Copyright by Shea Oakley
All rights reserved
“Forgiveness is agreeing to live with the consequences of another person’s sin.”
There are doubtless numerous definitions of forgiveness. Because the imperative to forgive is so primary to living an authentic Christian life believers through the centuries have tried to describe its essence in different ways. There are many facets of forgiveness that must be gleaned to make up an overall definition.
One of those facets is described well by the above quote from Christian author Neil Anderson. In fact his characterization of granting pardon is one of the more profound in its simplicity. It is also one of the most difficult to accept. I suspect this is because “agreeing to live with the consequences” of someone else’s careless or malevolent wounding of our spirits seems like the height of unfairness. There is no way around the reality of that perceived iniquity. But we need to recognize that the world we live in is no longer fair. We also have to leave the blame for this reality where it belongs, on our own race’s corporate doorstep.
Human beings cry “unfair!” for a reason. We have an innate understanding that things should be equitable in relationships. This is no accident. Each of us is made in God’s image and so we have, somewhere deep down in our very being, the sense that ultimate reality is void of relational wrongs. This is true. There is no unfairness in the perfect unity of the Trinity. While some might interject here that it was unfair for God, the Father, to will His innocent Son to die the horrific death of the cross the truth is that Jesus went to Calvary willingly. His Father did not bully him into it. It was an act of love, designed to bring the potential for our forgiveness, and therein lays the rub.
Love and forgiveness trump unfairness.
The world knows iniquity only because the first human beings choose to cooperate with the one who might be called the “Essence of Unfair”, Satan. Thefall of our race is what has made the lives we now live on Earth subject to injustice. We have no one to blame but ourselves, both collectively and individually. If we let it stop there the result could only be despair. We would face the prospect of an ongoing existence as evil beings with no recourse but to forever wound and be wounded by each other and eventually die in that condition. Our now intrinsically unfair natures would see to this and all the while our lying egos would assure us that only we have been untreated unfairly. In a sense this is what the idea of “Hell on Earth” means.
But because of Jesus bearing the greatest unfairness of all, His wholly undeserved death and bearing of sin that was not his own, we who believe are on the road to ultimate redemption from the presence and results of our inequity. Divine love is more powerful than unfairness and it can set the human race free from the captivity of our fallen nature.
This brings us back to the question of forgiveness. The reason Christians can forgive others is twofold. Reason one is because we come to know that “the consequences of another person’s sin” against us may not be worse that than the consequences of our own sin against someone else. In short, we reckon with the fact that we are not always fair ourselves, both to others and to the perfectly fair God we have vowed to serve. Reason two is that we who have put our faith in Jesus Christ know that the destructive consequences of other people’s sins in our lives are not permanent. Even if we do not experience complete healing in this life God promises to “wipe away every tear” when our redemption is completed and we stand before him in Glory. In the meantime, because of this hope, we have access to the grace we need to bear temporary pain and to consciously extend forgiveness to the people who caused that pain. Received grace, the unmerited favor of God through Christ, is the wellspring of forgiveness. This is true even in the midst of still-experienced relational hurts. By an act of grace-empowered will we can live with the consequences of their sin, and our own, letting love and forgiveness alter the equation. In doing so we will begin to free ourselves to find a degree of healing even in the here and now.
There is no better way to trump unfairness then in knowing the beginnings of the healing of our hearts.