The ability to forgive is not just a nice character trait for a believer to have. It is at the essence of what God expects in our lives. The Lord made this plain when Peter asked Him how many times he should forgive someone who had sinned against him. The Lord’s amazing answer is found in Matthew 18:22:
Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”
One day a student at the school where I was came in and found a member of our college family committing adultery with the student’s wife. The student looked that adulterer in the eye and forgave him on the spot. I thought at the time that I would have probably decked the one who had sinned against him. The example of what that student did that day has been a constant reminder that this is what the Lord was saying.
Joseph had the chance to make his brothers pay for what they had done to him. When that day came, he forgave his brothers and indicated that what they had done was part of God’s plan to enable Joseph to do a much greater good for the world.
That kind of forgiveness is easy to talk about, but it is another matter when wrong is done to us and we feel we must right the wrong. Jesus does not ask us to right the wrong. He asks us to forgive. I think there must be a place for righteous anger, but it must be supplemented by righteous forgiveness. When people lie about us, we want the world to know that what was said was a lie. Jesus says that we should let the world know that we forgave the lie. We must let God take care of the lie.
The lesson that the world sees when we forgive is that Christ forgave us. It is our testimony to the world of what God has done and Who God is. Jesus told a parable to Peter that day when Petert asked this important question. In that lesson the servant failed to forgive another person after his master had forgiven him. The Lord then said to the servant:
"So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses."
When the Lord taught His Disciples the Lord ’s Prayer, he spoke concerning the statement in the prayer on forgiveness. He said:
Mt 6:12 And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.
Mt 6:14 "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
Mt 6:15 "But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
This is a hard lesson. Does it mean that our salvation is based on our forgiveness? No. The Lord is saying that we forgive because we have been forgiven. If we don’t forgive, then we don’t know what forgiveness is. Our salvation is based on our forgiveness by God. If we understand that, then we will be people who forgive. And, according to Jesus, we will be ready to forgive 490 times.
That number is used to show us that we will forgive more times than we can conceive. It really is expressing the fact that we will forgive as many times as it takes for the person to see the forgiveness of God that is available to all people.
A friend of mine was chagrinned and hurt by the adultery his father had committed. He could not forgive his father for the hurt that man had inflicted on his son. Years later this son stood at the grave of his father and told his father that he forgave him. That was not an easy thing to do, but the burden the son was carrying was lifted and for the first time in many years, he was free.
