Forgiveness, hot and fresh

Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

Luke 17:3-4

Introduction

What a simple message from the Lord that is so incredibly difficult to live out. It screams against every fiber in our being that calls for justice. And justice is no bad thing. It is a gift from God that we have a desire to see evil punished. It is why so many struggle with the very concept of God in a broken world filled with suffering and evil: “how could a good God allow such wickedness?” We know deep in our souls that every wrong ought to be righted.

This becomes especially potent when the evil dealt is against us in particular. If someone wrongs you, do you not wish for justice to be dealt swiftly? If a lie is told that causes you to suffer, do you not long for the liar to face severe retribution? These desires are not evil in themselves, but can often manifest into evil. Consider Lamech, the great-great-great-grandson of the first murderer Cain in Genesis 4 whose wickedness compelled him to take the concept of justice and twist it into evil:

Hear my voice, you wives of Lamech, give ear to my word,
For I have killed a man for striking me; and a boy for wounding me;
If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.

Here you see the precise inverse of what Jesus is saying in our passage. Instead of forgiving a brother seven times, vengeance is dealt seven – no – seventy-seven times. In fact, in a parallel passage from Matthew 18, Jesus tells Peter to forgive his brother seventy-seven times. And so we see that the wickedness of man does not aid in the delivery of justice, but instead impairs and distorts it.

Rebuke and forgive

Jesus gives two commands in this passage in the event that a brother sins against you. The first is to rebuke. Tell your brother he has sinned. It does no one any good to assume everyone is on the same page with things. Remember: our wickedness distorts our sense of justice. How many times have you thought to yourself, “Maybe I’m the bad guy here”? If it is difficult for you to recognize, there is no reason to assume it is otherwise for your brother or sister. So when someone has injured or offended you, the first thing you ought to do is rebuke him. Tell that person what has happened and invite them into repentance. It does no one any good to hold a grudge.

The next thing Jesus commands us to do is forgive that brother if he repents. It is true that you have no place harboring hatred or resentment in your heart. But it is also true that the relationship cannot be restored without repentance. That is why the forgiveness here is requisite on that repentance. But when your brother repents, turns from his sin, and asks for forgiveness, you owe that to him. A restored relationship and peace is worth more than any bitterness you might desire to grasp onto.

Forgive seven times

Finally we find the most difficult part of this application. It is easy to be friends with one who is friendly to you (Luke 6:32). It is even fairly easy to forgive someone who has only seriously sinned against you one or two times. In the grand scheme of things, that is a pretty good record for any friend who has been with you for any real amount of time!

But what about the friend who seems to consistently fail to meet your standards? What about the person who has acted vindictively against you? Do you take matters into your own hands and bring justice yourself? Or do you take the apparently more noble approach and bring the justice system to bear on that person? Or do you remember the promise of Deuteronomy 32:35 that justice belongs to God?

The Apostle Paul applies this in Romans 12 when he commands believers not to take vengeance into their own hands. God will deliver justice because it is in His nature. Psalm 92:6-7 teaches us that even the wicked who are apparently blessed in this world only receive that blessing so that they might build up wrath for themselves on the day of judgment. It is not our duty or even our place to seek revenge for a wrong done to us. Instead, we are to forgive the way God forgives. He does not set a limit to how much sin He is willing to forgive. Even Paul calls himself the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), and yet he became one of the most important Apostles.

God’s forgiveness is so great that it overcomes any and all sin that dares to stand against it. So you, too, ought to forgive others with no limit. If you cannot forgive a transgression against yourself, then how will you judge rightly in the world to come? This principle came to a head in 1 Corinthians 6:3 as Paul addressed believers filing lawsuits against one another, rebuking their inability to settle disputes between themselves. Know that your place is as a co-heir with Christ (Romans 8:17), and if you wish to sit next to Him, you must forgive the way He forgives.

Do not take offense as if justice belongs to you. It belongs to God, and he will deal out justice with perfect righteousness. In the meantime, set your gaze on Christ and seek to be more like Him, forgiving offense and loving your enemies. And do not delay in your forgiveness. Seek to be made right with your brother sooner rather than later.

May the Lord bless you and conform you into the image of His Son.