Atonement—the doctrine that speaks of God forgiving us so that our relationship with him can be restored—only finds itself truly coming to life within the framework of what has been called the Christus victor approach to the cross: that in the cross, God dealt decisively with evil, destroying its power and thus dismantling it. The new age given birth through the death and resurrection of Jesus—an age characterized quite poignantly by the forgiveness of sins—is an age where evil’s power and sway over the world has been, to say the least, crippled.
When we talk about the atonement, we must talk about forgiveness. Forgiveness is the centerpiece of what atonement is all about. The most elemental understanding of atonement is that it is what happens when God forgives a sinner, thus reconciling the sinner to himself. There is much more to it than that, but that’s the gist of it all. An adequate understanding of atonement must take into consideration the reality of forgiveness. When we talk about God forgiving us, we do not mean that he pretends that we were never that bad after all; we do not mean that he excuses us for what we’ve done and who we’ve become; we do not mean that he is simply ignoring all of that awful stuff about us. At the heart of biblical forgiveness is the destruction and dismantling of evil: when God forgives a person, the evil within that person and all the evil things he has done or thought is not ignored, excused, or turned into something “not really that bad”; rather, all of that stuff is defeated. Evil’s affect upon our relationship with God is broken, destroyed, annihilated. That is at the heart of forgiveness: forgiveness is what happens when the evil that has taken place between two sides of a relationship is named for what it is, condemned for what it is, and then defeated for what it is—and thus the relationship is restored. If forgiveness were anything but that, it wouldn’t be forgiveness at all.
When we talk about the Christian commandment to forgive our neighbors, oftentimes there is a transition in thought. While we will say, of course, that forgiveness between God and man involves the destruction and dismantling of the evil between them, we will often say that forgiveness means something quite different when it is between two mere human beings. Forgiveness takes on several different forms when the context changes, and these perceptions of forgiveness which have infiltrated the church on every level are at best distortions of biblical forgiveness and at worst mockeries of it.
In some cultures, especially in the Middle East, and even within many religions, forgiveness is not viewed as a duty or even as a virtue, but rather as a moral weakness. Forgiveness is what weak people do; it is the easy way out of the situation of evil, the way of avoiding the hard task of bringing about justice. Some will even go so far as to say that forgiveness doesn’t take evil very seriously. The Christian conviction, however, is that forgiveness does take evil seriously, and that in the naming of that evil and in the acknowledging of that evil for what it is, forgiveness is the act whereby the evil itself is defeated.
Others will say that forgiveness is the same thing as tolerance. It’s been hip in the church to say that we must be “inclusive”, that Jesus welcomed all kinds of people just as they were and since the church believes in forgiveness, the church should thus let the doors fly open and let everyone do everything they want. The “forgiving” church is the one that reinstates a preacher after a bout of sexual immorality; the “forgiving” church is the church that allows elders to keep their positions after dipping their hands into the church’s finances; the “forgiving” church is the one that allows convicted pedophiles to go into children’s ministry—well, normally we don’t say the last of these, which shows that we’ve retained at least some amount of common sense. Forgiveness is not the same as tolerance, inclusivity, or indifference. Inclusiveness, taken at the extreme, means ignoring evil, downplaying it, or even embracing it in the spirit of welcoming; forgiveness involves naming it, facing it, and defeating it.
More common mistakes regarding how we view forgiveness is saying that forgiveness means professing that the evil didn’t matter. But if it didn’t matter, then there’s no need for forgiveness. The fact that forgiveness is needed means that evil did happen, it was awful, and it needs to be dealt with. Another mistake is the idea that forgiveness means pretending that the evil didn’t happen; part of the point of forgiveness is committing oneself to working towards the point where I can act as if it didn’t happen. But it did happen, and it mattered, and forgiveness isn’t supposing that it didn’t or turning a blind eye to the fact that it did. It’s looking hard at the fact that it did happen and making a conscious effort of the will to set it aside so that it doesn’t become a barrier between the people involved.
These false perceptions of forgiveness will often plague us. We must remember that when the Bible talks about God forgiving us and us forgiving those who sins against us, there is no change in the meaning of forgiveness. Forgiveness means the same thing in both cases, and the command to forgive is resplendent throughout the New Testament. Jesus taught us to pray that God will forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. In Matthew 18, Jesus warned that unless we forgive, we will not be forgiven: the servant who was forgiven a massive debt but who then refused to forgive a tiny one to a fellow servant had the initial forgiveness revoked. This is a difficult text but we’ll look at it in a moment. The point is made, however, that forgiveness is a pretty big deal in the Christian faith. God has forgiven us, so we are to forgive others. Period. This means that when evil takes place between us and someone else, and when that evil is pressed against us from the other person, we are to forgive. We’re not to pretend it didn’t happen, or say it really wasn’t that bad, or ignore it altogether. Forgiveness involves, as I’ve said again and again, naming the evil and shaming it. It means acknowledging in all its awful depth the evil that happened and facing it for what it is. Often this means difficult and nauseating confrontation, but it is confrontation that must take place. Forgiveness, after the acknowledgment of the evil between the two people, is a determination on the side of the offended to do everything in his or her power to resume an appropriate relationship with the one who sinned against them. It means settling in one’s own mind that we will not allow this evil to determine the nature of our relationship. It is, in essence, reconciliation: in forgiveness, the naming of that evil and the defeating of that evil by living as if it didn’t happen when acknowledging that it did, reconciliation, the re:harmonizing of the relationship, takes place.
The question is begged, “How often should we forgive someone when they sin against us?” It’s not a new question; in Matthew 18.21-22, Peter asked Jesus the same question. We find Peter asking Jesus, “How many times should I forgive my brother? As many as seven times?” Many ancient Jews taught that the maximum amount of times for forgiving someone for the same offense was three times; Peter’s speculation of seven is quite commendable: twice the norm and plus one! Jesus’ response is cryptic: “No, not seven times, but seventy times seven.” This is not some abstract proposal—forgive your brother 490 times, and then you are allowed to cease forgiving—nor is it just figurative language—keep forgiving your brother time and time again. Rather, Jesus is looking back to an ancient prophecy found in Daniel 9, where the prophet Daniel asks an angel how long the exile will continue. “Will it be seventy years, as Jeremiah foretold?” The angel answers, “No: it will be seventy times seven.” 490 years—seventy years times seven—is how long it will take “to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness” (verse 24). Jesus’ cryptic answer points back to this promise, and he is saying that the New Age has dawned, the kingdom has come, the age of forgiveness has broken forth. The only reasonable response is to embrace and embody this new age, the new age of the kingdom, this new age of forgiveness: forgiving is to be a way-of-life for the members of this kingdom.
The commandment to forgive, then, is not simply a new and tougher piece of ethics that we dare not even attempt. The command flows directly from the situation Jesus has inaugurated and sealed in his death and resurrection. The atonement is not simply an abstract transaction making God’s forgiveness available to all who want it; it is the towering and shocking achievement by which evil itself was defeated so God’s new age could begin. And those who claim to follow Jesus, who are members of this kingdom and thus of this new age, are to embody that reality.
The claims of the church—that a new age has dawned that is characterized by forgiveness of sins and thus by reconciliation—is made a mockery as long as we continue to live in a stubborn refusal to forgive those who sin against us. When we are more than happy to claim God’s forgiveness of us and yet harbor resentment, distrust, and, essentially, an unforgiving disposition towards those around us, we are mocking the cross and living as if our faith is a sham. By refusing to forgive others, we are calling God a liar, we are calling this new age a farce, and we are conniving with the forces of darkness and spreading our legs wide to sin and death. And when we do this, when we deny the reality of the kingdom in our own lives, we let the evil that was done fester and boil within us. The evil takes hold and spreads through our hearts, minds, and souls. We distance ourselves from others and stop trusting people; we call it strength, but really it’s coldness. We become calloused creatures who cannot forgive nor accept forgiveness, broken and pitiable creatures who cannot love nor accept love. The refusal to forgive doesn’t just deny the reality of the cross and of the atonement; it allows evil to enslave us, and we become dehumanized. Our lives become consumed with bitterness anger, and resentment. We become grouches and grumpies, and that’s the most benevolent sketch of what happens to us; in all truth, what happens is that we become sub-human. Not forgiving others is something to be taken very seriously.
That Jesus takes it seriously is seen in Matthew 18.23-35. I promised we would look at this text, and now we will. Jesus isn’t saying that forgiving others is an arbitrary commandment and if we don't do it, then God won’t forgive us. He is, rather, pointing out that the one who refuses to forgive is the one who is embroiled in his or her own self-worth and pride. He is the one who exalts himself over everyone and everything else. He is the one who makes himself, and his own convictions, his God; he is thus making himself out to be the Judge and Juror. And when he does this, he cannot at the same times be a servant of God. He may make a showy pretense of religion, and read the Bible every day and pray, but his own refusal to forgive is symptomatic of the fact that he has not yet truly experienced forgiveness.
Forgiving others is not an easy thing to do. It is hellishly difficult, especially when the pain and hurt is immense. It is much easier to try to pretend it didn’t happen, or to say that it didn’t matter, or to try and numb the pain through all sorts of escapism techniques. All of this doesn’t deal with the evil; it just gives it room to grow and exponentially multiply like gangrene spreading through a wound. The very act of acknowledging that evil has been done, that someone has been sinful, hurtful, and damaging to us is difficult. And while that may be difficult, the act of forgiveness—not letting what happened affect the relationship—is bound to be pretty near to impossible sometimes. This is when we must rely on the strength of the Spirit, and it often means that we forgive others even when our hearts are not in it: forgiveness is often not a pleasant thing, and sometimes it means we grit our teeth and do it despite every inclination not to do so. It is by this great and difficult act that the evil is defeated and reconciliation takes place, though often in small steps and over much time. Forgiveness isn’t ignoring the evil, excusing the evil, or forgetting the evil—it is, and I can’t stress this enough, defeating the evil by disallowing it to exercise its power over us and over the relationship.
It is at this point that I encourage everyone to examine their own lives and to ask the question, “Do I forgive others?” And I mean really forgive them. Do we not shirk away from confronting evil when it happens? Do we not then seek to establish reconciliation with those who have hurt us? If we do not, then there is good reason for us to ask the next question: “Do I really love God?” It is, after all, the greatest commandment, to love God. Loving God essentially means being devoted to God; and if we refuse to forgive, then our devotion is upon ourselves (which, ironically, leads to the destruction of ourselves; yet another paradox!). But beware: the question isn’t “Do I find it easy to forgive?” but “Do I forgive?”
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This is the sermon manuscript from last Sunday. Admittedly it is a topic from whence I drew much inspiration from N.T. Wright (I "quote" him a few times, though without reference; that would never fly in the scholastic world). His chapter on forgiveness in "Evil & The Justice of God" far outweighs anything in this sermon, and I recommend giving it a read. As to making a five-part series on forgiving others, I decided not to do it. Laziness is to blame, and I have other stuff I need to be spending my time on. But, regardless, there's the second sermon I preached at F.C.C.
