Skip to main content

Thoughts from Martin Copenhaver

Dear Friends,

Today’s “thought” is about forgiveness. Not the forgiveness we receive as a gift of grace through faith in the redeeming work of Jesus on the cross, but the forgiveness we are called to offer to others for the wrongs they have done to us. It's the forgiveness spoken of by Jesus when he says, “If you do not forgive men their sins, the Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:15). A forgiveness which can (for many) be the hardest type of forgiveness. This helpful selection comes to you from Martin Copenhaver, in his devotional book entitled, “The Gospel in Miniature.” Enjoy.

Forgiving and Forgetting
“In my experience when someone says, “I will forgive, but I will not forget,” I always wonder if they are truly ready to forgive. Forgiveness requires something that is not forgetfulness in the strictest sense, but is akin to forgetfulness.

In his masterpiece ‘City of God,’ Saint Augustine says that… in the world to come, we will still remember our own wrongdoing clearly enough, but we will no longer remember the pain associated with our wrongdoing. In the book of Jeremiah, the prophet announces God’s new covenant and makes a promise: ‘I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sins no more.’ In forgiving, God chooses not to remember.


We are not expected to erase every memory of hurt or injustice from our cerebral ‘hard drives.’ Rather, we are to forgive so completely it is as if we have forgotten. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard put it this way: Choosing to forget hurt or injustice suffered at the hands of another is like taking something and putting it behind your back. It is still there and, if you are asked about it, you would have to grant that it exists. But you don’t look at it. It’s not between you, but rather, behind you. He writes, ‘The one who loves forgives in this way: in love he turns toward the one he forgives; but when he turns toward him, he of course cannot see what is lying behind his back.’


Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, was famous for her generous temperament. She never bore grudges. Once she was reminded by a friend of a wrongdoing done to her some years earlier. ‘Don’t you remember?’ asked her friend. ‘No,’ replied Clara firmly, ‘I distinctly remember forgetting that.’ In other words, she had put it behind her.”


I was once helped in regard to forgiveness by a gentleman who told me (close paraphrase): “Forgiveness is rarely (if ever) a once-and-done thing. True forgiveness requires a commitment to forgive repeatedly – whenever the anger, hurt, or desire for revenge caused by the event resurfaces – until over time we get to the point where the memory of it no longer carries with it any of those things – especially the animosity, or desire for revenge and payback.”

The event or events are not blotted out of our memory completely, but like God, we ‘remember it no more’ in the sense that we refuse to bring it up to use it against that person. Forgiven remembrance is a benign remembrance. It’s a remembrance emptied of all the anger, hurt, and desire for revenge.


God (who is omniscient) does not ‘forget’ our sins in the sense of erasing them totally from his divine memory banks. Rather, He chooses to “remember them no more” in the sense that He will never dredge them up to be used against us again – ever! And the reason He won’t ‘remember’ them in that sense is because the punishment for them was paid in full, and the wrath against them was entirely satisfied, in the death of the Lord Jesus. That’s the Gospel! The offense is so completely forgiven that it is taken and separated from the offender, “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12).


“God’s “not remembering” is not what we usually think of as forgetfulness. God is omniscient. He knows everything, and He forgets nothing. However, He can choose not to remember something. In human relationships, we can choose to remember the offenses someone has committed against us, or we can choose to forget. To forgive someone, we must often put painful memories out of our minds. We don’t actually forget the sin, and it’s not that we are unable to recall the offense, but we choose to overlook it.” (GotQuestions.org, a very good resource by the way!)



May God Give You (as a person forgiven soooo much!) the Grace to Truly Forgive, Pastor Jeff

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts from Charles Spurgeon on Chronic Pain

Dear Friends, Life is not always easy. Things come our way that inflict pain and wound the heart. Sickness can steal away our energy and strength for a time – though it is more difficult when it is chronic. My father was diagnosed with Rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 43 and struggled with its effects until he passed away at 85 – being told close to that time that his physical body was like that of a 110-year-old. Being in constant pain earned him the occasional nick-name, “Grumpy Grampy.” I could understand why. Pain is no fun. I’m not the easiest to be around when I’m in constant pain either. And as John Owen once pointed out, “It is not the intensity of the trial, but its longevity, that eats away at our resolve.” Therefore, if you are struggling in this area (or know someone who is), today I offer you some helpful words from Charles Spurgeon. Yet, it helps to point out he was not giving advice as one who did not himself struggle. He battled much of his life with depressi...

Thoughts on The Gospel

Dear Friends, One of my professors (Jerry Bridges) once let us listen to a cassette tape recording (2001) of best-selling Christian authors at a Christian Booksellers Conference. They were asked the question: “What is the Gospel?” The answers given by every one of the best-selling authors who were interviewed varied from lacking at best, to tongue-tied and scrambling for an answer, to completely heretical. Yet, the Gospel is the one message every believer should know through and through, since everything in the Christian life flows out of the Gospel! Therefore, today, I pass along some insights or descriptions of the Gospel that are very much “spot on” and in line with the biblical Gospel, because to the extent that we get the Gospel wrong, we weaken it’s saving and life-transforming power and can lead people astray. If the Gospel (the one given in the New Testament) “IS the power of God for the salvation of all who believe” a different Gospel (Galatians 1:6-7) does not carry ...

Thoughts From Writers Past and Present

Dear Friends, Today I want to offer you some wise and insightful thoughts which (to the best of my knowledge!) I have never sent out before. Some from current authors, some from antiquated authors – but all very insightful and helpful. I find that reading the insights of people past and present helps widen our perspective and make us realize that godly wisdom runs through the entire 2000 year history of the church, passed down to us from men and women, and from people of different countries, cultures, ethnicities and continents. Therefore I have added some notes regarding each author. Enjoy. “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose.” Jim Elliot (1927-1956) wrote this phrase in his journal, before he was martyred in the jungles of Ecuador by members of the Huaorani (Auca) tribe, along with four other missionaries – Ed McCully, Roger Youdarian, Pete Flemming, and Nate Saint, on January 8, 1956. “Every saved person this side of heaven owes the ...