Forgiveness

I'm taking a Forgiveness Seminar with Ev Worthington--one of the top researchers for the psychology of forgiveness (and a wonderful ballroom dancer, as well, ha). For the most part I am enjoying the class, but I think it is probably inevitable in a class with such a narrow focus to at some point get a bit weary of reading in the same area. And as such, I was particularly not looking forward to class this afternoon. In hopes of helping my attitude, I decided to do a little scripture search on forgiveness and made at least two interesting observations.

1) I would estimate that 99.5% of the uses of "forgiveness" and other forms of the term in the Old Testament refer to God's forgiveness of mankind's sin. I believe in my cursory review, I found one, maybe two, references of forgiveness between two humans (Saul asked Samuel to forgive him). Then of course in the New Testament we are introduced to the notion of being forgiven to the extent that we forgive others. But it made me wonder.

I guess it would be no surprise that we humans are much too concerned with wrongs committed against us or that we have committed against those who are significant to us and not concernred nearly enough with how we have wronged God. Christianity is a message of forgiveness, but are we so quick to call people to forgive each other that we forget the One against whom the greatest wrong has been done? Of course this makes me think of King David: "Against You and You alone have I sinned..."

2) Psalm 130:4 really caught my attention:
"But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared."
What an odd "therefore"! Don't you think? Our tendency when we think of forgiveness is to think of warm fuzzies, a loving, merciful, peaceful God offering us a shoulder to cry on, no? But here we see that God's forgiveness is not something to be taken lightly. Let's put it in context:

"If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared."

I really like these verses. It highlights the importance of recognizing the reality of the wrong that has been committed. Forgiveness is not condoning, it is not accepting, it is not shrugging it off. Forgiveness can only happen when it is acknowledged that a true wrong, an injustice has occurred. And we must recognize the gravity of our sin against God before we can understand what His forgiveness means. And when we recognize this, we will fear Him in light of His forgiveness. Fear Him, and love Him. Fear Him, and thank Him and adore His mercy towards us.

That's all I have for now. =)