The Commentary

July 7 brings the first anniversary of the terrible atrocity when four fanatical suicide bombers blew themselves up on the London transport system killing many innocent people.

Since that horrendous event I have often pondered the story of the Rev. Julie Nicholson who lost her daughter Jenny in the Edgware Road attack. In March it was reported that she had resigned her post because she found it too hard to forgive the murderers. ‘It is very difficult for me’, she said, ‘to stand behind an altar and celebrate the Eucharist and lead people in words of peace and reconciliation and forgiveness when I feel very far from that myself.’ One feels both the greatest sympathy for her and at the same time real admiration for the transparent integrity displayed in her decision to resign.

I do not know Julie Nicholoson’s theological views so I cannot comment on this particular case. But I do wonder whether generally the watering down of the biblical gospel with its understanding of Christ’s death as a penal substitution for sin actually makes it harder for us to forgive others and act as Christians. Penal substitution is rejected as presenting a barbaric view of the cross. The idea of a coming day of judgement and a God who metes out his wrath on sin is dismissed as beneath contempt. How do such opinions make forgiveness harder?

Violating humanity

It could be argued that the definitive characteristic of human beings above all others is our sense of justice. From earliest years, children are morally sensitive and readily declare ‘that’s not fair’. Whole swathes of investigative journalism into ethical issues (from the behaviour of US troops in Iraq to John Prescott’s affair with his secretary) draw avid public attention and bear clear testimony to the deep sense of ‘right and wrong’ written into the human psyche. We are, after all, creatures made in the image of the just and holy God (Genesis 1.26,27; Romans 2.14,15). Therefore, to encourage people to forgive against the background of no ultimate justice with regard to evil acts is to ask them to do something which violates their very humanity.

Outrageous injustice

When people suffer injustice they suffer more than hurt. They experience a right and powerful moral indignation which goes to the very roots of their being. To tell the survivors of Auschwitz or the parents of Beslan that God is all ‘love’ and does not pour out wrath on sin, no one will pay, and they must simply forgive, is to ask them to contravene the very foundations of what they are as people. A gospel of forgiveness which finds no place for the judicial punishment of sin is actually a moral outrage. No wonder as the church has adopted this teaching it has lost more and more credibility.

No, the New Testament does call us to forgive, but in the context of justice done, not of justice ignored. To those suffering the fearful injustices of persecution the apostle Paul writes: ‘Do not take revenge, my friends.’ Why is that? It is because we are to ‘leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay” says the Lord’ (Romans 12.17-19). Justice is never set aside. No cruel dictator, no suicide bomber, no sinner ultimately gets away with it. God will judge. And if God will judge, that gives us a platform on which to forgive. And when anyone does ‘get away with it’, being forgiven by God, it will only be because justice for their sins has been done through penal substitution at the cross of Christ.

John Benton

© Evangelicals Now - July 2006
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