The Power of Forgiveness (Forgiveness Series 23)

Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it foregoes revenge, and dares to forgive an injury. – Chapin

A brave man thinks no one his superior who does him an injury; for he has it then in his power to make himself superior to the other by forgiving it. – Pope

Ennobling Forgiveness: Forgiver, Like God

Forgiveness elevates a mortal to the realms of God.  That is the sense in which, as attributed to Plautus the Roman playwright, it is said, “To err is human, to forgive, divine”; and, according to Winter, that “It is manlike to punish but godlike to forgive.”  As giver is inherently greater than receiver, and as the hand that gives is normally over and above the receiving hand, so is ‘for-GIVER’ greater than trespasser.  In that light, an offender merely subsumes themselves under those against whom they sin and from whom they must receive forgiveness.

To heal a man, Jesus once had to first apply the therapy of forgiveness.  When the Scribes, His theological opponents, heard that, they took Him on at once, charging Him with blasphemy for making Himself ‘equal with God’ by arrogating to Himself the power to forgive.  They queried, “Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? WHO can forgive sins but GOD ONLY?” (Mark 2:7).  In their malice, however, they acknowledged the profound truth that only God can forgive; that forgiveness is the prerogative of the divine, not mortals; that one acts God when one forgives; that forgiveness equates one with God; that it ennobles and upgrades a mortal to the realms of God; that the forgiver is greater than the one whom they forgive.

If to forgive is to walk by the higher laws of God; if forgiveness lifts one above the realms and limits of mere mortals, the reverse is no less true, that they become devils who cannot forgive, that the opposite spirit of bitterness not only binds the soul but casts it down the dark sepulchral bottoms of the mundane.  Forgiveness ennobles and deifies, the opposite spirit demonizes.

Forgiveness Legally Empowers to Move Mountains

Forgiveness not only elevates one to the realms of God, it empowers with the very energy of God; it grants right of access to spiritual authority.  Jesus taught His followers that law in the following passage:

23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed …  he shall have whatsoever he saith.

25 And when ye stand praying [the prayer to remove ‘this mountain’], forgive … (Mark 11:22-25).

Reading that, I wondered what forgiveness had to do with having faith and moving a mountain, until my eyes opened up to the mystery.  I had been invited to speak at a conference in South Africa, on the authority of the believer.  Mark chapter 11 came up naturally as an appropriate scripture.  While studying that passage on moving mountains, I suddenly realized that verse 25 on forgiveness was part of the same paragraph as the preceding verses on exercising divine authority to move a mountain.   What is the connection?

This is what that passage said to me: “You may command the mountain to go off, and it will, but ‘when’ you stand to pray that prayer to drive off the mountain, ensure that you yourself do not have a mountain of offence in your path.”  In other words, forgiveness is what grants that right to move mountains.  So, moving mountains in not entirely a matter of ‘faith’ as we preach it; there is also the aspect of harmony with neighbours.  Spiritual authority is not only vertical, coming from God to mortals; it is also horizontal, deriving from the life one lives with others. The Bible defines effective prayer not merely in terms of its ‘fervency’ but especially in terms of the “righteous” (or virtuous horizontal) lifestyle of the one praying the prayers (James 5:16).  Apostle Peter was hinting at the same principle when he advised husbands thus, himself being one:

… Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered (1 Peter 3:7, New Living Translation).

In other words, getting answers to prayers will come not only from saying the right words; it will also come from living the right life on the horizontal axis, especially with one’s spouse.  In further words, there is power not only in the right rituals but also in right living.  In fact, the power in prayer comes more from the rightness of the lifestyle of the praying person than from the rightness of the liturgy.  This means that there is a spiritual dimension in the apparently ‘mundane’ sphere of social relationship.

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight (Proverbs 15:8).

The right to move a mountain resides in us, not in the ‘stubborn’ mountain or some other antagonist aligned to the mountain.  The implication, ironically, is that the forces and sentiments in us that sponsor conflicts and hinder reconciliation are actually enemy forces determined to weaken us more than they are an avenue of ‘getting at’ the other.  They diminish from us the right to exercising the power we should have exercised.   When the Enemy of our soul cannot directly attack us, he creates conditions of strife at the horizontal level, which block our right and access to vertical spiritual authority.

We lack the power to talk to mountains when we cannot talk to our brother.  The vertical right to removing mountains comes also from horizontal harmony with mortals.  Access to that place where one can stand to confront mountains is from forgiveness dispensed.  The implication, in the reverse, is that to carry resentment against others is to often face insurmountable mountains.

Activating the Earth Realm

In Matthew chapter 18, Jesus teaches elaborately about offences and faults, about forgiveness and cordial relations.  Verse 18 in that chapter is on the earthly activation of heavenly power.  It says that one can acquire power on earth that Heaven will honour; that one can gain a voice on earth that God on high will hear:

Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matthew 18:18).

This section on power (v.18) is sandwiched between a section on forgiveness and another on resolving a “trespass” or “fault” with a “brother.”  Again here, one cannot move mountains while nursing offences in the heart, and Heaven does not hear the voice of those who hoard earthly rancour.  One cannot arrive at verse 18 who skips verses 15 and 17; one cannot jump into the presence of God (v.20) who ignores peace with other humans (vv15-17).  In other words, horizontal concord for the exercise of vertical authority.

Again I say unto you, That if two of you [horizontal] shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven [vertical] (Matthew 18:19).

The principle of agreement in prayer is commonly acknowledged by intercessors; that Heaven will endorse when earthly teams agree.  However, the heavenly endorsement comes only to the one who has sought horizontal concord.  In other words, they cannot properly exercise heavenly authority who disregard earthly harmony.

Going back to Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 18, the fact that the verses on spiritual power and attraction of the presence of God (verses 18 – 20) are sandwiched between verses on forgiveness and harmony with fellow humans suggests that much spiritual power resides in harmony with others.  All the power we need to be sustained on the earth will not come from the vertical spiritual realm; some of it is in our relations on the mundane human realm.  All the power we need to move the earth will not come from how we relate with God on high, some of it has been coded by the Divine in how we live with other mortals here below.  The lesson to learn is that there is as much spirituality in secular relations as there might be in ecclesiastical rituals, and that spiritual authority is more properly sustained in the atmosphere of harmony with neighbours (Psalm 133:1-3).

Accessing Personal Forgiveness

According to the teachings of Jesus, nobody deserves personal forgiveness who has not given others forgiveness.  Unless we forgive others, we do not qualify to request forgiveness from God.  We have to be ‘God’ to our offenders, forgiving their sins, before God can be God to us, forgiving our sins (Mark 11:25-26).  It means that the forgiveness we grant another is what grants us access to receive forgiveness from God; that the forgiveness we dispense is the ‘deposit’ we make into the heavenly account for the personal ‘withdrawals’ that we will make in future.  Forgiveness is seed sown in another’s soil for one’s own future harvest.

When your Enemy Blesses You

At one of our fellowship meetings recently, a brother told a story about a sister.  That sister was in a bus; she paid her fare, but the bus conductor got very nasty with her.  He insulted her severely for giving him what he considered a crumpled note.  She never lost her cool for all the verbal assault.  When she got off the bus, a young man got off with her.  He wanted to know what gave her the power to not answer back.  How could she endure and forgive such provocation from such a low character?  She said that she was a Christian.  Jesus had transformed her.  He also was a Christian.  He got interested in her.  They exchanged contact details, and three months later, they were husband and wife.  Her forgiveness gave her a husband in a very unexpected place in the most unlikely circumstances.   Similar stories abound, on earthly gains made from respecting heavenly laws.

I watched a documentary recently.  A young man in the United States of America had been sentenced to death for killing a man.  The trial took years.  In jail, the killer found Jesus as Saviour.  He realised then that he needed pardon from the family whose father and husband he had killed.  He wrote a letter.  He admitted to the crime, he apologised, he was sorry for the pains he had caused the family, he was ready to die for his crime.  The widow of the murdered man got the letter.  She was very touched.  She also was a Christian, too.  She began a community effort to get the killer a parole.  On the day he was to die, just a few minutes before his execution, a letter came: he was free to go.   Today, he is friends with the family he had bereaved; the same family that forgave him and gave him back his life for a second chance.  What set him free was his choice to say, “I am sorry.  I acknowledge my transgressions.”  Everyone is made or unmade by the choices they make.

In the story of the woman in the bus, someone gave forgiveness and got the blessing of a husband; in the other story about the killer in jail, someone asked forgiveness and got the greater blessing of life.  God’s prescriptions are true.  They still work for those who put them to work.  Forgiveness is power.

The story is told in the Holy Bible of the repeated ‘opportunities’ that the young David had, to take his revenge on a boss who had tried several times to kill him (1 Samuel 26:6-11).  David would not do it.  At last, his posture paid off.  The same king who had cursed him severely, who had been out to kill him, blessed him, implicitly conceding the throne to the young man.  That was the power of forgiveness.

21 Then Saul said, “I have sinned. Come back, David my son. Because you considered my life precious today …

25 Then Saul said to David, “May you be blessed, my son David; you will do great things and SURELY triumph“ (1 Samuel 26:21-25, NIV).

When an enemy blesses you, the blessing can be very potent.  Here was where Saul sealed David’s place on the throne: the incumbent blessing the incoming.  Heaven endorsed those words.  It was the power and blessedness of forgiveness.

The Fire of Forgiveness

You are stronger than the one whom you forgive.  It takes the better and stronger to give, and the lesser and poorer to receive.  According to Hebrews 7:7, the giver is, “without all contradiction,” the better, and the receiver the lesser.  Habitual offenders are poor in soul, no matter the gold chariots they ride in.  They demean themselves as needy of pardon, even if they are too proud to ask for it (Proverbs 16:32).  Forgiveness is like fire that the giver pours upon the undeserving (Romans 12:20).  What does fire do?  It burns.  Fire is no ice cream.  In other words, forgiveness could be a weapon against an enemy, which is why you are stronger than whom you forgive.  You bring fear upon them because they are unsure of your next move.  Forgiveness makes you to be feared (Psalm 130:4).  Not only fights are an expression of power; forgiveness also is.  If you have not yet won by a fight, try the weapon of forgiveness, and let God take it over from there.

Culled from chapter 13 of the book Forgiveness by The Preacher (pp 187-197)