Forgiveness
Book / Produced by partner of TOW
Forgiveness is excruciatingly difficult. There are a hundred reasons why one cannot forgive and a thousand easier, more appealing alternatives. Many of these alternatives will accomplish something worthwhile. Some will enable us to forget the pain, others will help us to understand our feelings, and still others will enable us to transfer our hurt or anger onto something or someone else. But none of them will totally heal or restore the broken relationship.
Whether or not such healing or restoration is even necessary has been questioned by some. Why should a Jew forgive a Nazi or a woman her rapist? Do their enemies not deserve to die unforgiven? Would it make any difference to them if forgiveness were offered? Can the value or success of forgiveness be measured? Are there not some cases where traveling the road of forgiveness simply raises more problems and opens more wounds than if the journey had never begun? Before examining the dynamics of forgiveness, it is important to establish what forgiveness is not.
Some Misconceptions
Understanding. To understand all is not to forgive all. Forgiveness is not dependent on our understanding everything about the person or the situation, nor is greater understanding a guarantee of forgiveness. We are being unrealistic if we expect to understand everything before we forgive. Situations and people are so complex and their depths are so unfathomable that we cannot afford the luxury of waiting until we understand before we forgive. On the other hand, people may understand all about a situation but still remain unforgiving. Greater understanding may facilitate forgiveness and may flow from forgiveness, but forgiveness is not dependent on it.
Forgetting. Similarly, forgiving is not forgetting—for three reasons. First, if hurts can be easily forgotten, no forgiveness is necessary. The hurts in question are no more than mere annoyances, here today, gone tomorrow. Second, forgetting may be no more than avoidance or suppression, a defense mechanism to avoid the demands of real forgiveness. Third, where true forgiveness is needed, and even after it has been achieved and experienced, forgetting does not happen automatically. We cannot forget on demand. Forgiving can still be sincere even if we remember. Forgetting must happen naturally as part of the longer forgiving process.
Avoidance. Forgiveness is not a way of avoidance. It is an alternative to revenge and retaliation, but it is not a way of opting out. On the contrary, because it gets to the root of the problem and refuses to exacerbate the hostility by multiplying the hurts, it is the only way of truly dealing with all aspects of the conflict situation.
Toleration. To forgive is not simply to accept or tolerate. Acceptance can be selective: it can be a way of looking at the good that is in each one of us, no matter how evil many of our actions may be, but it does not deal with the bad. It concentrates on the sober generosity of the drunkard, the family commitment of the terrorist or the conscientiousness of the adulterer. But it is the bad—the drunkenness, the murder, the adultery—which is unacceptable. That is what forgiveness tackles.
Getting Away with It. Finally, to forgive is not the same as saying that “it doesn’t matter.” Those who have wronged will still have to pay and bear the consequences of their actions—legally, socially or personally. A wrongdoer can be truly and completely forgiven, yet prosecuted. Forgiveness complements justice; it does not replace it.
Forgiveness in Scripture
The Old Testament deals, in the main, with divine forgiveness. From the very beginning of salvation history God has been active in forgiveness. The promise of Genesis 3:15, Noah’s ark (Genesis 6:13-9:17), the subsequent covenant (Genesis 8:21-22) and the story of Abraham (Genesis 12:1-25:10) are all early examples of God’s determination to save and restore people into fellowship. There is no single word for forgiveness in Hebrew, but rather a series of images. There is the image of paying a ransom price (kipper; Exodus 30:15-16; Numbers 5:8; Isaiah 6:7); taking away (na’; Exodus 32:32; Job 7:21; Micah 7:18); pardoning (selach; 1 Kings 8:30-39; Jeremiah 31:34); and even passing over, overlooking (ʿab̠ar; Micah 7:18; Proverbs 19:11). These are powerful and significant images. Initially, through the old covenant provisions of the scapegoat (Leviticus 16:20-22) and the general sacrificial system, God illustrated his willingness to overlook the sins of his people because they had been paid for, borne away, by someone or something else. God therefore has no call to remember their sins, for they are irrelevant (Psalm 25:7; Psalm 103:9-12; Micah 7:19). Isaiah uses identical language as he looks forward to the ultimate scapegoat sacrifice who will bear the sins of the people (Isaiah 53:8-12).
The New Testament makes it clear that this was Christ and that his sacrifice was sufficient for all time (Acts 8:32-33; Hebrews 10:10). It is in the light of Christ’s sacrifice and our hope of eternal reconciliation with God that the New Testament writers employed the image of letting go (aphiēmi) to describe divine and therefore Christian forgiveness. As God has taken leave of our sins in Christ, so too we should let go of the sins committed against us (Matthew 6:12; Ephes. 4:29-32). This is brought out most powerfully by the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21-35), where an unforgiving spirit is portrayed starkly as nothing less than blasphemous. One of the reasons we find forgiveness so difficult is that we are offended by God’s love, which can forgive those who have so spitefully abused us. We are like the elder brother (Luke 15:28-32), resenting the grace of God and living unfree lives, bound by our own self-righteousness and prejudice. The key to forgiveness is to understand how much we ourselves have been forgiven by God. Like the woman in Luke 7:36-50, those who truly understand the depth of God’s forgiveness are driven to love, not judgment (see also Matthew 7:1-5).
Forgiving Oneself
Forgiveness is usually regarded as an interpersonal affair, but there is an intrapersonal aspect which is often overlooked. If we need to forgive ourselves and are unwilling to do so, this will hinder our forgiving others. Often the greater the sin, the less we are able to forgive ourselves: “Sin and self-forgiveness assume inverse proportions in our minds” (Stanley, p. 141). This is fundamentally a theological problem. We have not really understood or experienced the forgiveness of God, which is free, unmerited and unconditional. By refusing to forgive ourselves we betray a self-centered obsession that undermines the completeness of Christ’s atoning work. We claim we don’t forgive ourselves because we are unworthy, yet that is the whole point of the cross. Christ died because we were unworthy. We claim we have disappointed God, yet in reality it is only ourselves we have disappointed. How can God be disappointed when he knows us exactly as we are and yet forgives us?
Sometimes, as an alternative to self-forgiveness, we will engage in self-deprivation or penance in the mistaken belief that we know something bad about our sin that God does not already know. Alternatively, we will become compulsive activists, burying ourselves in good works in order to impress God and thereby “atone” for our wrongdoing.
The two main pillars of the early church had to learn what it was to forgive themselves. Peter, because of his denial of Christ, had possibly counted himself no longer a disciple (Mark 16:7; John 21:15-17), and Paul had to come to terms with atrocities he had personally inflicted on Christians before his conversion (1 Cor. 15:9-10). Once we have grasped the extent and manner of God’s forgiveness, we are without excuse in withholding forgiveness from anyone, and that includes ourselves.
Intercommunity Forgiveness
New factors are brought into the equation when one considers the area of intercommunity or international conflict. Often when peace is being negotiated it is asked: Can, or should, leaders ask for forgiveness on behalf of the whole nation for atrocities committed in their name? Is it possible for the wronged community to grant that forgiveness on behalf of all of its citizens? If so, will the members of the “guilty” community feel the power of the forgiveness in any meaningful way? Such questions have recently been raised in relation to the Northern Ireland conflict, post-apartheid South Africa, the Middle East, Rwanda and Bosnia. Anniversaries have also tended to raise these questions in terms of unresolved hurts from past conflicts. The five-hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in North America (1992) sparked calls for apologies to be made to the native peoples, just as the fiftieth anniversary of the ending of the World War II in the Pacific (1995) prompted calls for Japanese apologies, and the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Irish famine (1996) led to similar demands on the British.
The difficulty here is that in order to be effective, forgiveness requires the dynamics of human relationship. This presupposes a level of personal interaction. Forgiveness cannot take place by proxy or by means of words alone. It is virtually impossible for leaders to speak on behalf of all their citizens, much less on behalf of the citizens of previous centuries. It is similarly unrealistic, unhelpful, indeed prejudicial, of the citizens of a conquered nation to transfer their anger onto all the citizens of the conquering nation. Two things, however, can be done. First, where possible, individuals who have been wronged can begin the task of forgiving those individuals who have wronged them: the terrorist who planted the bomb, the soldier who fired the shot, the informer who pointed the finger or the witness who lied. Second, where the state has engaged in institutional injustice, it can ensure that those wrongs are righted and not allowed to recur. Land can be restored and protected, prisoners of conscience released and economic restitution made for the ravaging of property. Forgiveness is too serious and deep to be cheapened by pressurized apologies or cosmetic gestures that do nothing to ensure future justice and ongoing reconciliation (see Conflict Resolution).
Interpersonal Forgiveness
Lewis Smedes has correctly pointed out that while many things may hurt us—nature, circumstances, unjust systems—we can forgive only people (Smedes, 1984, pp. 5-6). Forgiveness is intensely relational and personal. So how does forgiveness actually work in the area of interpersonal relationships?
The main problem with forgiveness is that on the surface it appears to ignore or take lightly an incident of gross personal injustice. An injury has been inflicted, physically or emotionally, and someone has been hurt. The automatic human tendency is to hate and desire to get even. Forgiveness demands that we come to terms with such desires and gradually seek to be released from the power that the wound (and therefore the other person) has over us. Forgiveness is not about ignoring the injury. On the contrary, the forgiver acknowledges it and confronts it openly. Nor is the injury treated lightly. Rather, the forgiver treats it differently by freeing himself or herself from the endless consuming cycle of bitterness, hatred and retribution. The divine model is worth remembering here. God did not ignore our sin or treat it lightly. The death of Christ both dealt with the problem and made forgiveness possible.
Another problem with forgiveness is that it may remain forever incomplete. The other party may not accept or experience the forgiveness because of circumstances such as death or the continued hardness of their own heart. However, this does not mean that the forgiveness is any less real. As far as the forgiver is concerned, the act of forgiveness has achieved its purpose in freeing them from the hurt of the incident, even though full mutual reconciliation requires the cooperation of the other party. It is a temptation to shirk the task of forgiveness on the grounds that the other person does not wish to be forgiven. This is to misunderstand the purpose of forgiveness: forgiveness is not an offer and not dependent on another’s repentance. While reconciliation consummates the act of forgiveness, the self-imposed alienation of the guilty party does not cheapen the release and joy of forgiveness any more than our continued rebellion against God undermines perfect divine forgiveness.
The Practice of Forgiveness
David Augsburger (1981) has highlighted the five stages of forgiveness: realizing the wrongdoing, reaffirming love, releasing the past, renewing repentance and rediscovering community. Smedes (1984) approaches the subject from the “inside,” highlighting the four possible experiences of the forgiver: hurt, hatred, healing and reconciliation. Hurts must be differentiated from forgettable oversights, insensitivities or mere disappointments. Hurts penetrate deeply and involve betrayal, disloyalty or personal injury. “Hatred is a compliment” (Smedes, p. 24), for we are not treating the perpetrator as robotic or irredeemable but as a free, rational person who has behaved unacceptably. They should have known better. It is on the unacceptability of their actions that our hatred is focused. These, however, are stages we must pass through. We cannot hate forever, or it will consume us and forgiveness will never take place. Alongside these two approaches to the practice of forgiveness, I offer a third that deals with past, present and future.
1. A new attitude. This concerns how we deal with the past. We make a choice to deal with festering hurts and to embark on the journey of forgiveness. We decide neither to perpetuate the hostility nor to suppress the hurts and allow them to eat away inside us. A refusal to forgive binds us eternally to the past. Our personality becomes frozen, we cannot move on from the moment of the offense, and we are incapable of living fully in the present. As injured people, we too require soul surgery. In some cases we need to admit our contribution to the breakdown in relationship. In other cases where we have been passive victims, we need to confess that we have allowed the event to hinder our spiritual growth and that righteous anger has become self-righteous bitterness. By choosing the way of forgiveness we are prepared to change our attitude toward those who have hurt us. We are prepared to forget and to acknowledge that someday we may be able to love them. Loving Christians, if they are to model God, must keep no record of wrongs (1 Cor. 13:5; Psalm 103:3-4).
2. A new perspective. This concerns how we cope with the present. We begin by viewing people differently. We attempt to get outside the hurts and ragings of our present brokenness and see our enemy as God sees them (2 Cor. 5:16). The temptation will be to view those who have injured us in a reductionist manner, seeing them totally in terms of their sin, when in reality they are normal people, a mixture of the image of God and sinful humanity. We are blinded to their true identity because of the sin they have committed against us. Real forgiveness cannot take place unless we are prepared to see them as they truly are, and not as the demons we have perceived them to be in the midst of our hurt and anguish. A test of whether our anger is righteous and directed against the sin, or unrighteous and directed against the sinner, would be to ask ourselves whether we would find greater pleasure in the conversion or restoration of the sinner than in their destruction (ECONI, p. 10). Or can we imagine a situation where we would actively wish the person well (Smedes, 1984, p. 29)? This takes time, but a new perspective will enable us to work to that end.
3. A new determination. This deals with the possibilities of the future. Forgiveness opens the door to new possibilities in relationship which would have been unthought of at the start of the journey. That is why forgiveness must be unconditional. If we lay down conditions, it means we are choosing the future and seeking to manipulate the other person into satisfying our unrealistic demands. If our demands are truly just, then the God of justice will see to it that they are met in the context of dialogue, growing trust and reconciliation. Reconciliation is not a return to old ways, a turning of the clock back to the exact moment of the offense. This is a new world. Circumstances have changed: the injured body may be irreparably damaged, or the marriage may be irretrievably lost because of new relationships. “We make our new beginnings, not where we used to be or where we wish we could be, but only where we are and with what we have at hand” (Smedes, p. 37). We can only forgive today with today’s circumstances. “Forgiveness is letting what was, be gone; what will be, come; what is now, be” (Augsburger, 1981, p. 52).
Forgiveness naturally involves risks. We open the door not only to a bright new future but to the possibility of repeated injury. But where there is no risk, there is no need of forgiveness. Forgiveness does not deal with contracts and guarantees but with covenant and trust. That is God’s way with us, and it must be our way with each other (Deut. 4:30-31).
The Power of Forgiveness
No one can force us to forgive, and all the pressures of personality and culture are against it. Yet in spite of our culture’s preoccupation with strength, machismo and getting even, to choose to forgive is to exhibit the greatest strength of all. Self-deception, avoidance and grudge-bearing are all easier options than loving confrontation, realism and forgiveness. When we forgive we are acting as free persons and treating others as such. The strength of the love that inspires forgiveness derives from respect and commitment. We see the other person as worth the respect and are prepared for the energy, time and disappointment that may come. “Hate gives a temporary power for surviving today’s brutality and it has a short-term power to move us into tough action for tomorrow. But hate lacks the staying-power to create a fairer future beyond revenge. . . . For long distance, forgiving is stronger than hate” (Smedes, 1984, p. 146). No greater example is needed than that of Christ himself, the embodiment of the kingdom of God, a kingdom of hope, forgiveness and reconciliation. It was he who, as he bore the physical agony of crucifixion, the emotional torture of the taunts and insults of passersby, and the spiritual weight of the sins of the world, found the strength to say: “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34).
» See also: Church Conflict
» See also: Conflict Resolution
» See also: Hatred
» See also: Justice
» See also: Love
References and Resources
D. Augsburger, Caring Enough to Forgive (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1981); D. Augsburger, The Freedom of Forgiveness (Chicago: Moody, 1988); Evangelical Contribution on Northern Ireland, Forgiveness (Belfast: ECONI, 1992); L. G. Jones, Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995); J. Patton, Is Human Forgiveness Possible? A Pastoral Care Perspective (Nashville: Abingdon, 1985); L. B. Smedes, Caring and Commitment: Learning to Live the Love We Promise (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988); L. B. Smedes, Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984); C. Stanley, Forgiveness (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987).
—David J. Montgomery