The Gravity of Forgiveness

For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions (Matthew 6:14-15).

Salvation does not exist outside of forgiveness. That is the whole idea behind repentance, as it functions as the means to forgiveness. In the text above, Jesus makes it very clear that you get what you give or you do not get what you need.

In Matthew 22, Jesus said that fulfilling “all the Law and the Prophets” depends upon loving God and your neighbor (Matthew 22:34-40). Loving upwards and loving sideways. Receiving and bestowing. Getting and giving.

Forgiveness is something that Christians only seem to begrudgingly acknowledge or practice. We want it when we need it, but hold fast to it when it’s our turn to grant it. There is an obvious reason: it feels good to need it and get it, but it pains us to give it to those who have hurt us.

Maybe this dichotomy is caused by a lack of understanding of what forgiveness is. When we receive it perhaps we feel we just got off the proverbial hook and breathe a sigh of relief. That would seem to explain why we are so uncomfortable giving it. We don’t really want our transgressor to get off so lightly. Rules for thee but not for me.

What really is the biblical doctrine of forgiveness?

Before I deign to answer that question, two things are needed for context. First, what forgiveness does not mean, and second, what sin does to us that requires the need for it.

What forgiveness does not mean.

1) Forgiveness isn’t pretending that we haven’t been wronged and hurt. When Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do as He was being crucified (Luke 23:34), He wasn’t asking the Father to ignore the cruelty and injustice of what was being done to Him.

Isn’t this a big reason why we don’t like to forgive? We think that we’re sending the message to our tormentors that what they have done to us is of little consequence. Wrong.

2) Forgiveness isn’t asking God to disregard what evil has done to us. Stephen’s last words, as he was being murdered by the corrupt religious leaders, were, Lord, do not hold this sin against them (Acts 7:60). Asking God not to punish them for the sin of murder is not the same thing as asking Him to pretend it didn’t happen.

3) Forgiveness is not absolving your transgressor of sin. Only God can do that.

What sin does.

Sin does two things, and it does them to us simultaneously. First, it puts us immediately on death watch (Genesis 2:17; Romans 6:23). Physical, emotional, and spiritual corruption are in the future for those who sin. It’s the rule: the wages of sin is death. There is no subverting it or getting around it for any sinner.

Second, sin creates space (distance) between the sinner and God. Adam and Eve were immediately driven out of the Garden of Eden upon sinning (Genesis 3:24). Jesus warned that unrepentant sinners would be cast into outer darkness (Matthew 8:12; 22:13). The Apostle John wrote that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). Consequently, outer darkness implies an unfathomable distance from God.

Now, what is forgiveness?

Forgiveness is giving your debtor/transgressor time.

When you have been wronged, you would like to see instant justice. Forgiveness is giving someone time to be convicted (by the Holy Spirit) and to repent. Both debtors in the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:23-35 begged for time (Have patience with me). And that is really what stings so much about forgiveness. Why should I give you time when you have taken it from me? Transgressors take away good times and replace them with pain, frustration, and heartache. Why give them time when they have taken yours?

Because God has given you just that: time. Every second since Jesus was crucified has been a divine gift of time. In 2 Peter 3, the apostle addressed scoffers who would mock the unfulfilled promise of the return of Christ. He said God was holding off on sending Jesus back for one reason: He is giving sinners time to repent.

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Forgiveness is shortening the distance between your transgressor and God.

As I pointed out above, sin creates distance between the sinner and God. Without repentance, that distance keeps increasing. When you forgive someone, you are asking God not to let what was done to you create an insurmountable distance between them and God. You are, in effect, standing in the gap that your antagonist has created between himself and both God and you.

Maybe, more than anything else, this is what Jesus meant when He told us to “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27). The hardest person to stand in the sin gap for is the person who has hurt you. “May your sin against me not have eternal consequences.” That is both forgiveness and love.

Physicists tell us that Einstein’s theory of special relativity posits that the fabric of the known physical universe is spacetime. Gravity is the only thing that significantly alters it. Isn’t it interesting that in the biblical revelation of the spiritual universe, space and time play such a pivotal role, and the only thing that significantly alters our own spiritual spacetime is forgiveness. Gravity and forgiveness. Who knew how closely related they are?

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