Forgiveness

I wrote this a while back and decided to go ahead and post this now.

What is forgiveness? When are we to forgive? Who should forgive? And whom should we forgive? And you ask why bring up the subject?

I bring this up because of this post by Heidi. In it she describes what she thinks a certain couple men deserve for the crime they committed against a boy. What was interesting were the responses to her post. I made an attempt at levity that Heidi got, but others almost chastised her for her post. All the comments centered on forgiveness. Cowboy asked her if she had forgiveness issues (might have been in jest knowing DC), others pointed out forgiveness was conditional upon repentance, others pointing out that vengeance belonged to G_d.

Basically forgiveness involves being released from the guilt and consequences of ones misdeeds. This is closely associated with mercy. The question of who should forgive is easy. We as followers of Yeshua have been given a command to forgive those who have offended us just as He has forgiven us. This allows us to shed in some physical light what Yeshua has done for us. Yeshua also brought up that we are to forgive those who offend us each and every time. So far the answers have been simple but the question of who should we forgive is a little trickier. The simple answer is someone who offends us should be forgiven, but is often applied much further than that in we are told to forgive everyone even those who have offended someone else. Now while this sounds good it is not something we can actually do. You see in order for you to forgive you must first be the victim of some offence. I will use the case that Heidi was talking about to illustrate. Heidi was upset over a 13 y.o. boy who was sexually abused by and AIDS awareness advocate who happened to have AIDS himself therefore ruining the boy’s life. The boy is the victim of this crime; G_d is also offended because His Law is broken; and the state is offended because one of it’s laws have been broken. Now the only ones who can extend forgiveness here are G_d, the boy, and the state. Heidi cannot in reality offer any forgiveness in this case, although I do believe that the boy’s parents could be added to that list.

Now if the boy and / or his parents are a Christians they are commanded to offer forgiveness as an extension of G_d’s grace and mercy, this is not conditional upon the repentance of the offender. G_d’s forgiveness is conditional upon the acceptance of Yeshua’s sacrifice and lordship regardless of the offence. If the offender does not then G_d’s perfect justice will take place. The state is the only entity here that has the option to wave forgiveness and in reality has a mandate to punish those who have committed crimes.