Several months ago someone hurt me. Now it wasn’t the kind of hurt that you get over in a day or two. It was the kind of hurt that you never fully get over. It was deep and devastating. I was treated more poorly than I have ever been. It was as if I wasn’t a human being. I was just a thing to be used and tossed aside. There was a complete lack of dignity and respect from this person.
After the shock of being treated so badly, what do you do? How do you pull yourself back together and move on? The clear answer is forgiveness. But how do you forgive the person who did this terrible thing to you?
The instinct is to hate. The instinct is to get revenge. It’s only fair, right? This person deserves as much pain as you received from them. Eye for eye. Tooth for tooth. Hate your enemy.
But two thousand years ago this guy named Jesus came along with a new and radical teaching. He taught not to resist an evil person but to turn the other cheek. He taught to love not just your neighbor but also your enemy. He even went so far to say that you should pray for your enemy.[1]
Take a second to really think about this. Do you realize how revolutionary this is? I’m supposed to love and pray for the people that persecute me. This is so backwards to our natural inclinations. Jesus replaced hate and revenge with love and forgiveness.
And Jesus certainly practiced what He preached. The greatest example was during His crucifixion.
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”[2]
He asked for forgiveness for those who were killing Him! Incredible! Do we have this kind of love?
If He could forgive those who nailed Him to the cross than surely I can forgive others for the hurt they cause me, which in comparison to the crucifixion is nothing.
It’s interesting that Jesus said “for they do not know what they are doing.” Obviously, He is hinting at the significance of the cross but I think this can also apply for when we forgive. We have to recognize that when someone hurts us they are not themselves. There is something causing them to act this way. Remember the old saying, “Hurt people hurt people.” So we shouldn’t be angry with those who hurt us! We should love them because that’s what they need! When they receive that love they will become themselves again. Underneath it all maybe people who hurt us are actually crying out for love. “Love your enemies” then starts to make sense.
Now here is the most drastic thing Jesus taught about forgiveness: “For if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”[3]
According to Jesus, forgiveness is actually connected with our relationship towards G-d. As the Bible commentator Matthew Henry put it: “He that relents toward his brother, thereby shows that he repents toward his G-d.”[4]
If G-d forgives us how can we deny forgiveness to others?
We should cancel the debt of others because G-d has cancelled our debt.[5] This is humility. We recognize in our wretchedness that G-d has shown mercy and, thus, we should pass this mercy on.
Forgiveness is a serious issue. For Jesus it is everything. “Christ came into the world as the great Peace-Maker, and not only to reconcile us to G-d, but one to another, and in this we must comply with Him. It is great presumption and of dangerous consequence, for any to make a light matter of that which Christ here lays such a stress upon.”[6]
Even if it takes years, I must learn to forgive this person who has hurt me. We must all learn to forgive each other. But we cannot do it on our own. We must seek Christ, who is the purest example of forgiveness. He will teach us just as He taught Peter.
“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive someone who sins against me? Up to seven times?’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.’”[7]
[1] These ideas of Jesus can be found in Matthew 5:38-48. A note on praying for your enemy: I think this is the most important aspect in gaining forgiveness for someone because in prayer G-d changes your spirit. You begin to see your enemy through His eyes. You start to see a fellow human being again and not someone who has hurt you. G-d takes the hatred from your heart.
[2] Luke 23:34
[3] Matthew 6:14-15
[5] Matthew 18:23-35
[6] Matthew Henry again. I highly recommend checking out his commentary. I hope to read the whole thing one day. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc5.Matt.vii.html
[7] Matthew 18:21-22
Wow, you really unpackaged these cryptic verses of Jesus in an engaging and comprehendable way. Really impressive. I always wondered what Jesus meant when he said forgiveness would be withheld from you if you withheld. It always made it sound to me like your salvation depended on works, and thus contradicted the rest of Jesus’ teaching. But that Matthew Henry guy makes sense. Profound. Never heard of him before, I’ll have to check out what he has to say about other confusing passages. But it only makes sense. The whole point of Christianity is forgiveness (and unfair forgiveness), both in the receiving and dealing out. If we really grasp the injustice of a holy God forgiving us undeserving, selfish humans it should only be natural that we pass that same unjust, illogical forgiveness onto others who don’t seem to deserve it either. I’m impressed. This is such a mature essay coming from someone so deeply wounded. Wow. So powerful! I hope that rubs off on me!