FORGIVENESS: PIERCING THE SOURCE

Matthew 6:12-14, “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father forgives your trespasses.”

All of us struggle with forgiveness. We know it as a Christian principle in our lives because Jesus teaches it. We have to forgive people, and we have to expect people to forgive us and we have to forgive ourselves. All of us are in some kind of struggle to find people to forgive. We forgive people so that we are free and can walk in the power of God. In my entire ministry I realize I must forgive to stay pure, so I can have revelation.

At one point in my ministry, I realized that I had a wrong concept of forgiveness. The reason I forgave people is not because I have a great power from God, but because I am afraid, if I fall, I will not be forgiven.

Jesus said in the gospels that if we do not forgive others, He would not forgive us. When I used to think about forgiveness, I did not include justice in my concept of forgiveness. I thought God is grace and He forgives every one, and there is not really any justice.

What God showed me in a new way is that He forgives, but there is justice. Jesus explains it in the parable in Matthew 18:21-35. The king forgave the man who owed him a great deal of money, as he pleaded for mercy. He wiped out all the debt, as he was so moved by compassion. Forgiveness actually means to remove, to instigate, to revolt, and to be away through separation and departure. Some of us forgive, but we don’t instigate for the purpose of revolt, to bring a new thought through the impact by doing violence. That is what it means when the violent take the kingdom by force. You do something so violent that you instigate the revolt against human nature. To forgive is such a revolt against the law “an eye for an eye” and against myself and against that principle in my nature and I depart from what I am in the flesh.

In Matthew 18:27, we read, “Then the master of the servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.” The king forgives the servant who owes him ten thousand talents. Not only does he forgive him, but also he wipes away his entire debt as if it never existed. This is an illustration of what Jesus does. He does not have only patience waiting for the debt to be paid; He removes the debt forever and does not remember the debt.

The story continues and the forgiven servant now has an opportunity to forgive some one who owes him a hundred denarii. He refuses to forgive and puts the man in prison. When the master hears what happened, he becomes angry and takes the man that he had forgiven and throws him in prison, to the torturers until he pays the full amount.

When you look at the Bible, forgiveness under the old covenant was not the same as in the New Testament. There had to be an administrator to administer forgiveness. As David sinned with Bathsheba, God sent the prophet, Nathan, to receive forgiveness. It was not a mental forgiveness where you say a few words and then you are forgiven. It was much more involved where an act of violence had to be done by the shedding of blood to receive forgiveness. The first born of a herd of sheep or first born of an ox or first born of a ram had to be sacrificed before forgiveness could be received.

Jesus had to do the same. He had to die violently on the cross, shedding his blood, that we might have the power to forgive. That is why Jesus said that the violent shall take the kingdom by force.

In His Love,
      Sigi

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