Forgiving One Another

Transcript

GR 708
4/28/1985
Forgiving One Another
Matthew 18:21-35
Gil Rugh

Matthew 18 focuses attention on the relationship that believers have with other believers. In that relationship it is necessary to have a proper view of myself before God and a proper view of other believers in their relationship before God.
The theme of Matthew 18 is humility. In Matthew 18:1-14, Jesus emphasized the importance of humbling oneself as a child before God and recognizing one’s own need and dependence upon Him. Jesus also emphasized that every single individual Christian is important to God. Each believer is of great worth and great value to God and that will impact the way that believers relate to and treat one another. Each believer is to be more concerned with the importance and significance of others than his own. According to Matthew 18:14, God is not willing that even one of those who belong to Him should perish.
God wants to keep all believers in right relationship with Himself, so God deals with the discipline of those believers who wander or stray in Matthew 18:15-20. God draws sinning Christians back to Himself using other believers. When a Christian sins, you go and confront him personally. If he responds, then the issue is dealt with and you continue as brothers in Christ. If he does not respond, you take another Christian or two with you and confront him about his sin. The purpose is to make him realize the seriousness of his sin and his need to abandon the sinful activity. If he does not listen to the two or three believers together, then tell it to the church. If he is unwilling to respond to the church, then disassociate from him.
The purpose in discipline is to cause him to see that his sinful activity is harmful to him and to the testimony of all believers. Discipline manifests love toward that fellow Christian. Believers disassociate from him to emphasize to him how serious sinful conduct is and to preserve the purity of the body of Christ. Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 5 that if you tolerate sin it will spread in the body like leaven spreads in a lump of dough. So you must discipline for the welfare of the sinning Christian and for the benefit of the body to maintain its purity. Christ also stressed that the authority of God stands behind the discipline of the church. In Matthew 18:20 Christ is pictured as standing in the midst of the believers exercising discipline. This is the same picture that is found in Revelation 1, and carried out in Revelation 2 and 3, where Christ exercises judgment over His churches. Believers are to be His representatives in maintaining the purity of the body and disciplining sinning Christians.

The issue of discipline also raises the issue of forgiveness. In the discussion of discipline it was noted that any time a believer is willing to deal with his sin and stop it, you are to forgive him and love him.
In Matthew 18:21 Peter responded to Christ’s instruction regarding discipline with a question, “Then Peter came and said to Him, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?’” This is a question that would also come to our minds, but it takes a man like Peter to voice it. How many times do you forgive a Christian who sins? If you sin against me and sin against me and sin against me, how many times am I obligated to forgive you? That is Peter’s concern.
Peter referred to “my brother” when he asked this question. Matthew 18:15 also referred to a “brother” sinning, perhaps, according to many of the manuscripts, even sinning against you. So the question is asked regarding a fellow Christian. If a fellow Christian sins against me, how many times should I forgive him?
I think Peter thought he was being very generous because he suggested in Matthew 18:21, “up to seven times?” If you know Peter, you know that he not only talked, he talked a lot, and as is often the case, talking too much gets you into trouble. It would have been better for Peter to raise his question and let the Lord answer it, but he had to make a suggestion because he wanted to show how generous he was. The Jews taught from the Book of Amos that you only had to forgive three times.
Amos was a herdsman from Tekoa and a prophet of the Old Testament. He announced God’s judgment and indicated repeatedly in the Book of Amos that God would not revoke punishment for three transgressions and for four, “For three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not revoke its punishment” (Amos 1:3). See also Amos 1:6,9,11,13; 2:1,4,6. The Jews interpreted that to mean that God forgave you for three transgressions, but when it came to the fourth, God punished you. Therefore they thought you ought to forgive three times but no more, because if you forgive more than three times, you are more forgiving than God and of course that’s not good.
So Peter’s suggestion may have been meant to demonstrate that he thought he understood what the Lord was saying about humility and the importance of a fellow believer and about the importance of being forgiven. His suggestion of seven times would be twice as many as the rabbis taught and then one for good measure.
You can appreciate Peter’s position. If you think about being wronged or sinned against by a believer and you go through that three times in which he sins against you and you forgive him, then he does the same thing again and you forgive him, and he does the same thing again and you forgive him, and he does the same thing again and you forgive him. By the time you get to the seventh time, it is getting old, and you may be tempted to think that you have been as gracious as could be expected in the situation.
Jesus’ response, recorded in Matthew 18:22, is startling: “Jesus said to him, „I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.’” In other words, Christ told Peter there was no limit. Seventy times seven is four hundred ninety. Obviously Jesus was not saying to Peter, “Peter, seven is good, but you ought to put a chart on your tent wall and keep track and when you get up to 489, you tell him that he’s got one left.” This would make no sense at all and Peter recognized that. The point is that there is no limit to the amount of forgiveness that believers ought to demonstrate towards one another.
There is no limit. In fact, if you are keeping track, then you are not truly forgiving in the biblical sense. If someone sins and you truly forgive them, then you have put that sin away and it is no longer an issue. It is as though it never occurred. If I have forgiven you and it is as though it never occurred, how can I say to you, “This is the tenth time you have done that to me.”?
If I am keeping count, then I am not really forgiving you. If I am keeping count, then I am not really manifesting the kind of forgiveness that God requires. Jesus said to forgive up to seventy times seven. Whether we like to admit it or not, most of us have drawn lines in our mind regarding activity by others against us and we express this in various ways. We might talk about “reaching our limit,” or “I’ve forgiven them for the last time.” Those expressions indicate, whether we verbalize it or not, that we have come to a point where there is no more forgiveness if you cross that line. That is the situation Jesus dealt with in Matthew 18:22. There should be no line as a believer. No one can ever tax the limit of your forgiveness if you are forgiving the way God intends.
To illustrate this, Jesus told a parable. A parable is an earthly story to drive home a point. The point of this parable is that you have to appreciate how much you have been forgiven and when you really understand and appreciate how much you have been forgiven, how much mercy has been shown to you, then you realize there can be no limit on the mercy and forgiveness that you show to someone else.
The parable begins in Matthew 18:23. “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.” Previous studies have noted that the kingdom of heaven in the Gospel of Matthew always refers to the kingdom that Christ will establish on the earth and over which He will reign as King. In this parable Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a king settling accounts with his slaves and He told about the characteristic of a person who will be part of this kingdom.
In Matthew 18 Jesus switched between talking about the Church to talking about the earthly kingdom. He also did that in Matthew 16:18,19. In Matthew 16:18, He talked about the Church being established. In Matthew 16:19, He talked about giving authority in the kingdom of heaven to Peter. In Matthew 18:17, He told the disciples to tell the matter to the Church. In Matthew 18:23, He gave a parable about the characteristic of a person who is going to be part of His earthly kingdom. Jesus mentioned the Church in an inductive way, but the disciples did not have any understanding yet of what the Church really would be or was all about. That was yet to be revealed. So He came back to the concept that they did identify with, the earthly kingdom.
This parable gave instruction regarding the characteristic of a person who will be part of His earthly kingdom, one who is a believer in Jesus Christ. The characteristic of a believer is the same whether you are talking about the earthly kingdom He will establish or the Church that would be established at yet a future time from the perspective of the Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew 18:24 continues the parable, “When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him.” The king wanted to settle accounts so he had some of his key slaves brought to him. Slaves were often given great authority in New Testament times. In fact, sometimes you had greater honor and authority being a slave than you did being a free man, because some slaves were given great responsibility over others. One of those slaves was brought before the king.
This slave had run up a debt of 10,000 talents. It is not clear what his responsibilities were, perhaps he had the responsibility of being the tax collector and overseeing the collecting of taxes in the empire, the parable does not say. But he had access to great amounts of his king’s wealth and he had embezzled 10,000 talents of it. If this referred to a talent of silver, depending on the worth of silver, which fluctuates, this would be somewhere around 10 to 15 million dollars. If this referred to a talent of gold, it would be even more. The point is, this was an overwhelming sum of money.
The king wanted it repaid. “But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made” (Matt. 18:25). This servant was overwhelmingly in debt to his master. The penalty demanded was all that he had. He was to be sold. Even though selling him and his family would not bring any where near enough to pay off the debt, it was the punishment and whatever gain there was would be used to pay off the debt.
This slave realized the hopelessness of his condition and in Matthew 18:26 he responded, “So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me
and I will repay you everything.’” He cried out for mercy. There was no real hope for this slave to repay his master because, remember, everything that a slave has already belongs to his master. The slave had already lost the 10,000 talents. How would a slave ever replace that? He cast himself upon the mercy of the king.
But, there is mercy. “And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt” (Matt. 18:27). That is remarkable! This was a debt of multiplied millions of dollars. This slave cast himself on the mercy of the king and the king said, “It’s forgiven. You don’t owe me anything. The slate is clean.” That is really forgiveness. Think about if all your creditors wrote you a note and said, “We’ve cancelled all your charge card debts. You’re free.” But this was millions of dollars. Just forgiven, just like that.

That’s great but the story is not over. “But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii” (Matt. 18:28). A hundred denarii would be about $20.00. The fellow slave owed about $20 while the first slave had owed 10 or 12 million dollars. Someone described the situation like this: The 100 denarii could be carried in one pocket. To carry the 10,000-talent debt would take an army of 8,600 men, each carrying a sack weighing 60 pounds. They would form, if they were standing one yard apart, a line five miles long. So as a point of comparison: One man owed what you could put in your pocket. The other man owed what could be carried by 8,600 men, each holding a bag weighing 60 pounds. If someone just forgave you a 10 or 12 million-dollar debt and someone else owed you $20, you would say, “Just forget it. It doesn’t even amount to anything. ” You can’t even compare them. Someone did and the comparison was that the smaller debt was 1/600,000 of the larger debt.
At any rate, it didn’t amount to anything, so naturally it was forgiven. No. Matthew 18:28,29 continues, “and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with him, saying, ‘Have patience with
me and I will repay you.’” That is almost exactly what this slave himself had said to the king in Matthew 18:26. In this case there was a chance that the slave could pay back the 100-denarii debt. He could have possibly borrowed that from family or friends.
But there was no mercy in this case. “But He was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed” (Matt. 18:30). No forgiveness. It’s almost shocking. Could one be forgiven so much and turn around and be so small? That is the point that Jesus was making. “So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’” (Matt. 18:31-33). That is an important point: those who have received mercy are obligated to show mercy. “And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him” (Matt. 18:34).
Jesus concluded in Matthew 18:35 with a statement which is perhaps the most difficult to understand. “My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.” Jesus made a strong point of the fact that forgiveness by God demands forgiveness on our part.
To understand the parable and its point we have to put ourselves in the position of this slave. And then we have to ask “What does it mean to me, in my relationship to God?” The analogy starts with the overwhelming debt that has been incurred, and the Scripture makes clear that every single person on the face of the earth is overwhelmingly in debt to God because of sin. Sin has placed us in the hopeless condition of being guilty and condemned before Him.
In the Old Testament it says that if the Lord would charge all our iniquities to us, no one could stand before Him. Psalm 130:3 says, “If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” The point is that we would all be accounted guilty and condemned. If the Lord marked every one of our sins against us, who would be able to stand before God? Nobody. “But there is forgiveness with You, That You may be feared” (Psalm 130:4). The Psalmist goes on to say that there is forgiveness with God so that people may honor and respect and submit to Him. We are hopeless apart from His forgiveness for no one can stand if God charges all our sins against us.
Coming to grips with how much each of us has been forgiven by God is the foundational issue in forgiving other people. We tend to pass over this lightly. But if we do, we can never understand and grasp the issue of forgiveness in relating to one another. Isaiah 64:6,7 provides a picture of our sinfulness, “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on Your name, who arouses himself to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us and have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.” All our righteous deeds are like filthy rags, like a filthy garment polluted and defiled. Literally this term refers to a menstrual rag. Our iniquities, like the wind, take us away so that we are consumed by our sin. This is God’s evaluation. When God evaluates even the best deeds that I have done, compared to His righteousness and His holiness, He says they are polluted and unclean, thus unacceptable before Him.
In Romans 3, the apostle Paul quoted from a series of passages in the Old Testament to drive home the point of the greatness of our sin and thus our indebtedness to God. Romans 3:10, “There is none righteous, not even one.” There are people who think they are going to get to heaven because of their good deeds. But God’s evaluation is that there is not even one righteous person on the face of the earth.
Romans 3:12, “All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.” The word meaning ‘good’ in this verse refers to good in the ultimate sense of God’s standard. Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Scripture clearly states that we are all sinners, guilty and condemned before God.
In addition to recognizing man’s sinfulness, you must understand that the Bible says the penalty for sin is death. Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.” Death in the Bible includes physical death, spiritual death and eternal death which is separation from God for eternity in hell. Ephesians 2:1 says “and you were dead in your trespasses and sins.” The condition of every person as a sinner before God is that he is separated from God and destined to an eternity separated from God in hell. Some people think they are like this foolish slave who, in effect, said in Matthew 18:26, “God, give me time. I’ll pay you back.”
It is important to understand that each of us has already incurred a hopeless debt, and even if it were possible to live life perfectly from this point on, it would not change the fact that the debt already exists as a result of having been a sinner. For that sin there is condemnation to hell for eternity. This is a hopeless condition in the sense that it is impossible to do anything to get out of this condition. But the Scriptures also draw the parallel with the parable that there is unlimited forgiveness provided for those who are hopeless sinners if they believe in Jesus as the One who paid their penalty. The beginning point for experiencing God’s forgiveness is the recognition of my sinfulness. Some people never will experience God’s forgiveness because they are unwilling to come to grips with their great need and thus cast themselves upon His mercy.
There are some important points about forgiveness in Psalm 103 that will help to understand the kind of forgiveness that believers must manifest to one another in order to be acceptable to God. Psalm 103:10-12 says, “He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” The amazing thing about God’s forgiveness is that He does not deal with sinners according to their sin by giving them what their sin would require, but He deals with sinners in lovingkindness and mercy, and in forgiving them He has removed their sins as far as the east is from the west. He does not say “as far as the East Coast is from the West Coast” but “as far as the east is from the west.” How far is that? That is an infinite degree. You just keep going east or you just keep going west. My sins are removed an infinite distance from me. They are gone. They are no longer associated with me. God no longer sees me in connection with my sins because He has forgiven me.
In Isaiah 43:25 God says, “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” Does this mean God can forget? The idea of not remembering means that your sins will never again be an issue between you and God. It is as though your sins never happened as far as your relationship with God is concerned.
Micah wrote in Micah 7:19, “You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” When God forgives a sinner, his sins are no longer associated with him. It’s as though he had never sinned because God has cleansed him and made him whole. God declares him righteous in His sight. In the area of forgiveness this is an important concept. God’s forgiveness, as great as it is, is free; it is offered without strings to all who cast themselves upon His mercy. To cast yourself upon His mercy, you must recognize that you are a sinner and therefore you have this great need of forgiveness. And you must place your trust in Jesus Christ, the One whom God has provided to pay the penalty for sin and provide redemption and forgiveness. Forgiveness is always found only in Jesus Christ. Romans 5:1 and 8:1 state that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and those who are in Christ Jesus have been justified by faith and have peace with God.
In Colossians 1:13 Paul wrote, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” The forgiveness of sins is found in Christ. That is why Christ came to earth for this very reason, to pay the penalty for our sin, which is death, so that by believing in Him God could declare us forgiven and cleansed. Colossians 2:13 says, “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.” There is unlimited forgiveness for all who come to believe in Jesus Christ. They cast themselves in faith upon the mercy of God and He forgives them all their sin. That is overwhelming forgiveness: the penalty for my sin involved eternal suffering in hell and it has all been forgiven and cleansed.
God demands of those who have experienced such forgiveness that they in turn manifest forgiveness towards those who sin against them. I sinned against God and He forgave me. When others sin against me, it ought to be no big thing that I forgive them.
Colossians 3: 12,13 states the standard of forgiveness. “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.” How did God forgive? He forgave absolutely and completely. He did away with my sins as far as our relationship was concerned, as far as the east is from the west. He buried them in the depths of the sea. That sin is never an issue between God and me. It is forgiven. It is removed. It is as though I had never sinned.
I am to forgive you in the same way that Christ forgave me. How is that to be? “I will forgive you if you promise never to do it again.” No, He forgave me unconditionally. I don’t get a tally sheet every night when I go to bed: “Gil, I just want you to know that this is 6,000,719 times you’ve sinned against Me since you’ve trusted Me as your Savior.” Those sins are gone as far as the east is from the west; He is not keeping track.
This comes up in relationships between husbands and wives. Although they are supposedly forgiving one another, over a period of years the level builds and finally they explode. One spouse says, “I’ve been forgiving them and forgiving them and forgiving them.” But that spouse never forgave the other in the first place. That sin was never removed as far as the east is from the west or buried in the depths of the sea. You know where it was? It was harbored on the inside. The spouse put on a little fa9ade so he could say, “Yes, you ’re forgiven,” but he seethed on the inside waiting for God to slam his spouse good because he was sure she deserved it. That’s not forgiveness. That is sin.
If someone comes to me and asks my forgiveness and says he has done the same thing against me four times. I’m just picking four. My response is, “oh, you have. I didn’t remember that.” I might be able to sit down and call them to mind, but it’s not an issue between us. I’m not thinking about it. I’m not sitting there wondering if he’s going to do the same thing again. Even if he does, what will I do? I am to forgive. This is to be the characteristic of a believer.
In Ephesians 4:32 Paul wrote, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” How has God in Christ forgiven me? His forgiveness is total, complete, without strings, without reservation. How am I to forgive you? I am to forgive you in exactly the same way. That would transform the way believers relate to one another because as believers gather together, there ought not to be one believer who has anything against another believer.
What about the magnitude of the offense against me? That is not the issue here, is it? I don’t understand what the other person has done to you, but I understand what God has done for you. He has forgiven and cleansed you. That is the issue in forgiveness, not what someone has done in sinning against me, but the forgiveness God has given me. That is the issue and that is the foundation for the forgiveness.
So I have to ask myself, is there anything that I am holding against another believer? Do I have bitterness harbored in my heart? God is the One who searches the heart. He knows really whether there has been genuine forgiveness on my part. If you are in a situation where you ask, ‘"when are they going to stop sinning against me?”, maybe you need to learn to give God’s forgiveness. Maybe the problem in that situation is that you have not learned the issue of appreciating the great forgiveness that you have received from God. Maybe that’s the lesson God is waiting for you to learn so that you find it a joy to manifest forgiveness to others.
Forgiveness is to be a characteristic of believers. This was stressed in Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount. One of the Beatitudes is “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matt. 5:7). Those manifesting God’s character are the recipients of the mercy of God. “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions” (Matt. 6:14-15). If you do not forgive others, it is an indication that you have not really come to understand what forgiveness is all about or experienced God’s forgiveness. Understanding God’s forgiveness and forgiving others are inseparably linked together. Just as John said in his first epistle that those who do not manifest God’s love have never experienced God’s love and do not belong to Him, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:7,8). Similarly those who do not manifest God’s forgiveness have never experienced God’s forgiveness.
Matthew 18:35 finishes this passage, “My Heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.” The problem is in the application of this verse. This servant who had been declared forgiven was handed over to the torturers until the whole debt would be paid. Does this mean that God forgives me but then if I don’t forgive you, He is going to take away my salvation and sentence me to hell for my sin? That would be totally out-of-step with what God has revealed about our salvation in the rest of Scripture.
It is important to remember that in a parable there is one main point being made and the rest of the parable enables the story to be told. So you cannot make every detail mean something. The point in this parable is that God has forgiven each of us an overwhelming debt. If a person understands that and has faith in Him, then he will manifest that forgiveness to others. If he does not, then that person has not been forgiven.
Another possible application of this verse is that God disciplines His children who do not forgive others. That would fit the context of church discipline in Matthew 18.
Passages like 1 Corinthians 11, Hebrews 12, and 1 John 5 refer to the fact that God disciplines believers who sin, even chastening them physically. The discipline may involve taking away their health, even their physical life, if they persist in sin. So Matthew 18:35 may be referring to the discipline applied by God in the life of His child who persists in sin. If a believer lives as the unbeliever does with sin in his life, then God will discipline His child. If I do not manifest God’s forgiveness to you when you sin against me, I am sinning against God and He will discipline me for that. That may be the point of the parable, and it fits the context of the discipline described in Matthew 18. However, it seems that the stress in Matthew 18 has been that a person who has truly been forgiven will manifest that forgiveness to others.
One of the characteristics of the unbeliever emphasized in Scripture is a lack of mercy. In Romans 1, there is a description of the ugliness of sinful fallen man which tells the characteristics of a man apart from the grace of God in bringing redemption and cleansing to his life. In the midst of this description of those who are in rebellion against God and under the control of their depraved mind, Romans 1:31 says they are “without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.” Being unmerciful is a characteristic of those who are separated and alienated from God. The transformation of a person and his character happens when he trusts in Jesus Christ, and He makes the old person into a new person and His character takes hold of that life. Since He is a God of mercy and grace and forgiveness, His character will be manifest in that person. James 2:13 says, “For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy.”
It may seem that this passage has gone to great lengths to make a simple point, but it’s because this simple point is very difficult to appropriate in my life. It is easy to tell you that you are to be forgiving to another believer no matter how many times he sins against you. But it is difficult to forgive those who sin against me repeatedly and not to begin to develop bitterness or a grudge against them, not to become vindictive, and not to desire God’s vengeance in their life. I am to forgive them.
If I remember all that God has forgiven me, it is no great thing. They have only sinned against me a couple thousand times. What is that compared to what God has forgiven me? That is the point of the parable. Every time a person sins against me or wrongs me, it should cause me to thank God for the greatness of the forgiveness that I have in Christ. I really believe that every time somebody wrongs us or sins against us, we should take that as an opportunity to stop and say, Thank you, God, for how overwhelmingly gracious you have been to me and how great Your forgiveness has been to me. What a privilege it is for me to have another opportunity to forgive this brother who has sinned against me. I need to remind myself that it is because of what God has done for me in Christ that I can forgive someone else.
The question then is simple. What is your condition? Are you a forgiving person? What is your attitude towards your husband or your wife? What is your attitude towards other believers in this body? Perhaps there are those who have wronged you; seriously sinned against you; grievously sinned, and perhaps it has been not just once or twice, but repeatedly. As God’s child it is your privilege before God to continue to manifest God’s gracious forgiveness towards them.
I need to first ask the question: do I know what true forgiveness is all about? Have I come to see myself as God sees me and cast myself upon His mercy? Have I then thanked Him for the forgiveness that He has given me in Christ? That is the beginning point. Then I ask myself, am I really manifesting the beauty of His character in relating to other believers so that it is a real demonstration of His forgiveness? May we be a people who live out the reality of the forgiveness of God so that it may be said of us, “They are truly a people of mercy, of grace and of love as they forgive one another.”