Making sense of forgiveness in a fallen world

Preparing a message on Jonah chapter 3, wrestling with concepts of justice and forgiveness, I suddenly receive a revelation; clarity in terms of justice within the field of forgiveness.

I’ve marvelled at how easily I’ve been graced with the ability to forgive some things, people and situations, but I’ve also been perplexed at how impossible I’ve found it to forgive other things, people and situations.

This is why I’m committed to peacemaking. I’m enthralled. It wasn’t the ease of forgiving things, by God’s grace, that many people find impossible to forgive that converted me. It was when I was perplexed that I realised that forgiveness is much harder for most people much of the time than I once thought.

You are to be forgiven for struggling
to forgive some people for things
that have happened to you.

There, I said it. And I mean it.

It must be said, for there is too much spiritual abuse going around in churches that compel people to unjustly ‘forgive’ abuse that’s happened to them.

Here’s what I’ve discovered in my journeys of conflict and my wrestling with the concept of forgiveness.

Firstly, I’ve never had a problem forgiving people who have hurt me, when I’ve been part of the problem.

When I’ve forgiven people in these situations, I’ve noticed that God inevitably deals with them in God’s own way and timeframe. Seeing myself as part of the problem has made it easier to forgive. I’ve found there’s wisdom in getting the log out of my own eye. (See Matthew 7:1-5)

I recognise that repentance is important on both sides. Where I have repented, the attitude of forgiveness has ultimately come. But if they never showed any signs of repentance, especially when significant responsibility lies with them, that is when I’ve found it most of a challenge to forgive.

So, there are two factors that combine in the discussion. The other party has significant responsibility — not saying all of the responsibility — and they completely deny their responsibility.

The first situation of having sole responsibility is what happens in cases of abuse, which would be bad enough. But these reprehensible situations are made interminably worse when the second situation also occurs; when abuse is not acknowledged. This is the dynamic when abuse is covered up. And it’s being reported a lot in this #MeToo #ChurchToo day. This combination situation occurs because the abuser won’t own their responsibility, hence the incident is covered up.

I think Christians have no problems forgiving anyone where they see conviction in the other person or party that leads to their repentance and a willing restitution that leads to relational restoration. But it happens far too infrequently. And so many Christian relationships are burned in the process. Entire relationships are torched because one party doesn’t budge an inch, which polarises the other party in the process, and generally over one issue, albeit a significant one.

In studying Jonah chapter 3, my attention is arrested when ungodly people — the people of Nineveh — repent at the warning of a coming destruction.

In other words, their hearts are convicted. They repent in sackcloth and fasting. And God does not destroy them. In fact, God ultimately uses this people (the Assyrians) to carry the people of God away to exile two decades later.

Who repented? It wasn’t the people of God, who should have known better.

It was those who would hear,
those who would fear,
those who would draw near.

These are the people we can most easily forgive. Those who have the willingness to hear us. Those who have something to fear — the loss of relationship with us and God.[1] These are those who would draw near to God in humility endeavouring to “love one another” as Jesus’ final command (John 13:33-35) to believers’ attests.

Those who do not hear God’s Spirit calling them to own their responsibility, and who do not fear losing their relationship with us and hurting their relationship with God, are those who do not draw near to God in humility endeavouring to “love one another” as Jesus’ final command (John 13:33-35) to believers’ attests.

Wherever people refuse to reconcile, we must seek to understand or differentiate between them feeling unsafe on the one hand and feeling right in their own mind on the other. There is mediation for both these situations, and conflict coaching that precedes it.

Forgiveness is a gift we are wise to offer. But then it depends entirely on the person we wish to give it to holding their hands out to receive it.

Forgiveness is given when the person being forgiven owns their wrong and seeks to receive the forgiveness for the gift it is.

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[1] Recall that Jesus said in Matthew 5:23-24, in the context of anger that causes assault and even murder, “… if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.”

Photo by Melody Jacob on Unsplash