Forgiving love

Colin Grimwood

A fellow church member comes up to you and begins to have a real go at you, venting all his fury on you and falsely accusing you of all kinds of wrongdoing. His words are deeply hurtful and manifestly unfair. How do you respond?

Hopefully such incidents are quite rare, but if it does happen, do we nurse our injury and hold it against our brother for the rest of our life? Do we leave the church and just get away from the situation? Or perhaps stay, but avoid any close contact with him? Or do we have it in our hearts to forgive?

What does the Lord say? If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him (Luke 17:3). Forgive him! That is our Lord's command. That is what love demands. Why? That we might repair the damaged relationship, avoid the sins which can easily fester if we are not reconciled (such as bitterness, wrath, malice, Ephesians 4:30), and restore the unity of the church or, where applicable, the family.

Forgiveness is more than deciding not to make a fuss. It is not weak or woolly. It requires the courage to deal with the situation. Notice that, in Jesus' words, forgiveness is not the first thing we do, although it is our aim. Our first response is to rebuke our brother. This doesn't mean we go and give him 'a piece of our mind'! Rather, we go and have a private word with him, humbly and lovingly confronting him with his sin, with the aim of bringing him to repentance. Or, as Jesus puts it in Matthew 18:15, Go and tell him his fault. And if he repents, then we are to forgive him. It is, of course, possible that he might come to us first and confess his sin (Matthew 5:23-24) -so much the better!

Either way, the sin must be confronted and repented of before it can be forgiven. We cannot just forgive someone in our heart and leave it at that, because that will not properly sort out the relationship.

What if he doesn't repent? Then, while we should always have the desire to forgive, closure will not be possible, and the procedure outlined in Matthew 18:15-18 will come into play. Not every minor offence needs to be made into an issue, however, only if it is enough to seriously damage our relationship. In other cases, Love will cover a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).

When forgiveness has been asked for and given then the matter must be dropped forever. We are never to raise it with our brother or anyone else again, and we must even try to dismiss it from our minds. If we say to ourselves, 'I will forgive, but never forget', we have really not forgiven at all!

We should remember that forgiveness is not optional. It is not for us to decide whether we wish to forgive or not. As Christians, we are obliged to forgive. If we do not, we are being disobedient to the Lord and failing to show love to our brother.

What if we have forgiven our brother, but some while later he does the same thing to us? We must follow the same procedure and, if he repents, we must forgive him again. If he does it seven times in one day, we must forgive (Luke 17:4). Every time we forgive it is the first time. We are not to keep count of the number of times it has happened and then say, 'If he does it once more, that is it. I won't forgive him again.' Let us remember how many times we have come to the Lord in repentance. Does he set a limit on the number of times he is prepared to forgive us? What a precarious position we would be in if he did!

But isn't this too much to ask? The disciples' response is, Lord, increase our faith! (v5). Jesus replied that faith only the size of a mustard seed is enough (v6). We don't need something extra, some 'second blessing', to be able to forgive. Such forgiveness is not beyond the power of any child of God, by grace.

Corrie ten Boom, who had been incarcerated in the Nazi concentration camp at Ravensbruck, was speaking at a meeting in Germany after the war on the forgiveness of God. At the end of the meeting a man came up to her whom she recognised as having been one of the guards from Ravensbruck. Her mind immediately flashed back to some of the cruel and barbaric things he had done there, and her blood boiled. He told her that he had since become a Christian, and then he said, 'I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did. Will you forgive me?' For a moment she was stunned. Could she forgive such a man as this? After a few seconds' hesitation, she took her hand out of her pocket and thrust it into the hand of the former guard and replied, 'If God has forgiven me, how can I do less than forgive you? I forgive you, brother, with all my heart' (Living above the Average pp88-9, William MacDonald, Gospel Folio Press). Although we may never have such big things to forgive, that is what grace can do!

How many unhealed wounds are there in our churches because we have not forgiven like this? How many things have just been left to fester? Do you carry any unhealed wounds in your heart today? Is there anyone you don't really talk to any more? If so, then let us, for love's sake, for Christ's sake, go and get it sorted!

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