Forgiveness

“So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” (Matt 18:35, ESV)

This phrase, this warning, this admonition comes as the conclusion or the point of the parable about the unforgiving servant. This servant has been forgiven a huge debt rather than being put in jail and having his family given in payment. This servant then goes out and finds someone who owes him a smaller amount and assaults him to gain the payment owed and has that person thrown in jail.

Jesus explains this parable by the statement we began with—if you don’t forgive other people, you cannot expect God’s forgiveness for you. But there’s more here. Look at the last phrase: “from your heart.” Throughout Scripture and even though God provides a number of rules, we find that what God is after is not first of all, a keeping of the rules. So we have a wrinkle here. Sometimes we will hear something like, “I forgive you ‘because God’ forgives you.” For immature disciples, this is an acceptable reason; while we are learning, we act in accordance with the rules because they are the rules. Rather, God is after people who he can trust to live as he would live because that is who they are. A parallel could be found in love. God has some rules that require or expect that his followers will love other people. A short reflection would tell us that love, to be love, must arise from the lover. “Love” expressed because it must be may look like love, but it is not love nor is the lover actually a lover. We can see this by asking, what would your spouse or romantic partner think if you said, “I love you because I have to?”  We might rephrase it  with “I love you because  God wants me to.” That latter sounds better but it does not change the meaning. It means, that I don’t really love you; I’m being made or commanded to love you. It is clear that love that is forced is not love. Your partner does not love you; God loves you. And God is making your partner ‘love you.’

In the same way, forgiveness offered ‘because I have to,’ is not really forgiveness. It is a grudge that cannot be expressed under pain of punishment. Forgiveness like love, arises from the one forgiving. It cannot be forced. Every parent has likely told a guilty child “to apologize to your sibling” and every child knows that when they uttered that apology, they didn’t mean it. God isn’t looking for checkbox behavior; he’s looking for people who behave from the character that animates them.

This parable illustrates the only point that is expounded upon in the Lord’s Prayer. That prayer has a petition that God ‘forgive us our trespasses as we have forgiven those who trespass against us.’ Jesus then expands the application of that phrase with a parallel statement to that with which we began this discussion. If we don’t forgive others, God will not forgive us. This isn’t a quid pro quo or a checkbox exercise. It is rather an illustration that tells the kind of people he expects his disciples to be. In these two instances, we learn that God expects us to be forgiving people, ready to extend mercy, and gracious even when wronged.  Just like Jesus who when reviled did not respond, who while we were yet sinners, died for us; who on the cross asked that his executioners be forgiven.

The character God expects from his people is the character revealed in and by Jesus of Nazareth while he walked the earth. That is why we have this admonition—not because we must forgive but because we are becoming people with the character of Jesus. How are we doing?

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash