FORGIVENESS
TEXT: Matthew 18.21-35

Forgiveness is an act and attribute of God, and so, it’s a requirement for us humans, for we bear his image and likeness and especially for Christians because they must be conformed to his nature. When God says we must be perfect as he is, he means we must exhibit mercy and forgiveness, which are the core elements of unconditional love explained in Matthew 5.43-48. God loves us warts and all, and should he consider our every fault and shortcoming, nobody will stand justified. (Psalm 130.3). As he does, we have to forgive, no matter the gravity of the offence done to us. Failure to do so on the part of any human will incur the other side of him, and this means no pardon or clemency for our sins too.

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18.21-35) clearly illustrates that God has first shown us mercy and pardon by sending our Lord Jesus Christ to us to take away our sins through his blood and be reconciled to him. (Colossians 1.20). We were being viewed afar off before after being thrust out of the garden of Eden with no way back in. (Ephesians 2.13; Genesis 3.22-24). As such, he expects that as he has forgiven us, we must forgive, or else our sins remain. The eventual fate of the unforgiving servant was a recall of his debts and avoidable destruction of his soul, as it will happen to people that refuse to forgive and let go. In same parable, it’s demonstrated that the offence that anybody can do to us can’t be anything relative to what we have done to God and still do to him.

Lastly, according to the parable, even the fact that the wrong is repeated against us countless times is not enough reason not to forgive. Peter asked how many times he would have to forgive. Our Lord Jesus Christ mentioned 490 times. Anybody will have lost count long before then. In other words, Jesus Christ meant countless times.

Forgiveness aims at some FOUR pursuits required of us Christians and that we shall consider subsequently.

1. Striving to be at peace with everyone
To see God and reign with him in his kingdom to come, we are faced with a requirement, as mentioned in Hebrews 12.14, apart from holiness, and that is peaceful neighborliness. In our neighborhoods, parishes and workplaces, we must NOT be known to bear grudges and cause strife. As a Christian striving to measure up to the full stature of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must eschew anything that will draw us into the centre of disquiet and troubles. Tangentially, as well as poking nose into the affairs of others, gossiping or revealing other people’s secrets for example can split up the best of friends. (Proverbs 16.28). But if by any means, we get hurt by people’s actions, as should be expected, we must endeavor to forgive and be at peace with them. By implication, we stand to benefit too. Part of the outcome of forgiving others is that we achieve inner peace because the resentment, capable of unsettling our emotional balance, that we felt each time we set our eyes on them or remembered the wrong will have been gone.

2. Showing love and mercy
God on the one hand chose to forgive Nineveh, the capital city of the then Assyrian empire, Israel’s deadly enemy, and so demonstrated to Jonah his non-discriminatory love to humanity. God saw no reason not to forgive the people of the city since they had shown repentance. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit…” (Psalm 51.17). Jonah on the other hand was selfish, seeking to hog God’s love and mercy for himself and Israel only. He had refused to go deliver God’s message in the first instance because he knew God would show mercy afterall. (Jonah 3.10, 4.1-2). To replicate God’s nature, we must not select whom to forgive or show mercy and love to. Our show of love must be no respecter of persons or be based on how kind or close the offender has been to us. Forgiveness gives room for love and shows mercy. And of course it is a forgiving person that deserves clemency from God. (Matthew 5.7).

3. Not keeping record of wrongs
A Christain should have no diary of the wrongs done to him or her in his or her obligatory show of neighborly love. (1 Corithians 13.5). Paul admonishes that in malice we should be like children but in understanding as adults. (1 Corithians 14.20). He means that children easily forgive each other and forget each other’s offences. After whatever seems like a break-up in one moment, we see them playing together again in the next. They just don’t have the hearts for keeping malice. And it’s that striking attribute of forgiveness in children our Lord Jesus Christ points out in Matthew 19.14 when he asserts that the kingdom of heaven is meant for their kind. Again, in his exemplary life and at the point of death he had to forgive his persecutors instantly even when he was freshly smarting from the gruesome treatment in the hands of his own people. (Luke 23.33-34). Holding the offence against them till he gave up the ghost would have dealt a fatal blow to the mission of salvation to humanity. Refusal to forgive people is a two-edged sword that cuts both ways. Our not forgiving others puts them in bondage, and so are we too in captivity: it is when we let go of them that we too are free to make progress. In other words, we’re doing ourselves a lot of good forgiving others: as they are free, we too are. To put it more specifically, if a wrong of betrayal, etc, done to us still rankles in our minds and our anger still smokes against the offender, he or she can be suffering from continued afflictions directly linked to our not forgiving him or her yet. But the bad news is that as long as the offender remains under the yoke, doors won’t be opening for us too. As such, it must be that the rule about forgiveness is fixedly encoded in natural law that has been designed by God since the creation of the world.

4. Not seeking revenge
Yet another pursuit of forgiveness is to do away with the possibility of paying evil with evil. Now that we’ve forgiven our debtors or offenders and are at peace with them, we don’t think evil against them or wish them mishaps. As part of God’s expectations that we be like him, we are to do good to those who do not mean well for us and pray for those that mistreat us. (Matthew 5.43-48). That way, our righteousness will exceed the standards set by the world. The righteousness of the world for example doesn’t pass the limits that we love those who love us and hate those who hate us. However, the Word of God says unless our righteousness passes such limits, we cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (Matthew 5.20.)

By the way, God has the prerogative right over revenge, so we humans shouldn’t dabble into it but defer it to him. (Deuteronomy 32.35). When we pay back evil, we make ourselves equal with the offender, so that both the offender and we become evil doers. Even one Yoruba aphorism says “Eyan da mi, emi na da; odale di meji.” When we pay back a traitor in his own coin, both the traitor and we are traitors. Hence, to avoid sharing in the sin of the wrong doer, we should forgive so the need for vengeance can be obviated.

Conclusion
On a final note, it can be obviously deduced that forgiving others is in our own interest, an incontrovertible fact that confirms God’s Word that his commandments are not grievous; all, including forgiveness, have been designed to favor us afterall. (1 John 5.3). We should therefore focus on the blessing of forgiveness and not on its inconvenience, the latter of which can be gotten over with time. It can prove hard at first especially when we’ve been deeply hurt, and so in the event that we can’t bring ourselves to do it, we pray to God for the peace that passes all understanding. God will surely grant us that and the ease with which to forgive and let go especially when he sees our sincerity of purpose. Needless I add that an unforgiving spirit is an evil spirit tormenting the carrier and dragging his soul to Hell Fire. In that case, a person seeing himself or herself unable to forgive others and ensuring he or she pays back whatever wrong done to him or her must seek deliverance as vigorously as somone with a familiar spirit does. And this is strictly personal: unless the carrier sincerely seeks to be delivered and makes studied effort in that regard with unceasing personal prayer, nothing can be done even with intervention from prayer intercessors.