On Forgiveness

“The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” — Revelation 13:8.

In this incomparably beautiful text we get a rare glimpse of God’s perspective; what it looks like to Him as he stands completely outside of the dimension of time.  To the Father, the sacrifice of His Son has no “when.”  It is etched irrevocably into the fabric of eternity, and it always has been.  Time can neither define nor contain it.  From our perspective we can say that Christ’s death occurred at 3:00 PM in the afternoon, on Friday, the 14th day of Nisan, in the year A.D. 33.  That the precision of this can be debated does not matter.  His death, to us, is an event.  It has a physical time and place.  There is a “before” and an “after” containing other events that appear – from our vantage point – to be separate from it.

It is impossible for us to get our minds around the concept that the Eternity in which God dwells is not simply a “long time.”  It is the absence of time altogether.  Time is a property that God created in which WE dwell.  It is not where He dwells.  Christ is the manifestation of God visiting us within our dimensional limitations, which limitations He took upon Himself, and some of which He retains permanently.  The sacrifice that is embodied in this act is one we can merely pretend to understand.  To wonder at the agony of the physical torture He endured is to barely brush the base of Everest in our comprehension.  If we understood sin as He understands it we would be  ourselves crushed in the mere meditation on the concept of His taking it all onto Himself.  By comparison the physical endurance was incidental.

How then do we respond?  Bringing this into our own temporal dimension reveals an attribute of God that is foundational to our relationship with Him.  It is an attribute that He fully expects us to emulate, and one that He declares lies within our ability to achieve (surrendered to Him, of course).  It is so necessary and so primal that He has stated it unequivocally in His written Word.  It cannot be misunderstood.  When teaching the people in His most famous sermon how to pray he told them to ask for forgiveness to the same degree that they forgive others (Matthew 6:9).  Then He followed up with these pointed words, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15).  We are forgiven only to the degree that we forgive.  And He has set the standard, beyond all time, by forgiving us before time was.

So here is the example: before I was born, before He had created any beings, indeed, before He had created time itself, He provided the Sacrifice that would forgive every sin I would ever commit.

He knew all my sins. 
Before I committed them. 
He forgave all my sins. 
Before I was.

This is the pattern He sets for me (“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” — Matthew 5:48).  I must strive, within His grace and power, to achieve a state of being in which I forgive all others in their offenses toward me BEFORE they commit them.  He desires that this forgiveness should be within me a living force, crouched and ready to spring upon the first opportunity that an enemy offers by hurting or offending me in any regard, no matter how minor or serious.  He desires that I should understand forgiveness not as an act, but as a continual state of being, a state that becomes, through His grace, a part of my natural daily existence.  Forgiveness must become as natural as breathing.  This is His new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).

It is the Enemy’s desire that this state of being, this new creation, appear to be an insurmountable obstacle.  Human beings have demonstrated their ability to commit acts upon each other so atrocious that they defy imagination.  How can I be expected to forgive the things that were done to me, some of which were committed by other “Christians?”  The natural conclusion is that it can’t be done. 

There are two facts that shatter this myth.  The first is simply that God Himself tells us to do it.  This is the God who “calls into existence things that do not exist (Romans 4:17).”  If He can do that outside of you, then He can do it within you as well.  He does not ask us to do things that we are incapable of doing.  He always “remembers that we are dust” (Psalms 103:14).  He knows you better than you do.  The second is that unforgiveness is self-destructive.  It does no justice to your enemy, but it will chew away your spirit and your health both emotionally and physically with relentless persistence.  Conversely, forgiveness is self-healing.  It brings rest to the emotions and strength back to the enervated soul.  At first it may seem that we are letting someone “get away” with what they’ve done to us, and that by doing so we will feel even worse. But the fact is that unforgiveness is a dark and oppressive prison of anxiety.  It is not our enemy who inhabits this prison.  It is us.  When we forgive we commit our enemy into the hands of God.  We are released from the overwhelming responsibility of judging and sentencing, which are God’s prerogatives alone.  We are the ones set free.

To achieve such a state of freedom, my communion with God must be continual.  It must be, as Paul admonishes, “[prayer] without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).  This does not mean I’m walking around in a cowl with my hands folded before me in a semi-stupor.  It simply means that I’m always conscious on some level that God is conscious of me.  It means I purpose to keep myself aware of His presence.  I talk to Him when I have something to say, and I’m silent when I don’t.  I spend the day in His presence.  And I thank Him continually for the privilege.

When you begin to practice this and someone hurts or offends you it becomes an opportunity.  Your consciousness of God’s presence shifts you into a calm state of mind.  When anger does arise, you commit it to Him.  You don’t suppress it, You don’t lash out.  Instead you forgive.  True forgiveness releases anger and resentment.  It doesn’t store up a memory or repress emotions to root and fester and rise again years later in a different guise.  It’s a commitment between you and God to not let the offense be an issue that destroys relationships.  The other person doesn’t even have to know you’ve forgiven them unless such information would work toward their healing as well.

This is the very foundation of Christianity.  It is the place at which we begin our walk with God at the moment of our conversion.  It is the practice by which we “continue to live in Him” (Colossians 2:6).  Would only that it were the practice by which we were known to the world.