Forgiveness: The Gateway into New Life

Photo by Dawn McDonald on Unsplash

Jesus is all about forgiveness. He teaches on it in many and various ways—not just His forgiveness for you—His forgiveness for others through you, and your forgiveness for others, too! Just consider that He brings up forgiveness in Matthew 5:21–26; Matthew 6:12, 14–15; Matthew 7:1–6, and, of course, Matthew 18. And that’s just Matthew!

Jesus is all about forgiveness. Sometimes we are; sometimes we aren’t. It all depends on the situation. It all depends on the severity of the sin. It all depends on the person. Some get more forgiveness, some less, some none. Not so with Jesus and His death: “He died for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world.” (1 Jn 2) There is no limit to His forgiveness because His blood cleanses us from all sins. In Christ alone, in His blood alone, there is “redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col 1:14)

Sin brings death, and they should be dead to you for what they did. That is what their sin deserves, and that is what your sin deserves. But there’s no hope there, only resentment, guilt, shame. It’s all just malice and evil. Such a look backward breeds only a nihilistic future to your relationship—turns you or your neighbor to a spiritual pillar of salt. So, if that’s really what you want, abandon all hope of ever having what what your neighbor’s done or what you’ve done set right. “The measure you use will be measured back to you.” (Mt 7)

Forgiveness, however, brings life, not counting trespasses against them. And even if you were to keep track, what good would it do? The Lord Jesus doesn’t do forgiveness like we do forgiveness. He doesn’t do things with scales that balance, a punishment that’s fair, a grudge that’s deserved. “Comfort, comfort My people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double forgiveness for all her sins.” (Is 40:1–2)

When Jesus purchased forgiveness at Calvary and delivers it in the present tense through His Word and Absolution and Sacraments, He doesn’t balance the scales. He doesn’t bring your debt balance to zero. He doesn’t bring waring factions to a cease fire. No, the scale plummets squarely on the side of forgiveness. You’re incalculably rich in Christ’s own righteousness and forgiveness. The purchase price—His blood, more precious than gold or silver—is far worth eternally more than any sin-debt that you or anyone who’s sinned against you has. Forgiven enemies of God are not then “neutral.” No, they are full-fledged sons of the Kingdom!

In our daily lives as Christians, there is a rhythm to forgiveness. It’s like a clock—tick, tock; sin, be forgiven; sinned against, forgive. We, of course, ought not sin! Old habits die hard, because the Old Adam dies hard. Daily contrition and repentance drowns him anew. Forgiveness doesn’t just wipe away the old habits, but it also enlivens new ones.

James says: “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” (1:14–15) Forgiveness is the opposite of that! Each person has fervent love when he is drawn by the Father to Christ the Crucified and led by the Spirit. The desires of the Spirit give birth to forgiveness, and forgiveness when it is fully grown brings forth life. New life for you and for your neighbor through you—or vice versa! In the daily rhythm of the Christian’s life this is the way of things, and thus, “love keeps no record of wrong” (1 Cor 13), “forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.” (Eph 4)

Sometimes it’s not that easy. Great sin. Great wrong. What does forgiveness mean then? Does it mean everything goes back to the way it was? Jump two feet into the deep end? No. Sometimes that’s actually impossible. That old way was shattered into a million pieces—bloody, muddy, beyond recognition. The hurt runs deep; the sin cuts even deeper. Bygones can’t be bygones. It’s just gone, obliterated, dead.

What does “I forgive you” mean then? Forgive and forget? That’s actually just law. We can’t ever forget. That sentiment (“forgive and forget”) in the worst cases of sin and tragedy may allow sin and harm to increase, and it may actually be unattainable. So how can forgiveness stand? Can there be forgiveness for such sins? Of course, the Lord always more forgiveness than we have sins. (Is 40) Forgiveness no matter the sin and death and fracturing of relationship means the canceling of the debt, the absolving of punishment, it means new life and resurrection, it means salvation. It means something new—a concept Old Adam rejects.

Forgiveness in this context means a gateway, a new beginning. It means that it is the Lord Himself who will put things back together, but not necessarily the way they were. That gift got ruined—you did it, they did it, both did it! Jesus will do something new in your life. He will make it all work together for good. (Rom 8) With His true, real, and actual forgiveness spoken by you to them, received by you from them, He is putting things back together in a new way. A new gift! A new way forward: forgiving and being forgiven in the new way you and your neighbor(s) are joined and reconciled.

We’re afraid to let it go. What will it mean? Can you just let it go? It’s not fair to do that. Someone has to pay. Someone did. Christ did. “God in Christ was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” (2 Cor 4) The record of debt that stood against you, against your neighbor was nailed to the cross. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” All the forgiveness you need for that is deluged over you in Baptism and poured down your gullet in the body and blood of Christ for you for the forgiveness of all your sins. Taking Communion together with the person you’ve wronged or who’s wronged you—the Alpha and the Omega of your reconciliation.

With the Lord’s forgiveness in hand, or rather, even in your mouth! No longer can we have things the way they were. No matter how much our flesh wants to keep things together with the old leaven of malice and evil. This is impossible, not with new leaven of sincerity and truth that we now have. “For Christ, our Passover lamb, as been sacrificed.” (1 Cor 5:7) His body and blood has been given us to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of sins (all sins!), even those between you and your neighbor. Looking backward for sins, we now only see Calvary. Looking at our neighbor, a fellow baptized Christian, someone we’ve communed with, we now only see “a brother for whom Christ died.” Looking forward, now we only see Christ’s New Life between us, and the Resurrection, the eternal Salvation, He promises to us both.

Forgiveness isn’t a look backward. It isn’t trolling for a gotcha or dredging up the past. Forgiveness is a path forward. It’s a journey through the blood and wounds and now scars of Jesus. It’s returning, passing anew together through the waters of your mutual baptisms into Christ. It’s hearing the Absolution and echoing it back to each other. It’s drinking from the same passing chalice—“the blood of Christ shed for you for the forgiveness of sin”—and you both saying, “Amen.”

Now, there is hope. Now, there are possibilities. Does the band get back together, as it were? Or does the relationship rhyme with the way things used to be? Or is it a completely new heading and direction, where animosity has ceased and yet both parties live separate nevertheless truly at peace with each other, like Jacob and Esau (Gen 33). Whichever it happens to be, it is all gift from the Lord, worked by His never-ending, over-abundant forgiveness in the daily lives of His people.

After all, Jesus is all about forgiveness, and through His forgiveness He makes us all about His forgiveness, too, not just for ourselves, but also for the brother for whom He died. That person is also baptized into Christ with you. That person communed with you in person on Sunday or maybe at another one of Christ’s Altars, regardless you’re both one Body together in Him, bodied and blooded together in His forgiveness. You will share eternal life with that person. Yep, you’re that forgiven toward them, and so are they toward you!