Verses we wish didnt exist

An occasional series that ‘fronts up’ to the Bible verses we would rather ignore—those ones that bring up uncomfortable issues for our faith. This time, five contributors share their thoughts on Matthew 6:15: ‘ … if you do not forgive others, then the wrongs you have done will not be forgiven by your Father’.

David Noakes,
Hutt City Corps Officer

At first glance, these words from Jesus appear harsh and uncompromising. What are we to make of them? Is God really this strict and demanding?

The answer is frankly ‘yes’, but not necessarily for reasons we might suppose. Matthew presents the driving metanarrative behind his gospel in 4:17: ‘From that day Jesus began to proclaim the message: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is upon you.” Choices are implied here in the call to ‘repent’. God’s kingdom has no room for ongoing hatreds, hurts and harboured grudges. Such behaviours and attitudes belong to an environment of secrecy and darkness. They are oil and water to the kingdom. The two simply don’t mix.

Jesus was a very astute judge of human character and behaviour. He knew that unforgiveness could become so encompassing and overwhelming in a person’s life that God couldn’t forgive, even if he wanted to—God can’t forgive that which is deliberately harboured and nurtured. By choosing not to forgive, we end up imprisoning ourselves in a dangerous self-absorbing vortex of hatred and anger.

Yes, we may have been badly wronged or badly treated but are we going to allow that to have power over us and determine our lives? Jesus is offering a better way: forgiveness is clearly a pathway to liberty and freedom. But it is a choice.

Harold Hill,
Author and Retired Officer

‘Forgive us our debts … ’ The people Jesus was speaking to thought of sin as like a debt—owed to God. The only way to discharge the debt was by doing the opposite of whatever they’d done to get into debt; in this case, to be forgiving rather than unforgiving.

God forgives us in the same way as we forgive others. How do we forgive? Then that’s the way we get forgiven. That is, we do it ourselves. It’s not that God’s up there with a big stick, telling naughty children to play nicely, or else, and weighing up what punishment to administer if we don’t. We get to make that decision by what we do.

Forgiveness is received in open hands, as a gift. If our fists are clenched, that makes it harder to receive anything. Unforgiveness erects a wall around us, or within us, limiting our capacity to receive, and frustrating God’s (or anyone else’s) willingness to forgive us. This may or may not harm the other person but it certainly harms us. If this is a ‘hard saying’—it may be that the difficulty lies not in understanding it, but in acting on it.

Seth Le Leu,
Principal Advisor,
IHQ Governance Team

The symbol at the heart of the Christian faith is the cross. It is the symbol of Jesus’ sacrifice to restore a broken, hurting and alienated world. As a symbol, the cross has two axes: the vertical and the horizontal. For the majority of the history of the church, the axis Christians have focused on is the vertical. Namely, the life of the believer is focused on celebrating the restoration of a relationship between God and humankind.

The horizontal axis of the cross is far more demanding: it was not merely to bring God into relationship with humankind, but also to restore broken relationships between us.

The power of the church to be a forgiving, reconciling community has yet to be revealed in all its fullness. The church’s reputation, sadly, is the opposite: Christians are often seen as judgmental and divisive.

This verse definitely joins the two axes of the cross. If we want the vertical axis we must have the horizontal, when Christians are known as the forgiving community, we will transform the world and answer the main plea of the Lord’s prayer: ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’.

Coralie Bridle,
Convenor of Thought Matters

The Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:5–13) is followed by a significant ‘elephant in the room’. We learn God’s forgiveness is free, complete and undeserved—then we come across this ‘elephant’! At first glance, it appears somewhat manipulative—if we do not do ‘x’ God will not orchestrate ‘y’. God’s forgiveness appears to hold certain conditions. If we do not consider the text carefully we can see causal links where none are intended.

I developed a pathological dislike of causal links when one of my children missed a developmental stage—he dropped a favourite toy and made no effort to retrieve it. He had no realisation that opening his hand caused the toy to disappear. The gap in his development meant that the notion of ‘cause and effect’ was simply not there. Whenever I look at this text I find the gap in my son’s development helps me to move the proverbial elephant out of the room.

Forgiveness is grounded in the astounding and prior forgiveness of God. Encountering that forgiveness changes us at the deepest level. Anyone who has experienced God’s prior forgiveness, has a heart changed beyond all human understanding. This text calls us to remember our own need and receipt of forgiveness, and—by the power of the indwelling Spirit—to remain wellsprings of forgiveness. A lack of forgiveness betrays a lack of gratitude, and this re-parks an unsightly elephant back in the heart’s living room.

Ian Gainsford,
Divisional Commander,
Northern Division

In isolation, we might well conclude that the plain English sense is a kind of divine ultimatum—you had better forgive others or God will not forgive you. Of course it wasn’t written (or spoken) in English, and it doesn’t sit in isolation: we have to read these verses as a part of a greater whole. Salvation is dependent on God’s grace, not something we do. As we look at the wider picture of Scripture we begin to see that to pray about forgiving others (‘as we have forgiven our debtors’) only begins to make sense when we understand our own need to be forgiven.

To put it another way, our motive to forgive shouldn’t be one of guilt or fear. It’s not Jesus telling us to forgive, or else! It’s an acknowledgment that those who have been forgiven are often more likely to show that same grace to others. We love more easily when we are loved; we are generous more easily when someone has been generous to us; ... and we forgive more readily when we know that we, too, have stood in need of forgiveness. To be loved teaches us to be more loving. To be blessed teaches us to be a blessing. To be forgiven ... well, you get the idea. The one who is consistently unwilling to forgive tends to leave the impression that they are on some level unforgiven—so a willingness to forgive is the evidence of God’s grace, not the cause of it.

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(c) 'War Cry' magazine, 21 April 2018, pp20-21. You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.