Forgive as forgiven
Releasing the debt
Paul ties our forgiving of others directly to God's forgiving of us: bearing with one another and forgiving each other; if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive as the Lord forgave you. The standard and the source of our forgiveness is the forgiveness we have received. We forgive others not by working up the willpower, but by drawing on the vast forgiveness God has poured out on us.
This is the engine of a forgiving heart. The person who knows themselves to be greatly forgiven finds it possible — not easy, but possible — to forgive others, because they are passing on what they have received. The person who has not grasped the depth of their own forgiveness, by contrast, holds tightly to others' debts, demanding a payment they themselves were excused from making. As Jesus' parable warned, the servant forgiven an unpayable debt who then throttled a fellow servant over a tiny one had forgotten what he had been spared.
Forgiveness is the release of a debt — the deliberate letting go of the claim we have against someone who has wronged us, refusing to make them pay. It is among the most Christlike things we ever do, and among the hardest, but it flows naturally from a heart that remembers its own forgiveness. Whom are you still requiring to pay a debt that God, at infinite cost, has forgiven you? Forgive as you have been forgiven.
“Bearing with one another, and forgiving each other; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do.”
— Paul, to the Colossians — Colossians 3:13 (WEB)
Forgive others as you have been forgiven — releasing their debt by drawing on the vast forgiveness God has poured out on you, not by sheer willpower.
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”
We try to forgive by gritted-teeth willpower and find we cannot let the wrong go, because we have forgotten the depth of our own forgiveness. The interior work is to locate the engine of forgiveness where Paul does — in the forgiveness we have received — so that we forgive by passing on what was poured out on us, remembering, like the servant in the parable, the unpayable debt we were spared.
This week, take a wrong you have been unable to release, and forgive it from the right source: dwell first on the depth of God's forgiveness of you, then deliberately release the other's debt, refusing to require the payment you were yourself excused from making.
The enemy works to keep you forgetting how much you were spared, because a forgetful heart clutches every offense and demands a payment it was itself excused from making. But the soul that remembers the size of its own pardon can release what it holds — and forgiving as it has been forgiven, it loosens a grip that would otherwise have poisoned it through every cherished wrong.
We often try to forgive others by sheer willpower, gritting our teeth to release a wrong, and find we cannot quite let it go. Paul points to the real engine of forgiveness: forgive as the Lord forgave you. We forgive not by manufacturing the strength, but by drawing on the vast forgiveness we have already received from God, passing on what was poured out on us.
This explains why some find forgiveness possible and others impossible. The soul that has truly grasped the depth of its own forgiveness can release others' debts, because it remembers being released from an infinitely greater one. The soul that has forgotten what it was spared clutches others' offenses, demanding a payment it was itself excused from making. Forgiveness is the deliberate release of a debt, refusing to make the wrongdoer pay. Whom are you still requiring to pay what God, at infinite cost, has forgiven you? Forgive as you have been forgiven.
- Do I try to forgive by willpower rather than from the forgiveness I've received?
- Have I forgotten the depth of my own forgiveness?
- Whom am I requiring to pay a debt God has forgiven me?
Lord, I try to forgive by willpower and fail, because I forget how much I have been forgiven. Let me draw on the vast mercy you poured out on me, and forgive others as you forgave me, releasing the debts I have been clutching. Amen.