After listening to the sermon on Forgiveness by Clarissa Worley enough times to lose count, I just realized while listening to it yet again one of the reasons that it is important to believe in the universal forgiveness of all sins by Jesus' death. This is a very sticky subject, but it is so mostly because we have such a very confused concept of what forgiveness really is and what it is not.
Clarissa explains that the opposite of forgiveness is “debt-collecting”. Anything and everything that wounds us in any way whatsoever creates a debt owed to us. It is not just a “legal” issue; it is really a principle just as pervasive and unavoidable as gravity. When we are offended by someone whether it was intentional or not, even if they are totally unaware that they ever offended us, we now hold something like a lien to a debt owed us by that person. The debt will never just go away by ignoring it or pretending it never happened. Our mind and heart cannot work in that way at their deepest level. The debt has to be satisfied one way or another.
The original word in the Bible that was translated “debt” in the Lord's prayer actually conveys the concept of someone chained to us that we drag around in bondage to us. In our minds and hearts they become our debt-slave until we feel they have repaid us what we are owed.
It is at this point that we have a very serious choice to make. One option that we usually choose is to try to collect on the debt. We can use all sorts of methods and schemes and manipulations to extract enough from the other person to pay the debt that deep inside we know we are owed. And if we cannot reach the other person to collect from them due to any number of reasons including death, we will try to collect the debt from anyone available to us. In fact, even if the person is still available we will begin to collect debt from more and more people until we come to the place where we are trying to collect from everyone around us even if they did not create the debt. It is just the way our minds work.
Do we have a right to collect debt? Is there a real and legitimate reason, an injury which gives us the right to collect? Yes there is – absolutely! And many of us are doing exactly that and with gusto. But there is another factor that we don't often realize that sabotages our ability to satisfy the debt. For some reason that I don't yet understand but is very real nevertheless, it is impossible for us to actually collect enough to be truly satisfied and feel free of the original pain that was caused to our heart. We are simply incapable of actually settling the score and balancing the scale to return us to our original condition we enjoyed before the wounding. It is an unavoidable truth that we can never experience healing or freedom by collecting on a debt from the debtor no matter how long and hard we try or how successful we are at making the other person feel at least as bad as we do.
So what is the alternative to this frustrating and dead-end obsession that we have with debt-collecting? How can we find relief and freedom and wholeness again if it cannot be had through punishing those who have hurt us as we so naturally desire to do?
This is where it is so necessary to understand the essence of redemption and what God has provided for all of us in the death of Jesus Christ. For it is not just a religious abstract ideal or theory that is found in this event in history but it is the only possible way for us to ever become free of all the weight and pain of the debts in our lives, not only what other people owe us but what we owe others.
All debt has to be satisfied. That is part of the underlying principle that makes the universe tick and function in reality. Debt can never just be excused or ignored, it has to be satisfied and in our deepest soul we are wired to sense that intuitively. But it is just as true that we are incapable of accomplishing that satisfaction through our own methods and attempts even though we feel that we can if we were given enough time and harassment toward those who have hurt us. There is only one possible way for the debt to be satisfied completely and God accomplished that in the death of Jesus.
What Jesus experienced during the last hours of His life before and during His crucifixion was far, far more than the external physical torture and suffering that we usually focus on as bad as that was. The really significant and most important part of His suffering was the emotional, mental and heart anguish that was artificially taken upon Himself for the sins of the whole world.
We say these words but we have to really go deeper to understand what they truly mean to be affected by them. One way I remind myself of what He really experienced is to think specifically of the feelings that I have, the pain and inner turmoil and bitterness that I experience when I have been wounded in my spirit for any reason. Add to that the growing weight of guilt and condemnation that I feel when I know I have wounded someone else when I don't confess it and become free. I think of all the dysfunction and anger and resentment from all the years of abuse and neglect, all the frustration and lost opportunities that I have experienced because of my or others decisions that were wrong and selfish. Add to that all the incidental effects of pain that I experience just because I live in a messed up world that sometimes seems to be a diabolical plot to make me as miserable as possible from mosquito bites to long, torturing prolonged years dying of cancer or aids. Then multiply that by all the people who have ever or who will ever live on this planet and concentrate it into one human mind and body and you will begin to sense the real torture that Jesus freely took upon Himself and fully experienced without any dulling of His senses or tempering of the intensity. That is the real cause of death that crushed out the life of the Savior of the world.
So why did He do that? How does that relate to this principle of debt that must be satisfied in some way? It has everything to do with it. In fully experiencing the specific consequences of all the debts ever incurred throughout all of history without ever creating a liability of debt Himself, Jesus became something like a lightening-rod that could successfully satisfy any and all debt that anyone would choose to give to them of their own free will. And although He will never force anyone to give Him their debts or the debts that others owe them, He provided the one and only doorway of escape for any who would believe in Him to escape the death-producing results of living under the condemnation produced by debts. When we choose to make Him responsible for the debt that someone owes to us and believe in the payment that He already experienced, we trigger another eternal principle that releases us from the debts that we owe to God, our only source of life. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
But there is yet another facet of this that I find very interesting that began to make more sense to me today. It has to do with the ongoing theological argument about whether all sins were forgiven by Jesus on the cross or just the sins that people ask forgiveness for. There are many people who just cannot imagine the righteousness in forgiving people who do not even want forgiveness, who are hell-bent on being as wicked as possible and hurting as many as possible in the process. How could God forgive someone like Hitler or Stalin or __________ (you fill in the blank)? Aren't there people who are just too wicked to be forgiven? There must be! At least that's what we indignantly insist in our minds.
And what about the problem of people assuming that “pre-forgiveness” is a license to sin even more and cause more havoc in their selfishness and perversions? There are plenty of examples of this around to recite. Wouldn't it be very unwise of God to forgive people ahead of time? Doesn't that just encourage more sin instead of limiting it?
Inherent in that logic, however, lurks the idea that some of our incentive to stop sinning is the condemnation and guilt hanging over our heads that we believe goads us toward repentance and seeking God's forgiveness to be freed from that condemnation. Just listen to nearly any preacher today and you may hear some expression of this concept. It is generally accepted and taught as “gospel truth” and woven strongly into our theology of a “carrot and stick” kind of God who threatens us with condemnation and punishment on one hand and offers rewards and blessings on the other to move us toward – well, toward whatever goal that particular brand of religion has in mind for God. If this is what we believe about God then the idea of global forgiveness does not fit well into our evangelistic methods and we look for more palatable alternative beliefs that support our well-honed practices and traditions. But this is not what the Bible teaches.
“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:1-2 NIV)
In light of this, let's go back to the issue of debt-collecting and how we relate to those who have offended us as well as the words of Jesus in the Lord's prayer. The alternative to collecting debt from others is, in essence, to collect it from Jesus who has paid in full any debts that others owe to us. If someone has wounded us or offended us in any way, no matter how big or small, Jesus stands in and offers to pay us whatever is needed to satisfy that debt on their behalf. And being our God and Creator He has the supernatural ability to actually bring about the very satisfaction that our heart craves in our attempts to settle the debts. “Forgive” actually means what is looks like when you break it down and reverse it – “give for”. Jesus offers to give us what is owed for that other party who owes us a heart-debt, and He alone is able to do it in a way that gives us release from the internal craving for revenge.
If I come to realize that the debts owed to me can never be satisfied through my attempts to collect on them and that those attempts will only lead me deeper and deeper into bitterness and turmoil of heart, I can decide to forgive those debts by basically collecting them from Jesus Who indeed did pay the price for them.
But what happens when I am offended and hold a lien on someone who will not ultimately be saved? What if that person never desires forgiveness from God or from me and may never do so? And what if I believe, as many do, that their sins cannot be forgiven by God until they truly repent and ask God for forgiveness? Does that mean that Jesus did not experience the pain of their sins because they are going to experience it themselves in hell? Did Jesus only experience the debts of those who are going to be saved?
If we hold to that kind of theology then we create a real dilemma for ourselves. If we believe that God has not forgiven them because they have not yet repented (and may never repent), then their debt toward me was not paid by Jesus and consequently I may not be able to collect the debt they owe me from Jesus. In that case I will be unable to forgive them because God has not forgiven them and I am stuck chained to someone who owes me a debt dragging them around as a debtor-slave to me for the rest of my life.
Oh, that doesn't sound so good, so let's say I forgive them so I won't be dragged down by them as my debtors. That's nice, but now you find yourself in an equally awkward position of presenting yourself as more righteous and forgiving than God is willing to be. God won't forgive them until they repent but you will? Something is way out of whack here.
No, the real problem is not God forgiving the sins of the whole world as the Bible clearly teaches, but the problem is our very shallow, almost artificial concept of forgiveness itself. Since the clear alternative to debt-collecting is forgiveness, then what is involved in forgiveness?
First of all, forgiveness is not ignoring the debt or trying to minimize it in any way. Neither is forgiveness some compromise of partial debt-collection and some other mental gymnastic. Forgiveness is not an alternative to full satisfaction of the debt either. Forgiveness does not side-step or neutralize the universal principle of justice that demands satisfaction of every single debt owed to every single soul.
Forgiveness is a choice to move complete responsibility for a debt from one person to another without watering down the potency of that responsibility. Forgiveness first of all releases the debtor from any and all further attempts of any kind to collect from them the debt they incurred against us and takes full responsibility for all the pain and suffering that we have experienced back onto ourself. Until we take full ownership of all the pain from the debt we cannot do anything else with it; we still consider the debtor as the owner and instigator of our pain. That places enormous authority and power over our lives in their hands. Is that how we really want to live? If we still hold the other person responsible in the slightest way we nullify forgiveness completely. We have to take full ownership of the results caused within us of the debt incurred against us without holding it against them anymore.
When that step is consciously taken and absorbed then the next step can be initiated. That next step is to take all of that pain in full and consciously choose to give full responsibility for it to Jesus Christ who already has experienced that pain in full in our behalf. He has not just experienced a generic version of our pain but has specifically experienced the very exact pain from our very circumstances down to the very last detail that we are experiencing. When we realize that this is the reality of what forgiveness and redemption means we begin to also realize how very redundant and foolish it is for us to be unwilling to forgive and thereby hang on to all of that pain when Jesus has already experienced it so we could be freed from it.
And what happens in place of the pain that we give Him? Well, a most amazing transaction takes place. God places into our soul and heart and experience the peace and joy and freedom that was what Jesus should have received due to living a perfect life free from all debt and sin. Instead of Jesus enjoying the comfort and pleasure of those gifts He chose to forego them so that we could experience them in His place just as He experienced the results of our debts and those indebted to us in our place. That is the amazing “good news” that is called the gospel of Jesus Christ.
God, I am amazed myself at what You have been sharing with me just during this writing process today. I have never understood this very much before and it is becoming clearer to me. The more I learn about Your ways the easier it is to respond to Your love and grace. It really is Your kindness that leads me to repentance, not Your supposed threats or any other negative lies about You that have been perpetuated in Your name. Thank-you for Your Word, for Your faithfulness and goodness and truth. Teach me to forgive from my heart and release my debt-collecting compulsions to be satisfied by Your loving provision for me and for all those who owe me by Your payment on the cross. Fill me instead with Your peace and joy and grace. Do this for Your name's sake.
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