In my last post I was making the point that we must reflect upon the way in which we have been forgiven, by Whom we are forgiven and the great cost at which that forgiveness was secured, namely the blood and sacrifice of Christ.

I also made the point that in that same post that we can act in a spirit of forgiveness towards someone, but that we cannot actually forgive them until they have sought it. I was teaching a VBS content meeting the other night and I made the same statement and some folks were not sure that that idea settled with them that well. I decided maybe the best place to hash it out was in my blog space.

The question was raised in regard to how we can obey the admonition to forgive those of their debts as God has forgiven us (Matt. 6:12 in the Lord’s Model Prayer), even when they have not asked for it. I don’t think it is a stretch to say, that we can act in a spirit of forgiveness, but the exchange of that forgiveness cannot take place, without an actual personal verbal interaction. My mind is drawn to Matthew 18 and Jesus’ conversation with Peter. After Jesus’ admonition to lovingly confront those in unrepentant sin within the church, Peter asks Jesus how much we should forgive. Peter believes he is being generous with seven times. Jesus says, seven times seven (or seventy times seven depending on your translation), either way, it is a futile effort to try and keep track and that is exactly the point. It goes back to the previous post about how much we’ve been forgiven vis-à-vis the price paid by Christ’s shed blood. Avery clear parallel to this is Luke 17:3-4 in which in a similar way Jesus states that if your brother sins against you rebuke, if he repents, you need to forgive him. And if v.4 we see even if he does it seven times a day. The thing we notice is that there is an exchange. It follows then, that for actual forgiveness to occur, there must be an interaction. It also follows that without that exchange the actual, relational aspect of forgiveness can not be granted, but we are never the less to act in a spirit of forgiveness, because of the great price paid to secure our forgiveness in the sight of God and in light of His just wrath.