On forgiveness. (Part 4)

On forgiveness

Part 4: Only God can mend the damage done when we do wrong

Thus, the forgiveness we seek is a restoration of our relationship with God. I think that, from God’s point of view, our relationship with him can never be broken, but from our point of view, we experience our sins as a gulf opening up between us and him – and this gulf can become, to us, an unbridgeable chasm – though never to God. As we mentioned, when we do something wrong, it cannot be undone. How then can things ever be “put right”? It is this most wonderful ability to put things right that is one of God’s qualities that makes him to be God. We can use images of a sullied or spoilt or damaged prized possession. Or a relationship that has been broken. Or an experience ruined. What is done cannot be undone. But with God, he has the ability to restore and heal, to reconcile and redeem, to purify and to bless. This is what we are seeking when we seek forgiveness. It is not simply the undoing of a wrong action, a futile desire to turn the clock back, or to pretend that nothing has gone wrong. Instead, the wrongness somehow gets built into a stronger, more vibrant, more expansive, more resilient, more joyful future life, rather than being a sin like a weight around your neck, or a heavy regret in your heart that can never be let go of. (This is why Paul had to give guidance that we mustn’t think that this wonderful restorative power of God means that we should sin more so that we can enjoy more forgiveness.) Nevertheless, the forgiveness that God offers is like setting off on a wonderful new journey without a care in the world. And it is this joyful freedom that makes forgiveness so precious. We desire it so that we may return to following God’s way, untroubled by our weaknesses and failures, because we our recipients of God’s grace – and we rely on his grace, paying attention to that, rather than to our failures.

I realise that my preoccupation with my relationship with God may have led me into a new error. It is clear from how I am writing about forgiveness (and this was not crystal clear till after I wrote it) that my focus in forgiveness is on restoring my relationship with God. Is this a selfish preoccupation? Wouldn’t a cleverer – or more spiritually deep – person have focussed on forgiveness as reconciliation with the person whom I have harmed, so that they are the one who is elevated by my act of seeking forgiveness? This would certainly have made me look better. Hmn… I believe I have emphasized the importance of reconciliation and of making amends with and to the person I have harmed. I do not belittle that. However, my primary relationship in my life is the one that I have with God. It is a peculiarity (but one which I think expresses a deep truth) of seeking forgiveness that it involves a devotional declaration along the lines of, “Against you only Lord have I sinned!”. This seems rather unfair when there is a particular person or persons who can present themselves, “Actually, it was me that he was cruel or uncaring to!”. However, I think it is true that in every situation of sinning against a person, we are also sinning against God, and it is not unfair to give this priority. Until the relationship with God is restored, there is no grace to repair the relationship with the persons whom we have harmed.