“God in Christ forgave you.”

They lied about him.  They convicted him.  They beat him.  They spit on him.  Then they turned him over to the Romans who whipped him, stripped him naked and nailed him to a cross for all to see.  For six hours the only perfect Man who ever lived agonized and experienced death in the most painful way. Was it fair?  Hardly.  Was justice being served?  Not for Jesus.  But this was the price He had to pay so that God could forgive us.  Yes, our sins — yours and mine — are that bad!

In the Greek language the word “forgive” is charizomai, meaning “to bestow a favor unconditionally; to give on the basis of grace.”  It comes from the root word for “grace,” which is charis in Greek.  John 1:17 tells us, “[T]he law was given through Moses, but grace and truth come through Jesus Christ.”  Jesus was known — famous — for his grace.  He was not a fussy legalist running around with a moral yardstick looking to criticize and highlight the failures and shortcomings of everyone.  No, he extended grace and mercy, forgiveness and spiritual restoration to all who would receive it through faith.  In the preceding verse it says, “And of his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.”  This is a way of describing the inexhaustible wellspring of his gracious provision.  What has he provided for us?  Or better asked by one Bible commentator, “What has he not provided for us?”

On the merits of who Jesus is (the perfect Man and Son of God) and what he did (fulfilled the law for us and perfectly obeyed his Father), he and only he could become our sacrifice for sins.  Nothing less, nothing else would work.  And the law required death.  It was the ultimate demand that needed to be fulfilled.  It was the fullest demonstration of God’s grace — personified and perfected in Christ — that mankind has ever witnessed.  This is forgiveness God’s way.  It is His provision given only in grace.

Earlier in this verse we are told to “forgiv[e] one another.”  The Greek word here is the same —  charizomai — God’s way of forgiving.  This command is given only to God’s people, ones who have experienced God’s forgiveness.  What’s more, they are required to forgive “just as” God forgives us.  Non-Christian people are completely incapable of such an act, because they don’t have God’s Spirit within them.  They lack God’s power to forgive like him.  Their eyes have not been opened to the seriousness of their own sins.  It is useless and unrealistic to expect pagans to act like God or his people.

So why is it, then, that God’s people sometimes act like pagans?  Instead of being forgiving, too many believers are bitter and angry, talking about their pains and offenses, especially those caused by other Christians.  Why is that?  Two reasons:  pride and selfishness.  Their eyes are on themselves and not on the Cross.  Their pain is “too great,” they allege, the offense too deep to forgive.  Really?  Is it greater than what God had to deal with — the sins of the entire world?  Is their nature more holy than his?  Is their pain greater than what Christ experienced?  Have they greater capacity to suffer than he has?  If God has forgiven them of their actions, do they do well to withhold forgiveness?  And are they better having their hurt and pain continually wash over them?  No, not at all.  Their lack of forgiveness shows, as Peter wrote, that they have “forgotten that [they were] cleansed from [their] old sins” (2 Peter 1:9).  It also proves that their focus is on themselves, not on the Lord.  They are looking in, not up.  God’s forgiveness of us is infinitely greater than any forgiveness he asks us to grant.  It also demonstrates a deep hypocrisy in that while they maintain their claim that God has forgiven them, they hypocritically extend no forgiveness to others.  They simply will not trust God, admitting to the absence of God’s power at work in their lives.  “These people…honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Isaiah 29:13).

Our ambition should be to honor our Savior who endured such pain for us.  Have you forgiven others like our Heavenly Father who forgives you in Christ?  Are your eyes looking up or in?