveness, if there’s repentance, requires not a condition of what will happen in the future, but a decision at that moment.
If we consider this matter of forgiving or granting a pardon from a legal sense, the concept is little understood generally in our culture. But it’s not even practiced very much in the church. Perhaps one of the most devastating features of our churches is that they are full of broken relationships. How can you worship in church when you know that there’s someone sitting down at the end of the pew whom you just don’t want to look at? It happens. And God doesn’t answer prayer if there is unresolved bitterness because of a refusal to forgive.
What is the goal of forgiveness when we forgive others as God through Christ Jesus forgave us?
This brings us right back to the example from Ephesians where Christ provides the way and the Father provides the forgiveness. And in the end, forgiveness is that reconciliation, that making peace between the offended and the offender. The goal of biblical forgiveness isn’t merely the peace we find between ourselves and the other person.
Real forgiveness happened when Christ provided His body as a sacrifice, the Father said, “Yes, that sacrifice is approved,” and the Father raised Christ from the dead. This is what we call resurrection power to provide a way of peace between us and the Father. And, therefore, reconciliation is the goal we wish to accomplish when we forgive others.
But even reconciliation itself has its own goal. Reconciliation is not what we do so that we can just move on. It’s not what we do so that we can feel better. Real reconciliation is a way of demonstrating gratitude and faithfulness to God. When we forgive this way, forgiveness becomes doxology. In other words, the goal of reconciliation is to glorify God with our acts of forgiveness. This means we don’t bypass the way of forgiveness and say, “Oh, I forgive you,” and we make it transactional—a Get Out of Jail Free pass. Rather, we must have the picture of Christ’s work in our minds, so that the way we provide for reconciliation and the reconciliation itself glorifies God.
We know we should glorify God in everything, but how that is done is through gratitude. This is at the heart of Romans 1:21 and the declaration of what makes us so evil in our hearts. When you drill down to the root of our depravity, we are ungrateful to God, and we don’t give Him honor. And that is the worst act you can do against God. Therefore, the greatest way we can mimic the picture of Christ’s reconciliation work, is our gratitude work, faithfulness work, honor work. It’s doxology.