FORGIVENESS – Series 9 Part 2

Licensed Offenders: Dogs and Swine

Preachers – and I have been one of those – have often addressed forgiveness from the angle of the transgressed person who should be magnanimous with forgiveness so that they are not shut out of Heaven.  We have not equally restrained the habitual offender from their ‘right’ to offend.  My engagement with this subject has taught me that even though a transgressed righteous person might dispense forgiveness for the sake of their righteousness, there is as much responsibility, if not more, on the offender in resolving conflicts and achieving peace.

Dealing with the characteristic offender who would never repent yet demands forgiveness, is reminiscent of the danger against which Matthew 7:6 warns; the danger of wasting treasures on cantankerous dogs and habitually filth-seeking ravenous grunting and aggressive swine.  Forgivers who deal with such characters need to guard themselves with the consciousness that they are dealing not with strayed sheep and recuperating prodigal sons but with ungrateful dogs and pernicious pigs; that they are dealing with determined rebels rather than with unfortunate prodigals.  An African proverb says, “He who forgives ends the quarrel.”  Sadly, it is not always so; not with aggressors who are vampires after the very soul of the righteous forgiver.  Such dogs will find other causes for newer fights.  Mind what you give to them; even in forgiving, mind how you relate with them.

Confess Whose Sins?

Confession, yes; but if what a person chooses to confess is their rightness and their rights, rather than their “sins,” they could win a case but lose forgiveness.  The matter could be worse if what they ‘confess’ is the other person’s ‘faults’ rather than their own “sins.”  The writ is: “If we confess OUR sins …” not THEIR sins ….   The issue, therefore, is not in winning an argument, it is in winning back a lost or threatened relationship; or at least, winning back one’s peace.  For true resolution, every mouth should:

• confess its errors rather than its rights to err,
• confess sins rather than excuses that blame the sin on someone or something else,
• confess its own sins, not another’s.

Confess to Whom?

Confession is more effective when it is made directly to the offended or trespassed person rather than to a proxy, unless in a case where that person cannot be reached.  If you slapped me but went to apologise to my dad or mom or husband when you could have reached me, you might be further accusing me, indirectly, of being adamantly unreachable, unless that person through whom the confession is routed was also joined in the offence.

3 Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him [before you proceed to publish it on social media]; and if he repent, forgive him.

4 And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again TO THEE [not to another], saying I repent; thou shalt forgive him (Luke 17:3-4).

Confession is not gossip; it should not be wasted on those who do not have the power to give the forgiveness that it demands.  In further clarification of what true confession should entail, the passage above is clear on:

1) who was trespassed against – “thee”

2) who should ask forgiveness – “thy brother,” the trespasser

3) from whom to ask the forgiveness – “thee,” the person trespassed against

4) who should forgive whom – “thee” forgive “thy brother.”

How not to Confess

Confession is important, but what one confesses and how one does it could change the whole scenario.  If you should use your mouth to ‘confess’ my sins instead of yours, you would seem to be indirectly arguing that I am the guilty one in need of your forgiveness, rather than you being the one making the application for forgiveness.  When you ‘confess’ my sins instead of yours, you put me in the dock, and assume to yourself the role of jury and judge, forcing me into the defensive.  I could fight back in more bitter ways.  When you ‘confess’ my sins to me or to others, you become my accuser, which restarts the fighter in me, even if merely in ‘self-defence.’  It changes the whole dynamics of the relationship from forgiver-offender to two fighters with no truce in sight.  In any proper court, accuser and accused do not take the witness box at the same time, and the one in the box does not pose questions to the judge; they take questions, and only plead guilty or not guilty.  Legal protocols.

Someone may confess their sin, yet do it so proudly that it had been better if they did not open their mouth to start the ‘apology.’  If you ‘confess’ your sin so proudly as if you were not to blame after all, it would appear that you were only seeking an opportunity by means of the ‘apology’ to state ‘your side’ of the story, or guilt the  other.  That won’t be a confession but a debate, or at best, a speech, if not also an indirect insult to injury.  Elbert Hubbard would say, “Reversing your treatment of the man you have wronged is better than asking his forgiveness.”  In other words, to ask forgiveness of someone whom you make no effort to stop offending, is an error.  The act of asking forgiveness implies or should imply a readiness to amend the ways that cause the offence.  That should be the case, unless one was being hypocritical, masking with goodly ‘public’ words merely to make an impression or win sympathy.  Words mean little from a heart that will not change.

Too big to Confess or Forgive

True confession of sin is an implicit penitent admission of guilt, which is why the incorrigible proud person might not wish to say that they are sorry, as they never agree that they have done anything wrong.  Such toxic arrogance keeps one fettered down, denying them forgiveness.  They hardly change who are slow to admit their error.  They get less and less help who often refuse correction.  It is hard to help anyone who habitually defends their ‘weakness.’  It is self-destructive pride to be hard to admit faults.  None repents from a fault they won’t admit.

Not only will there be people too proud to repent, there will also be people too proud or too pained to forgive.  By not forgiving, however, they also deny themselves forgiveness notwithstanding their known pain.  Then, numberless sacrifices and ‘confessions’ to God and to priests become futile in procuring their own forgiveness (Matthew 6:12 and 14; Mark 11:26).  Forgiveness is like a currency; it never comes to those who hoard it.  They cannot receive forgiveness who do not give it.  The forgiveness you give to others is the receipt you need to claim yours from God.

In Genesis 50:17, trespassers as eminent as “servants of the God of thy father” did not feel too tall to stoop to request forgiveness.  Are ‘servants of God’ infallible?  Do they also trespass?  Should they ask forgiveness from an offended person not as eminent as they?  Those brothers of Joseph teach us many great lessons.  Joseph himself did not feel too hurt to hear the offenders, neither did he consider himself too eminent in Egypt to give audience to those ancestral immigrant offenders with whom, we might have said, divine justice had caught up at last.