"Father, forgive them ..."

To begin an article on forgiveness, I thought I would start with one of the most profound acts of forgiveness in history. Here was a man who had done no harm, yet was being put to a gruesome and horrific death by the very people He came to save. Does He curse them or call molten rocks from Heaven to fall upon them ? No, he asks God to forgive them as they don’t realise what it is they are actually doing ! This incredibly powerful passage from the Bible can teach us not only about the process of forgiveness in our own relationships with fellow human beings, but also gives us an insight into God’s forgiveness of us. The theologian H. R. Mackintosh wrote:

Forgiveness is not just a matter of saying “it’s ok — I forgive you”. It is also a difficult and painful journey which is often as costly for the forgiver as for the one receiving forgiveness, as the forgiver battles to bring the offender back into a relationship with him (or her).

I will explore forgiveness first with regard to human relationships, and then, in the next issue, examine how we can use our understanding of it to give us a better insight into God’s forgiveness of us through the life and death of Jesus Christ. After all, you cannot really separate these aspects of forgiveness. It is worth mentioning now that although the process of forgiveness and its impact on the atoning sacrifice of Christ will be examined here, this is NOT a detailed examination of the atonement and therefore, areas such as the penal, sacrificial and participatory aspects, although important in themselves, will not be explored here.

2. Forgiveness in relation to other human beings

2.1. The process of forgiveness

In order for someone to be forgiven it is not enough just to forget about the offence taking place. For a broken relationship to be healed the forgiver needs to bring the injury done to him back to mind and re-live the pain experienced by it. The forgiver must actually place himself in the offender’s shoes, and make an effort to understand why the offence was committed. Only then can he truly say “I forgive you”. Once this has been done, the offence has been brought out into the open. It is now in the hands of the offender to respond. The forgiver must suffer all the hostility of the offender — who might not want to be forgiven ! The offer of forgiveness itself may be seen as a judgement and the offender might feel that by accepting he is admitting he was wrong in the first place. By bringing the event back to light again the offender may fear blame and may want to justify himself by attacking the forgiver, feeling that he is not the only one at fault. For true reconciliation the forgiver must not react to justify himself but bear up against the offenders hostility and neutralise it with love. The forgiver, by identifying with the offender, can now enable him to accept forgiveness. This changes the forgiver as he enters the other’s life, and his approach to the offender is shaped by this experience. So the voyage of forgiveness is a painful one for both parties involved, due to the offender finding it difficult to accept forgiveness. We should not be surprised, therefore, when someone does not wish to accept forgiveness. Forgiveness only takes place when the offender believes that the forgiver has genuinely considered the other’s situation and feels with him.

2.2. The necessity to forgive others

In the parable of the unmerciful servant, in Matthew 18:21–35, Jesus states, in no uncertain terms, the need to forgive others. Putting it bluntly, how can we expect God forgive us if we don’t forgive one another? This is often a great problem. When friends fail or when we are wronged, it is natural to not want to let the hurt we feel repeat itself. In our own sense of insecurity we wish to protect ourselves and prevent those that have hurt us from ever doing it again. In fact, we can get so anxious about it that we can begin to feel bitter, eventually getting to the situation where we don’t want anyone to hurt us in that way ever again. We effectively blame everyone for the hurt that just one, or a few individuals have done to us. Unless this fear and anguish is disposed of, the individual becomes bitter and twisted, unwilling to trust anyone again. Not only does such a state of mind affect our relationships with one another, it affects our relationship with God.

We can see, therefore, the destructiveness that ensues when we do not forgive others. The need to forgive is paramount and yet so often we fail to do so, due to our own inadequacies and insecurities.

It is clear that forgiving others is often a difficult process. In continuously forgiving others we open our very selves up to attack from others. We must not be afraid of this. In the words of Jesus:

The aspect of loving your neighbour as yourself (Mark 12:31) is also of paramount importance in the act of forgiveness. If we are to truly love our neighbour as our Lord commanded us to do, then we must forgive them when they wrong us. We cannot say we love someone if we cannot find it in our hearts to forgive them.

The need to forgive others is, therefore, vitally important. Not just for the sake of our own spiritual well-being but also for the sake of others.

2.3. The need for honesty

When forgiving someone, there is always the temptation to use that forgiveness as a means of gaining control over them. So often we forgive others and then expect them to be in our debt for our altruistic offer. More often still, we forgive others so that we can be seen as magnanimous in the eyes of our peers. In our own insecurity we may forgive merely as a way of gaining a friend — taking the easy way by attempting to gain rewards from our actions and bypassing all the pain in the journey of forgiveness. Again, we come back to Christ:

We must be honest when we forgive others, and not just pretend to forgive so that others may think well of us.

2.4. Do we always have the right to forgive others ?

Forgiving others for the harm they have done us is one thing, but do we have the right to forgive someone who has done harm to another ? As an example, we can think of the recent tragedy of a thirteen year-old schoolgirl who was kicked to death. Perhaps the mother of the girl can forgive the killers for all the pain and suffering that she has endured as a result of her daughter’s death, but does she have the right to forgive them for the suffering of the daughter? As the daughter is dead she is no longer in a position to forgive them for the great sin that they have done to her so, surely, it is only God who can forgive such a terrible sin. Can anyone really forgive another for a sin they have committed against someone else ?

Conclusion

In order to answer such a question we must now move on and examine forgiveness with respect to God. If we understand how God forgives US when we sin against others then, perhaps, we can find an answer to the above question. It is this vital aspect of the subject that I hope to continue with in the next issue of Christis.

Bibliography and further reading

Past Event and Present Salvation — the Christian Idea of Atonement, by Paul Fiddes.

For further reading on the more general subject of atonement, the following text is also recommended:

The Mystery of Salvation, by The Church of England Doctrine Commission.

“Father, forgive them …”

Part one of two in which Dave Spence considers the weighty topic of Forgiveness

1. Introduction