Good Friday forgiveness

Back in 2003, Detective Constable Stephen Oake was murdered in an incident at an asylum seeker’s house in Manchester. When his father Robin Oake, a senior police officer and a Christian, was asked at a press conference what he thought of the man who had killed his son, he said calmly: ‘I forgive him.’ His reply caused astonishment among the journalists.

Christianity promises forgiveness to people and forgiveness is a hallmark of true Christianity. So we read, ‘Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you’ (Ephesians 4.32).

Christians are forgiven

All people who personally and practically trust in Christ are forgiven.

* Preparation for forgiveness

The relevance of this promise of forgiveness is not apparent to people who do not think they have done anything wrong. A preparation for such people is needed. The gospel includes a painful exposure of sin. The context of our verse, for example, indicts theft (v.28), unwholesome talk (v.29), lovelessness (5.2), sexual immorality (5.3). Sometimes you go into a shop to buy a new garment to match something else you already have. In the artificial light of the shop they seem to match. But when you get it home and you compare them in full daylight, you see they don’t match at all. When you look at yourself in the artificial light of comparing your behaviour with others you may well think, ‘I’ll do’. But when you look at your life in the full daylight of God’s word you see you don’t match up at all. We see our sin. We see we need to be forgiven.

* Definition of forgiveness

Once they get to this point, what many people are asking God for is not to forgive them but to excuse them. But there is a huge difference between the two. Forgiveness starts by us agreeing that we really are in the wrong and it is our fault. Then it promises never to hold our wrongdoing against us ever again. Excusing is about saying, ‘Well, you weren’t really at fault — you were forced into it, etc.’ It looks for God to find mitigating circumstances for us. However, if we are not really to blame, then there is nothing to forgive. Many people do not find forgiveness with God because, actually, what they are really asking is for him to excuse them — so keeping their self-righteousness intact.

* Foundation for forgiveness

The holy God is under obligation to see that justice is done. How can he possibly declare that he will forgive and forget our sins? But the good news is there is a way for justice to be satisfied and sins to be forgiven. It is in Christ (v.32) that we are forgiven. The foundation for our forgiveness is Jesus’s blood. Dying on the cross, Christ paid for us the great debt to God’s justice which our sin has run up. This is why Good Friday and the cross are so precious to Christians.

* Reception of forgiveness

We receive forgiveness from God as we come to him in repentance and faith. Repentance is a true sorrow for our sin and a willingness with God’s help to put right what we have done wrong. The story is told of the Inland Revenue receiving a letter from a man who had been challenged by the gospel. He wrote, ‘I am having sleepless nights because of the burden of my past. I am therefore enclosing £100 which I forgot to declare on my tax return. PS If I still can’t sleep I’ll send you the rest.’ (!) That’s not repentance. That’s a kind of semi-repentance which gets you nowhere. We need to stop living for self and put our whole lives at God’s disposal. And, at the same time, we must put our faith in Christ. Take God at his word, that this is forgiveness for us in Christ. Then we will know God’s forgiveness.

Christians must forgive

As forgiven people we are called to be forgiving to each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Here are four things to ponder about forgiving others.

* Its necessity

Forgiving others is not an option for the Christian. It is a necessity. For the true Christian lack of forgiveness will mess up our relationship with God (Matthew 6.14,15). God is still our Father, but there will be a barrier between us. But in Jesus’s parable of the unmerciful servant the point becomes even more serious (Matthew 18.34). If holding grudges and nursing anger with people rather than forgiving is the ongoing pattern of our lives then it is a sign that we are not Christians at all. People who don’t want to forgive are not saved.

* Its difficulty

Don’t get me wrong. Forgiving others is not easy. It means, forgiving the inexcusable just as God forgave us (v.32). But there are ways of helping ourselves to forgive others. One way is, of course, to remember our forgiveness by God. In a talk given last Christmas Robin Oake said, ‘Incredibly, forgiveness is not a big deal to me since I have been forgiven so much in my own life.’ A second way of helping ourselves to forgive others is, though God has forgotten our sins, for us to remember them. If we can think of some comparable sin in ourselves then we will find it easier to be sympathetic and forgive others. A third practical help is to remember that to carry bitterness will only damage us. It will make you a bitter person. And, lastly, do not think that if you forgive, somehow it will be unfair. There is no sin that will not be paid for. Either sinners will be judged by God in hell, or their sins will have been paid for by the blood of Christ. Don’t let the thought of injustice hold you back. God is just.

* Its frequency

Forgiveness is not easy and it has to be done over and over again (Matthew 18.21,22). We ask ourselves, ‘Can God really forgive me again?’ And the wonderful answer is that since God calls upon us to keep forgiving, then he too, will always forgive as we say, ‘Sorry’. He does not expect us to do what he does not do himself.

* Its reality

When we truly forgive someone we should show the reality of that forgiveness. If they have hurt you and feel bad about what they have done, they will need reassuring that things are OK between you. You see Christians can say, ‘I forgive you’ because they know that they ought to — but not mean it. No! Show you mean it by doing something nice — sharing a joke with that child, going for a meal with that friend, having sex with your wife or husband with whom you had fallen out. Show the reality of forgiveness by remaking the relationship, just as God has remade the relationship with us.

The hallmark

True forgiveness is the unique hallmark of Christianity. Think about it. In the reductionist philosophy of ‘scientific’ humanism there is no forgiveness. We are all simply machines, our actions determined by our genes. We are not responsible for our behaviour, so there is nothing to forgive. In the Eastern religions there is no forgiveness, just the inexorable law of karma. How you behave will determine your future reincarnation without exception. In his book Islam: the challenge to the church, Patrick Sookhdeo tells us that in Islam forgiveness is despised and seen not as a virtue but a weakness. Revenge is the appropriate reaction to being wronged; hence the unending bloodshed in the Middle East.

Forgiveness is the unique mark of Christianity. Let us not be like others. Let’s be real Christians to the glory of the God who, in Christ, forgives. The context of our verse indicates that not to forgive is to grieve the Holy Spirit. That is the way to a church without spiritual power.

The challenge of Ephesians 4.32