I was pondering forgiveness the other day and thinking how much the ability to forgive is based on God’ justice. Forgiveness is not just letting go and excusing their crime against you or others. It is letting go to let God deal with it.
When we struggle with unforgiveness it is often because we don’t trust God to deal with things. Either that or we think He will just let things go and we have to pay the price. But is our handling of hurt through resentment, anger and bitterness better than trusting God to deal with things in justice and righteousness?
We have courts that deal with physical and sometimes social violations. If someone murders, steals, destroys property, etc… we can go before a judge. If libel has happened we also can go before judge. But where is the judge for the hurts of the heart?
God is the judge of those. Except that if we “judge” by holding anger and bitterness, he wont step in as judge. It’s either we are judge or He is.
In thinking on these things I was thinking on atheists. There are good, moral, loving and most wonderful atheists out there, some of them more “righteous” but standards of godliness than even some Christians. So I’m not speaking at all about character.
But rather if there’s forgiveness without God, it’s still good for the person forgiving. But there’s no justice in it from on ideological framework. There’s a weakness to it. The “criminal” (be it physical or relational crime) doesn’t pay the price or have to answer to anyone for their actions in the atheistic framework. There is no accountability for sin or for causing harm to another. There are certainly some relational and perhaps some social consequences, but that’s about it.
With a people who fear the Lord, it means that we forgive on the basis of Jesus on the cross. Not just Jesus but Jesus on the cross. The cross was God’s penalty and justice for the crimes we’ve committed. That’s how he forgives us. Not a cheap looking away from a wrong but rather the very highest cost to serve justice in our place.
Because of that we forgive. It’s not a looking away. It’s not saying the other person’s hurtfulness didn’t matter. It’s turning it over to God’s justice in Christ. Letting him deal with the justice part. Because God initiated forgiveness through justice in Christ for us, we are to initiate forgiveness through justice in Christ for others (Mt 5:23). This is the highest gift. The greatest gift God can give us–forgiveness of our sins, and the greatest we can give to others–forgiveness.
