A good friend of mine once shared the following illustration of forgiveness…
It’s like a debt. If someone sins against you, it’s basically like you holding an I.O.U.—they owe you for the hurt or damage done—but you don’t cash in the I.O.U. (demand payment), you hand it over to Jesus. This doesn’t mean that the person who hurt you does not owe you—they do, they created a debt—but you’re just not demanding payment.
The Old Testament standard for sin induced debt is quite clear, and equitable to a fault…
(19) …if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him; (20) Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again. [Leviticus 24:19–20 KJV]
Keep this in mind for second while I share a different illustration, closely related to the first, shared by a different friend.
So you’re sitting at home one afternoon, minding your own business when a knock comes at your door. You open the door to find your neighbor Joe. Before you can barely get, “Hey Joe, how are you?” out of your mouth, Joe hauls back and punches you square in the nose, and then runs off.
More mentally stunned than physically hurt, you step back inside to get a washcloth and some ice for your bloody nose, and begin to try to process what just happened. Once again, before you’ve barely had a chance to figure it out, the phone rings—its Joe.
“Hey________” (insert your name here), he says, “I’m really sorry.” “I don’t know what I was thinking, I was confused and angry,” he continues. “You didn’t deserve that, would you please forgive me?”
“Sure Joe,” you respond, “of course I forgive you.” You hang up the phone and presume that life is pretty much back to normal.
To make a long story short, the exact same thing happens the next day—knock on the door, punch in the nose, phone call, “please forgive me,” “of course,” etc.
And the next day…
And the next…
This continues daily. Each day Joe punches you, calls you, asks for forgiveness, and you “forgive” him.
But there is also absolutely sign that this pattern is going to stop any time soon.
So now we have come to the place where we must combine what we have learned from each illustration…
In the daily punch-in-the-nose story, each day you “forgive” Joe. Technically, he “owes” you a punch in the nose for each day, but you have forgiven him in that you do not “demand payment.”
So here’s the big question. Even though you have “forgiven” Joe, because there is no sign of his behavior changing, when do you stop answering the door?
I have heard some Christians suggest that to truly forgive means you must continue to allow “Joe” to “punch you in the nose.”
But now, let me alter the illustration slightly and see if the same principle applies.
What if you were a third party and were watching this happen to a friend or loved one? What if the person getting “punched” was a good friend, a spouse, or a child? Would you counsel them to “forgive” and continue “opening the door”? Are you “loving” your friend, spouse, or child by telling them they must continue to “forgive” and allow themselves to be hurt?
Do you think this is what Jesus meant when he told Peter “Until seventy times seven?”
What do you think?
The End of Religion 