WHAT IS FORGIVENESS?
By: Pastor Jack Guyler
Ultimately forgiveness is the highest form of trust. In the bible, forgiveness is taught in two dimensions – in the vertical and the horizontal plane. Let’s take a deeper dive on this.
In the Old Testament, forgiveness (salach) comes only from God. This understanding of God giving and granting forgiveness to sinful human beings is unique to Israel. The concept of forgiveness is not found in the ancient world as it is in the Hebrew scriptures. There is no other religious book except the bible that teaches God completely forgives.
Forgiveness is extended by God to human beings. Being forgiven of sins that deserve divine punishment because it violates God’s holy character, is not God pretending that sin doesn’t exist nor is it that God doesn’t think it matters when we sin. But rather, forgiveness is God extending grace to us and absorbing the full effect of sin. An analogy might be, as a parent when your child does something painfully wrong, you decide to forgive them and not punish them. But it still hurts you as a parent that they did what they did. You absorb the pain yourself rather than making them pay for what they did.
The ultimate forgiveness is in Christ at the cross. It is here where God in Christ bore the law’s death penalty against sinners. Those who trust in His sacrifice are freed from this penalty. Those who are found guilty, but trust in Christ, are acquitted and declared righteous. This is the first aspect of ultimate trust – that we trust what God has done on our behalf for us rather than trying to earn or achieve forgiveness by our own actions.
The second ultimate form of trust is when we have been wronged in some way, that we extend forgiveness to the offender. This was a foreign concept in the ancient world and still is in some parts of the world today. Jesus really brought this aspect of forgiveness to life in His teachings and through His life. The Jewish leaders often took issue with Jesus when He would say to someone, “your sins are forgiven.” They understood that only God could forgive sin. What they failed to recognize was that Jesus was God in the flesh. But Jesus took this one step further. He taught all those who would follow Him to also forgive those who offended them. Look at what He says here:
If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them. (Luke 17:3-4)
Forgiveness is the ultimate form of trust in the horizontal plane as well as in the vertical because when we forgive another human being, we are putting down the “sword” and “burying the hatchet.” Rather than taking things into our own hands to deliver payback or get revenge, we are putting things in God’s hands and trusting He will work things out in His divine wisdom.
So, may we remember that forgiveness in both the vertical and horizontal planes, is perhaps the ultimate form of trusting God with our lives.
