God’s Forgiveness and Ours (1)

Ashbel Green

The answer we are considering concludes by saying that “we are the rather encouraged to ask” forgiveness from God “because, by His grace, we are enabled, from the heart, to forgive others”. If we examine the discourses and sayings of the Lord Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, we shall find that He often speaks of the duty of forgiving those who have offended or injured us. Let us therefore examine the nature of this duty carefully. Let us consider what it does not, and what it does, require.

1. It manifestly does not require that a man who has been offended or injured should be indifferent to the fact that this has happened. The duty of forgiveness necessarily implies that we know and feel that we have something to forgive. We ought indeed to be careful not to estimate an injury beyond its real magnitude, nor to dwell on it and think about it so as to inflame our minds, or fill them with angry or revengeful emotions. This is to be carefully avoided; yet we not only may, but should, be conscious of an offence or injury, when it has obviously been offered or inflicted.

2. We are not required to withhold from the offending party the knowledge or information that we consider he has done us wrong. On the contrary, it is a duty expressly enjoined by the Saviour to go to an offending brother and tell him his fault: first privately and then, if we do not obtain satisfaction, to take measures to have him censured and disciplined. But all this is to be done, not vindictively, but so as, if possible, to “gain our brother”; or, failing in this, to prevent the harm which might arise from his example.

3. Neither are we required to place confidence in someone who has given us unequivocal evidence of a disposition to injure us. We ought not to put ourselves in his power, so as to make him able to repeat the injury he has done to us or add to it. For this we have the warrant of the Saviour’s perfect example, who would “not commit Himself” to His enemies till He was fully prepared to terminate His mission by His death.

4. But our duty positively and necessarily requires us to be ready to be reconciled to an offender. We are not to repel, but to facilitate any approach of the party who has injured us, when he seems disposed to acknowledge his fault. We are to show that it is not hard to appease us, not difficult to win us to forgiveness. We are not to require the offender to humble himself greatly, before we meet him for reconciliation. We are not to insist on greater concessions than are equitable, but rather to accept of less than might be exacted if rigorous justice were done – provided always that we have evidence of real regret for his wrongdoing and a disposition to be friendly, or not hostile, in time to come.

5. We are, from first to last, cordially to forgive the offender. We are to wish him no evil; we are to guard our hearts against all hatred, malice and vindictive feelings. We are to feel benevolently, to cherish unfeigned good will, toward our bitterest enemy. We are to desire sincerely that he may lay aside his hostility, and become reconcilable. We are to pray earnestly that God may bring him to repentance and, for the sake of Christ, forgive him freely. We are to forgive the injury he has done us – and the offence he has committed against God is much greater, by his flagrant violation of the law of love, and of the sacred principle of doing as he would be done by. Of all this, the Redeemer exhibited a wonderful instance, in His prayer for His murderers in His expiring moments. And there was a close imitation of this high example in Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Happy are they who feel and exhibit the same likeness to their Redeemer as Stephen did, in performing a duty so contrary to the naturally proud and resentful human heart.

In praying God to “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”, the word as must be considered as expressing likeness and not equality. Alas, all that we do is imperfect! And if God did not forgive our sins more purely, perfectly and freely than we forgive the sins of those who offend us, we should never escape condemnation.

Still, this is never to be made a plea for the imperfection of our forgiveness. We are to mourn the imperfection and earnestly strive to avoid it. Then we shall have the “encouragement” mentioned in the (Shorter Catechism) answer before us – the encouragement which is derived from evidence that we have been made partakers of the renewing and sanctifying grace of God. It is this grace alone that will ever enable anyone rightly to discharge the duty which has now been explained – a duty by which we make no atonement for our sins and can plead no merit for its performance. But, when properly performed, this duty proves that we have, by divine grace, been imbued with a portion of the spirit and mind of Christ and so we may cheerfully hope that we shall be made partakers of all the benefits of His great salvation.

[1] These are the comments of Green (1762-1848) on the last part of the answer to Question 105 in The Shorter Catechism. This extract is taken, with editing, from Green’s Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, vol 2. He was a prominent American minister and was President of the Board of Governors of Princeton Theological Seminary.