Last night, our youth discussed the benefits of forgiveness. Many see forgiveness as beneficial, but not to the person who has been wronged. What they fail to see, however, is that withholding forgiveness is as much if not more detrimental to the sufferer. Lewis B. Smedes, a former professor of theology and ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, once said, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that prisoner was you.”Jesus had a lot to say about the importance of forgiving others. He asserts, “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:14-15). He also says, “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11:25). When commenting on these verses, Wayne Grudem states, “Our Lord does not have in mind the initial experience of forgiveness we know when we are justified by faith, for that would not belong in a prayer that we pray every day. He refers rather to the day-by-day relationship with God that we need to have restored when we have sinned and displeased him” (Systematic Theology, pp. 386).
Jesus also affirms that our forgiveness of others should precede our request for forgiveness from God. In Matthew 6:12, Jesus instructs his followers to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” According to Grudem, “If there are those whom we have not forgiven when we pray this prayer, then we are asking God not to restore a right relationship with us after we sin, in just the same way as we have refused to do so with others” (Ibid).
Although a right relationship with God is a biblical motivator for forgiveness, a believer must also forgive to properly represent God to others. Paul asserts in Colossians 3:13, “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” What better way to demonstrate who God is and what he has done then by forgiving others and restoring broken relationships?
