Martin Luther was once asked whether he felt his sins were forgiven. He answered, "No, I don't feel they are forgiven; I know they are because God says so in His Word." Walter Maier, "Full Freedom from Fear," in Twenty Centuries of Great Preaching, Vol. 2, (TX: Waco, Word Publishing, 1971), p.52.
1. Aphiemi - To send away, dismiss, set free ... to remit the punishment, where the guilty person is dealt with as if he were innocent. (Luke 17:3,4)
2. Charizomai - To do a person a favor, be kind to ... to graciously remit a person's debt or sin; hence, to pardon, forgive graciously. (Eph. 4:32)
3. Apouloo - to let lose from, to loosen, unbind; set at liberty ... a debtor, hence, overlook, forgive. (Lu. 6:37; 7:32)
1. Write your working definition of forgiveness. Forgiveness is . . .
2. What is the major emphasis of your working definition?
a) Feelings
b) Retribution
c) Reconciliation
d) Other
3. Does God "forget" our sins? (See Isaiah 43:25; Jer. 31:34; Heb. 8:12).
4. What's the difference between "forgetting" and "not remembering"?
5. Review and rewrite your working definition of forgiveness.
Luke 17:1-10 (NIV) "Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. 2 It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 So watch yourselves. "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. 4 If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him." 5 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" 6 He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you. 7 "Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? 8 Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? 9 Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.'""
6. What are you to do if your brother sins against you? The first action one
should take is to...
a) Warn others about him
b) Pray for him
c) Rebuke him
d) Forgive him
e) Overlook his sin
7. To "rebuke" means that we...
a) Accuse or express fault with him.
b) Reprove him until he sees his guilt.
c) Get a friend to talk with him/her.
d) Present our perception of the facts with caution and wait for a clarifying explanation.
8. What are we to do if our brother repents?
9. According to your working definition, what would the repentant one experience?
10. Your friend, Jane, is back from her trip to Thailand. It's Sunday morning and you see her at church, but she's seated on the opposite side of the auditorium. You can't wait until the service is over so you can talk with her and tell her how glad you are to see her. At the conclusion of the service, you rush to her calling, "Jane! Jane! It's so good to see you!" Instead of the embrace that you've been anticipating, Jane leaves the church without so much as a "hello."
a) How would you feel?
b) How would you respond?
c) How should you respond?
d) What is the basis of your response?
11. Which is harder, to "rebuke" or to "forgive"? Why?
12. Jesus demolishes three excuses concerning failure to forgive.
a. He let's us know that the act of forgiveness is not dependent upon more faith, but on obedience (Luke 17:6).
b. He reveals that the act of forgiveness is not predicated upon the sincerity of the repentant one (Luke 17:4).
c. He teaches us that forgiveness is not based upon feeling, but is a matter of duty (Luke 17:7-10).
13. After reading "The Blacks and Whites of Forgiveness," answer the following questions.
a) Is forgiveness always a once and for all act?
b) What two secrets does Corrie reveal to us concerning the act of forgiveness?
c) What principle did Corrie discover?
d) What action did Corrie take as an expression of forgiveness?
e) According to Corrie, what is forgiveness and what does it do?
Forgiveness is a willingness to walk beyond the hurt to a new understanding and a deeper relationship. It does not take away the hurt, but refuses to allow the hurt to stand in the way of a new start.
Forgiveness is, " ... the decision of our will to release a particular person, followed by verbalizing that to God." Cathrine Marshall, "Something More" (New York: Spire Books, 1974) p. 39.
I wish I could say that after a long and fruitful life, traveling the world, I had learned to forgive all my enemies. I wish I could say that merciful and charitable thoughts just naturally flowed from me on to others. But they don't. If there is one thing I've learned since I've passed my eightieth birthday, it's that I can't store up good feelings and behavior--but only draw them fresh from God each day.
Maybe I'm glad it's that way, for every time I go to Him, he teaches me something else. I recall the time-- and I was almost seventy--when some Christian friends whom I loved and trusted did something which hurt me. You would have thought that, having been able to forgive the guards in Ravensbruk, forgiving Christian friends would be child's play. It wasn't For weeks I seethed inside. But at last I asked God again to work His miracle in me. And again it happened: first the cold-blooded decision, then the flood of joy and peace. I had forgiven my friends; I was restored to my Father.
Then, why was I suddenly awake in the middle of the night, rehashing the whole affair again? My friends! I thought. People I loved. If it had been strangers, I wouldn't have minded so.
I sat up and switched on the light. "Father, I thought it was all forgiven. Please help me do it." but the next night I woke up again. They'd talked so sweetly too! Never a hint of what they were planning. "Father!" I cried in alarm. "Help me!"
Then it was that another secret of forgiveness became evident. It is not enough to simply say, "I forgive you." I must also begin to live it out. And in my case, that meant acting as though their sins, like mine, were buried in the depth of the deepest sea....
And so I discovered another of God's principles: We can trust God not only for our emotions but also for our thoughts. As I asked Him to renew my mind He also took away my thoughts.
He still had more to teach me, however, even from this single espisode. Many years later, after I had passed my eightieth birthday, an American friend came to visit me in Holland. As we sat in my little apartment in Baarn he asked me about those people from long ago who had taken advantage of me.
"It is nothing," I said a little smugly. "It is all forgiven."
"By you, yes," he said. "But what about them? Have they accepted your forgiveness?"
"They say there is nothing to forgive! They deny it every happened. No matter what they say, though, I can prove they were wrong." I went eagerly to my desk. "See, I have it in black and whit! I saved all their letters and I can show you where...."
"Corrie!" My friend slipped his arm through mine and gently closed the drawer. "Aren't you the one whose sins are at the bottom of the sea? Yet are the sins of your friends etched in black and white?"
For an astonishing moment I could not find my voice. "Lord Jesus," I whispered at last, "who takes all my sins away, forgive me for preserving all these years the evidence against others! Give me grace to burn all the blacks and whites as a sweet-smelling sacrifice to your glory."
I did not go to sleep that night until I had gone through my desk and pulled out those letters--curling now with age--and fed them all into my little coal-burning grate. As the flames leaped and glowed, so did my heart. "Forgive us our trespasses," Jesus thought us to pray, "as we forgive those who trespass against us." In the ashes of those letters I was seeing yet another facet of His mercy....
Forgiveness is the key which unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness. The forgiveness of Jesus not only takes away our sins, bit makes them as if they had never been.
__________
From "Tramp For The Lord" by Corrie Ten Boom with Jamie Buckingham (Christian Literature Crusade and Fleming H. Revell Company: Fort Washington, Old Tappen, 1974) pp. 181-183.
PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Review and rewrite your working definition of forgiveness.
2. Is there an area of your life where you presently bear the wounds of an offense?
_ Yes
_ No
3. If yes, please write yourself a clear description of your feelings and how this event is effecting your life.
4. What do you need to do about the above situation?
5. Have you retained any "black and whites" that you need to burn?
Forgiveness is " ... a process at the end of which God declares that the matter of sin has been dealt with once and for all." Jay E. Adams, "From Forgiven To Forgiving" (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1989) p.17.
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