The Freedom of Forgiveness

Photo by Lisa Barker on Unsplash

Forgiveness is such a controversial topic, especially among trauma survivors who suffered for years and are still dealing with the lasting effects of their trauma…which they never asked for.

So, why am I writing about it then? In the summertime, our church does what it calls a “summer shakeup,” where we give the usual Sunday School teachers a bit of a break and have other people walk through different book studies. The class that my husband and I went to was reviewing the book “Unpacking Forgiveness” by Chris Brauns.

When we read books at our church, we are always instructed to read with discernment, which brings up some rather passionate discussion and debate. This was no different.

I have done a lot of work and study on the topic of forgiveness in my own healing journey, and understandably, I didn’t always agree with what the author wrote; however, I was not alone. I applaud the author for taking on such a difficult topic, and you could see evidence of him grappling with some hard things in the book, as well.

I will not use my writing “worship” time doing a point-by-point review of his book to talk about the things that I agree and disagree with him on. I am also not going to tell you or force you to forgive your abuser because that is not my place. Instead, I will share my lived experience of my own grappling with forgiveness.

My Grappling Experience With Forgiveness

As a survivor of child sexual abuse and other trauma, I struggled with anger and bitterness over what happened to me, as one would expect. I also experienced the push of well-intentioned Christians telling me I HAD to forgive, to which I immediately thought…stay in your own DANG lane and work out YOUR own salvation instead of trying to help me work MINE out. Maybe that wasn’t very Christian of me, but it was a way of setting a boundary on people who were meddling with things that they had no business meddling in.

So, I shut myself off from everyone else’s opinion and narrowly focused on what the Bible said because, ultimately, I only have to please an Audience of One (God).

As I read through the Bible, I came to a portion of scripture in Matthew 18:21–35 where I camped out and meditated for a long time. I can remember it like it was yesterday. The passage reads:

Then Peter came to Him and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all. Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.

But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took [him] by the throat, saying, Pay me what you owe! So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay you all. And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt.

So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you? And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.

Don’t you just love Peter? He was the guy that asked all the questions that everyone wanted to know but that no one was brave enough to ask. I think Peter thought he was being really spiritual by suggesting forgiving his brother seven times…after all, the number seven in the Bible is perfection/completion.

Instead, Jesus told Peter that it was seventy times seven or the number of eternity. Then, Jesus told a parable to help his disciples learn about the concept He was trying to teach them in a way that they could understand it.

Observations From Meditating On This Passage

1. Settling accounts was within the king’s rights. The first thing that I noticed was that it was within the king’s rights to settle his accounts. After meditating on this passage of scripture for a long time, I realized how important of an analogy this was. This was an accounting activity. The king’s servant owed him money, and he was allowed to collect it.
2. The debt incurred was huge. An article by WATV.org said, “One talent is equal to 6,000 denarii, which would take an ordinary laborer 6,000 days (16 years) to earn. Let’s convert that into US dollars; if an average day’s wage is assumed to be 100 dollars, it is around 600,000 dollars. Since one talent is such a large amount of money, how much is ten thousand talents, equivalent to about 60,000,000 denarii, worth? It is a tremendous amount of money, which is worth about 160,000 years’ wages!” The critical thing to note here is that it didn’t matter how long or how hard the servant worked, he was not capable of paying off the debt in his lifetime.
3. Exacting rightful consequences for being unable to pay the debt was also within the king’s rights. If you don’t pay your debts, there are consequences. The king could’ve had the man, his family, and all that he had sold to recover some of his debt…talk about liquidation…yikes…but it still would not have covered his whole debt.
4. The servant did not understand or acknowledge the enormity of the debt that he owed. The servant obviously did not do the math. He knew that he did not have the money to pay the debt at that moment, but he still thought he could work hard to pay it off if the king gave him some more time. Even though he begged for mercy, he was still of the mindset that there was something he could do to pay off the debt.
5. The king counted the cost and realized the impossibility of the servant paying off the debt…and had MERCY on him and FORGAVE him. Here is the interesting part… the term “forgave” means “to release.” In accounting terms, the king zeroed out his account. I have been told that “mercy” keeps us from getting what we deserve and that “grace” gives us what we don’t deserve. This servant deserved to pay for the consequences of his debt, but instead, the king had mercy and released him from both the debt and the consequences.
6. The servant did not understand or appreciate mercy or forgiveness. You can tell he did not understand mercy and forgiveness when he threw a fellow servant, someone on the same level as him, into prison for not paying him back 100 days’ wages. Let’s see…160,000 years of wages compared to 100 days…hmm. I don’t think the wicked servant fully accepted the mercy and forgiveness the king gave him because his actions tell us that he was still looking for ways to find the money to pay the king back.
7. The king was within his right to withdraw the mercy and forgiveness he extended when it was rejected. The king extended mercy and forgiveness to the wicked servant but did not accept it because he was still trying to pay it back somehow. When his offer was rejected, the king exacted the penalty/consequences.

Applications From This Passage

1. Sin is considered a debt. When we sin, we rack up an incredible debt with God during our lifetime. When someone sins against us repeatedly, as with ongoing childhood abuse, the debt owed to us is enormous.
2. There is a time of accounting. When the king did his books, he knew who owed him and the size of the debt. He didn’t send the servant a bill through the mail…the servant was brought in to answer for his debt. There comes a time in our healing journey when we do an accounting of our own books. Perhaps we allowed the debt to stay on our books for a long time without counting the cost, and one day, as happened to me, the books were opened, and the debt was revealed. We can’t ignore the books forever.
3. The debt is unpayable. In both scenarios, neither of the servants had the money to pay off the debt they owed. Those who have sinned against us are equally unable to pay off the debt they owe us. By the way, we are unable to pay off the sin debt that we owe to God too.
4. There are options for recouping the debt. The king initially ordered the man, his family, and everything he had to be sold so that a payment could be made. I don’t think this would’ve paid off the whole debt, but he could’ve gotten a portion back. When the servant begged for mercy to give him more time to pay back the debt, the king was moved with compassion, released, and forgave him of the debt. The king released the servant from his debt. That releasing is the term that is used for forgiveness in the Bible. When we forgive someone, we release them of the debt they owe us. Forgiveness is NOT a feeling…it is a DECISION and a TRANSACTION. The book’s author created a delineation between someone asking for forgiveness and someone who doesn’t, which I understand. However, the question is, “Do you really want to keep that debt on your books just because someone didn’t ask for forgiveness?” I didn’t. My father never asked for forgiveness for what he did to me, but that didn’t matter because I didn’t want to continue carrying that open debt on my books.
5. There is a Debt Collector. The Bible has a lot to say about exacting vengeance, but that is a topic for another day. What do you do if your debtor does not ask for forgiveness? This might sound a bit corny, but it works with this analogy…I turned my father’s debt over to the Debt Collector (God) for Him to extract payment. I chose to keep my books current and to give up my rights to get any payment from my father. I released him. I know God to be a righteous judge. I also know that all of my father’s debt was paid for by the blood of Christ since he accepted the Lord while in prison…as was mine.
6. Showing compassion is expected. When I did the accounting on the debt that I owed the Lord, I was in the same position as the wicked servant…He had me dead to rights, and I had no way of paying such a tremendous debt. But when I asked for mercy, He was moved with compassion to release me and forgive me of my debt. The question that I asked myself at that time was, “How could I NOT forgive my father after all the Lord had forgiven me of?”

I am not going to tell you that you have to forgive your abuser because you have to work that out with the Lord, but I do invite you to shut off all the chatter, get into your Bible and see what it says about how you should handle the topic of forgiveness. This is not easy to grapple with, but if you are grappling with it, that is a sign of your willingness to do the hard things even when it’s not what you want to do.

Keep grappling and growing, my friend. You are not alone!