Freedom that Matters : A Biblical Paradigm
- Part 2 -

RT Johnson Raih *

2. People who Forgive the Unforgivable

There are many people in the world who do not deserve to be forgiven from the human point of view. And at the same time many people around the world live with an unforgiving spirit. A child who has seen his father beating and abusing his mother waits to be older so that one day he may beat up his father.

A girl hates his mother/father for leaving her while she was just a kid in need of both the parents. A country which refuses to forgive and forget the ill treatment meted to them by the other country. A South Korean Pastor even requested the Japanese people to, "Forgive us for not forgiving you."

A community may be up against another for their condescending attitude or even for marginalising them and systematically exploiting them. We live today in the real world of hurt, hatred, revenge and killing.

Sometimes a person may even find it hard to even forgive oneself for the tragedy he has brought to himself or his loved and near ones into, like:
the tragedy of being infected with a deadly disease due to his own careless living;
the tragedy caused due to careless driving which has snuffed out precious lives;
the tragedy of being rude and unkind to one's parents while they were alive and then regret after their death and
the tragedy of neglecting one's children when they were young as they have become so distant from them when they become old.

But if God forgives us, we must forgive ourselves otherwise it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than God said CS Lewis. But we need to forgive ourselves and others because God has taught us to (Matt 5: 23- 24; 6: 11, 14-15; Luke 11: 4).

Forgiveness is doing good to yourself. Living with an unforgiving spirit is one of the heaviest burdens in a person's life. Corrie Ten Boom, a Christian woman who survived a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust, said, "Forgiveness is to set a prisoner free, and to realise the prisoner was you." Nelson Mandela when asked why he was not resentful for his imprisonment said that resentment is like a glass of poison that a man drinks; then he sits down and waits for his enemy to die.

In fact when Nelson Mandela walked out to freedom after 28 years of imprisonment which was telecast on TV, Bill Clinton remarked that his initial face of anger and vengeance disappeared and turned sober. So when Clinton asked him why, this was how Mandela answered. He said that he heard a voice telling him that for 28 years he had been a physical prisoner but never a slave to their ideology.

Now that he has become free he should not become a slave by harbouring anger and spirit of vengeance and unforgiving spirit. What a sublime piece of thought. You may ignore a sickness or a disease but ignoring does not expel the disease. Covering up a wound infested body with good designer wear and branded clothes does not heal or make the problem disappear. Confronting it with the right medical care, however inconvenient it may be is the only way it can ever be healed or treated.

Forgiveness is a higher law of love. The Old Testament concept of 'life for life', 'eye for an eye', 'tooth for a tooth', 'hand for hand' and 'foot for foot' (Exodus 21: 24; Leviticus 24: 20; Deuteronomy 19: 21) was introduced by Moses to promote love and social harmony in the community and not to spread hatred and discord. This concept of 'as you sow so shall you reap' was introduced so that each may respect each other, that the neighbour may be protected, that the weaker section may be safeguarded and that love may prevail in the family and the community.

But Jesus took this concept to a higher level by introducing the concept of forgiveness to promote love and safeguard communal harmony (Matthew 5: 17). For Jesus, forgiveness is a higher and a tougher principle which the strong and the tough can only use. Think about this: Which is easier, to slap back at somebody who has just slapped you or to look back at the person who slapped you and say, 'I forgive you'? Is it easier to throw a stone at somebody's car because he broke yours or to smile back at the person and forgive him? According to Mahatma Gandhi forgiveness is the weapon of the brave. A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

It must have been a harrowing experience for Jesus Christ to have been beaten like an animal, to have been insulted by his creature, to have been tortured like a criminal and to have been hated like a traitor. The Bible records the humanity of Jesus by saying that he had been hungry, tired, thirsty, angry, weeping and even agonised. He prayed to his father "My Father if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will but as you will (Matthew 26: 39)." He sweated blood (Luke 22: 44).

Science confirms that in case of extreme agony a person sweats blood. The condition is called Hermatidrosis in medical term (as researched by Dr Frederick Thomas Zugibe one of the United States' most prominent forensics experts). So having the human nature Jesus won't have said to the Roman soldiers, 'Good job, keep beating me' or 'Wow, it's so nice to be suffering for the sins of the world', 'Hey don't stop I like the insults and the spitting.'

No, Biblical theology will tell us that Jesus was tired and could not carry his cross alone so the Roman Soldiers caught Simon the Cyrene to help him (Luke 23: 26). He experienced human suffering to the maximum on the road to Calvary. He must have wrestled with the thought of forgiveness and love as taught to his disciples, as he faced the cruelty of life that day.

Jesus demonstrated and epitomised his teaching by his action that forgiveness is a matter of the will and not that of emotion. It was very difficult but not impossible. Jesus decided to let good conquer over evil (Romans 12: 17, 21) and said the famous statement, "Father forgive them because they do not know what they are doing" (Luke Luke 23: 34)

Deacon Stephen followed the example of Jesus Christ when he was stoned to death (Acts 7: 59-60). Observing the examples set before him, William Blake said, "The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness."

CS Lewis said, "Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive." He goes on to say that even if a person is absolutely fully to blame we still have to forgive him; and even if ninety-nine per cent of his apparent guilt can be explained away by really good excuses, the problem of forgiveness begins with the one per cent guilt which is left over. To excuse what can really produce good excuses is not Christian character; it is only fairness. "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you."

This is hard, he says, "It is perhaps not so hard to forgive a single great injury. But to forgive the incessant provocations of daily life—to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son—how can we do it?" "Only, I think", he says, "by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night 'forgive our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us.' We are offered forgiveness on no other terms.

To refuse it is to refuse God's mercy for ourselves. There is no hint of exceptions and God means what He says." He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every human being has need to be forgiven. Agnes Mary White Sanford (Regarded as the principal founder of the Inner Healing Movement) said that as we practice the work of forgiveness we discover more and more that forgiveness and healing are one.

Forgiveness is human being's deepest need and highest achievement. Are you truly free? Life lived without forgiveness and love becomes a prison.

to be continued....