Forgiveness in the Light of GRACE

Matthew 6:14-15 (CEV)
¹⁴  If you forgive others for the wrongs they do to you, your Father in heaven will forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Ephesians 4:32 (Living Bible)
³² Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God has forgiven you because you belong to Christ.

 We know that forgiveness is very important to God. It was the ultimate act of forgiveness when He gave His only Son to die on the CROSS so our sins could be forgiven. For many of us who grew up in church, some of our earliest memories are teachings about the importance of forgiving those who had hurt us or done wrong to us. At the end of each of those teachings would come this warning…” If you don’t forgive, your heavenly Father will not forgive you.” These are red-letter words, meaning Jesus said them. As children, the scripture could invoke a sense of fear – especially when we found it was hard to forgive. Scripturally, however, that was not the end of the story.

When reading Ephesians 4:32 (see above), the tone seems to shift dramatically. What happened to take us from “you must do it, or else” to “you can do this”? The CROSS happened! Sometimes, believers don’t realize that even in the New Testament there was a period of time during Jesus’ life (before His death) when the Law was still in effect.  To rightly divide the Word (to understand what the scriptures mean), we must differentiate between life before the CROSS and life after the CROSS.

Before the CROSS man was still living under the Law. The Law placed demands on man that had to be met for him to be right before God.  The Ten Commandments reflected that; the majority of the them started out, “You must not or You shall not….”  The whole point of the Law was to show man his need of God. Keeping all 600+ laws was impossible. The three-year ministry of Jesus was spent reinforcing that fact and pointing to a new way – the only way – that would be found in Him.

Jesus did what no man could do. He kept the Law perfectly, thereby meeting the demands God had placed on man. (Matthew 5:17) When He died on the CROSS, the fulfillment of the Law was transferred to man when he accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord of his life. Therefore, the demand for man’s obedience to the Law was replaced with God’s supply to enable man to obey. Under the Law forgiveness was demanded – do it or God would not forgive. After the CROSS, which ushered in the Dispensation of GRACE, God still requires us to forgive.  But we don’t have to forgive in our own strength, we can draw on God’s GRACE to enable us to do what we cannot do by ourselves.

What does that mean for us practically? It means no more condemnation (Romans 8:1), no more torment – wanting to forgive but thinking we can’t get past the emotions of the hurt. Forgiveness is a choice not an emotion. Philippians 2:13 tells us how God gets us past the emotions.  It says: “¹³ Yes, it is God who is working in you. He helps you want to do what pleases Him, and He gives you the power to do it.”  What is our part? We stop trying to forgive through our own efforts and instead trust God to help us do it through His power. That is GRACE, and it is indeed amazing!

12/23