For most people, forgiveness is a divine command and/or a way to individual and corporate peace. Forgiveness is a healing experience for both the offender and the offended. It gives a peace to the soul. Those who refuse to acknowledge the deep feeling of being offended and the deep feeling of having offended someone will not experience the deep power of forgiveness. At best, forgiveness becomes a nebulous idea that does not bring healing to their souls, but brings a shallow sense of peace. In this paper, I wish to give a picture of what forgiveness is about and why forgiveness is a hard command. We begin by discussing the nature of offense.
Forgiveness assumes that an offense was committed. Offense may appear to be major like a drunk driver causing the death of a child. Offense may also appear to be minor like somebody stealing a book. The degree of offense is affected by the degree of loss. We can easily sympathize with the mother who lost a child. A child is usually cherished by a parent- irreplaceable, a delight to his parents, emotionally bonded to parents (when a child hurts, the parent feels her pain), and a repository of future plans that will never be. On the other hand, we may think that a book is easily replaceable. However, it may not be an easily replaceable book. It may also have a sentimental meaning. A book may have been a gift from a loved one, and that book may be something that evokes powerful memories for the owner. The loss of that book is more than a nuisance, but represents the loss of a memory. The degree of offense is also affected by past experiences and a person’s temperament. A person who keeps on being bullied may suddenly get violent at the next instance of being bullied. It is these intangible considerations that makes forgiveness difficult.
Sometimes it is possible for an offense to be ameliorated through restorative acts. If a book is stolen, the thief can usually replace the book. Even in the case of bullying (cyberbullying included), the loss of dignity and the psychological pain can be ameliorated by the offender making a public statement of wrong. However, because of the intangible effects of offensive actions, it is not so easy to balance the scales, so to speak. A thief who steals a credit card causes the offended so much anxiety that basically robs her of time, something that could not be taken back even if the thief returns the credit card. Take the case of a bully. A bully may not just take tangible things from others, but uses intimidation to do so. Female bullies usually force conformity to their world, punishing those who they disdain through smear campaigns, which may or may not be based on reality. Therefore, they take more than just things, but create an environment of anxiety and depression. The bully may sincerely say sorry for her insults, but the damage to the offended person’s self-image and reputation is already done. Offenses cause damage to the soul and the deeper the damage, the deeper the healing that is needed.
Looking at the big picture, all the effects of these offenses never completely disappear. There are people walking around physically and/or psychologically damaged by people’s offences. A cycle also begins- the offended become offenders when they turn the tables on their offenders and/or when they follow the pattern of their offenders and offend others. The effects of offenses hang like a sword over relationships and over people’s psyches. The cycle of offense and suffering continues. To ameliorate the effects of these offenses, the offended have to bear with the sins of offenders. This bearing with offenses, and the subsequent acceptance of the persons involved and the present reality, is the beginning of forgiveness. This bearing with offense could be excruciating, but a necessary step to the healing of the soul.
Does forgiveness entail the escape of the offender from the consequences of his offense? The reality is that the community or state is charged with protecting society. To protect society, offenders must sometimes be stopped from having the ability or desire to offend again. It is not unforgiving for society to warn others that a certain person has abused children, for example. I believe it is wrong for a community to push them away but I think it is wise to not allow them to be with children unsupervised. On the debates concerning capital punishment, one argument against it is that it is supposedly not a good deterrent. However, the purpose of punishment is not just to deter others, but also to keep society safe. Sometimes to keep society safe, those who create an environment of fear need to be taken out of the midst of that society, or at least made to pay a heavy price for destroying the peace of society. I understand that the line between the law being used to right an injustice and protect society, and law being used to serve the vendetta and fear of those who cannot forgive and/or desire to take advantage of an unfortunate situation, is blurry. Civil suits that award exorbitant amounts of money to the “offended”, and disparity in the sentencing of different groups, come to mind.
A person who does not pursue justice for an offense committed, is not necessarily more forgiving than the person who presses charges. He could still be using this offense to make the offender feel guilty and to keep the offender indebted to him. On the other hand, the person who presses charges could actually have come to accept the offender and the situation, and even show kindness and gentleness towards the offender. The offended may press charges because he is mindful of the communal peace that has been broken, not to actively destroy the offender. The line between unforgiveness and concern for justice is a matter of the heart.
I said earlier that the first step in forgiveness is the bearing up of the suffering caused by offenses. In a way, this act brings peace with the offender and the circumstances. Peace does not mean eliminating boundaries (a wife should call the police on a husband who beats her and should also keep herself safely away from him). Peace means that a person will not seek the destruction of the offender, but instead accept the offense and not try to balance the scales. The relationship is in a truce, so to speak. The next step of forgiveness is to love the offender, which means seeking the good of the offender. Again, seeking the good of the offender may not necessarily entail the restoration of trust. It is unwise for a father to trust that his son won’t waste the family money on drugs if he knows the son has a drug addiction. However, the father can still give his son affection and care, even though the son is still in a journey to regain his father’s trust. This last step is very much contrary to our human response to offense, especially offenses that have a drastic effect on our souls. The hero of many of our action films is the person who relentlessly purses the offender, intent on destroying him.
Forgiveness is hard and it is possible that we may never be able to completely forgive some of the offenses that have happened to us. However, full forgiveness should be the goal of our spiritual journeys. Our inability to forgive completely will always be a testimony to our need for forgiveness from the God who requires us to forgive others- not just be at peace but to love the offender. What helps us in this journey of forgiveness is a belief in God’s sovereignty.
"Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord.” (Rom 12:19)- God is the one who rights wrongs and trusting him to set things right should help us from actively pursuing the destruction of our offenders.
“But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” (Gen 50:19-20)- Not only does God right wrong, he even makes the things we see as wrong serve the purpose of right. These words came from Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers. Joseph ended up in jail for an offense he did not commit, and through a series of events, he became the prime minister of the Egyptians. His administration was the key to saving many lives during a great famine. We can look at offenses done against us and find hope because God works all things, even offenses, for good. This should help us bear with circumstances that our offenders have forced us into.
“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death]on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:5-11)
Sometimes, it is very hard to bear up with offense because we feel we do not deserve it. However, we see that Jesus, who is in the nature of the God who created everything, the one who deserves our worship, bore up the limitations of humanity, which include offenses made against him and being an offender in the eyes of those he confronted (The sinlessness of Christ means he is not an offender in the sight of God because he is completely in sync with God’s heart, but this does not preclude that his enemies are offended by his words and actions. Being a sinner means that our heart is not in sync with God’s heart, even though we very rarely cause offense with our words and actions). The cross is a representation of the cumulative offenses that has enslaved humanity into the cycle of offense and vengeance (or at least resentment). In this way, Christ bore the sins of humanity. Therefore, as we look at the offenses made against us, we can see that offense as being borne by Christ. It is true that ultimately, those who united themselves to Christ in faith are the ones whose offenses are forgiven. However, we don’t know who will ultimately put their faith in Christ. In fact, those who have faith in Christ are commanded to offer the gospel of forgiveness to everyone so that Christ can bear their sins, just as he has borne the sins of those who already believe. Witnessing for the gospel of forgiveness is an act of love.
The bearing of sin is not the only thing that Jesus did to heal humanity. He bore sins to bring forgiveness (justification) and peace with God. However, he did not just leave humans as forgiven beings. Alongside forgiveness is the adoption as children of God and sanctification which heals our soul from the propensity to offend God and others, therefore ending the tyranny of the cycle of sin. In Christ’s ministry, God is modeling for us the two steps of forgiveness. God in Christ bore humanity’s sin. Then he brings humanity into his family, and makes faithful humanity partakers of the divine nature through his Spirit working in them to become more and more like him. This is God’s love revealed to us.