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With Liberty and Justice for All

July 4, 2012 marks the 236th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Thirteen British colonies declared their independence from the crown and their intent to form a sovereign nation. Thomas Jefferson wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

There were many reasons the colonists waned independence, but the foundation of their position was that mankind was created equal and that our Creator has given us certain rights, rights that could not be taken away by any government or any man.

These words inspired a people who became a nation, a nation where these words have mocked those who have not enjoyed these rights. “All men” left out the indigenous people and people brought in as slaves and sometimes the poor and the minority. Today we see the wrong done in our past, but babies in the womb are left out.

In 236 years the right to worship and to work and to trade freely has become the right to do anything I want. The Declaration declared certain rights are given by our Creator, 236 years later many want rights and nothing to do with our Creator.

The rights and liberty promised by the founding fathers, some who were Christian, some who were only Christian culturally, and some who were not Christian at all, was built on a Christian understanding of mankind. God created mankind, male and female, in His image. Being created in the image of God gives mankind an inherent value. Humans of every color, nationality, ethnicity, rich and poor, able and disabled, born and preborn, have value as creations of God. Sadly, we continue to value people differently based on these things. Rights and liberty promised will always fall short when defined by mankind because humans value themselves higher than they should.

Jesus said: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31b-32)

In human flesh and in human words, our Creator tells us how we can be free. Obey what He says, live in and by what He says, and we will know the truth experientially. In knowing the truth we will be set free.

What is this truth? God is our creator and we owe Him all allegiance. Apart from Christ we are in rebellion to God, under the judgment of God, and have no hope of reconciliation with God. Apart from Christ we are slaves to our sinful natures. In Christ, by grace through faith, we are forgiven and reconciled and set free from the penalty for our sin. In Christ and born of the Spirit we are set free from the power of sin over us. This truth is more than propositional. This truth is not just spoken, it is given to us. This truth isn’t an ideal, it’s a reality.

I am thankful I was born and live in the United States of America. I believe in the promise of liberty, but I also understand that liberty is not for all in the hands of selfish humans. The only liberty that is truly for all is in Christ for all who believe.

Celebrate your country’s Independence Day, I will. If you have been set free by Christ celebrate your liberation from the tyranny of sin every day. If you have not today could be the day you find your true liberty in Christ. It’s only in Christ that liberty and justice are truly for all.   

  

In His Image for His Glory

Genesis 1:27 tells us that God created mankind – male and female human beings – in His image. Scripture doesn’t tell us that any other earthly creature was created in God’s image, so we can correctly deduce that mankind’s place in creation and on the earth is particular. Mankind is set apart from the rest of the creation by bearing the image of God. Genesis 3 gives us the account of mankind being tempted and falling into sin, and God cursing mankind for their sin. The curse was on all of mankind and sin and death would be the lot of all who would be born. In His mercy, God also promised to send a son of the woman, who would break the curse and redeem mankind and the creation.

When they were created, Adam and Eve imaged God perfectly because they were spiritually alive, without sin, and in perfect unbroken fellowship with God. When they sinned they died spiritually, the death that God promised if Adam disobeyed and ate the forbidden fruit (Gen 2:16-17). Because of their sin they no longer imaged God perfectly. The image of God they were created in was marred, it was corrupted.

Mankind was created body, soul, and spirit. Apart from Christ and the new birth of the Spirit humans are alive in body and soul but dead spiritually. The soul is the natural personality, the intellect, the emotions, and the will. In the intellect and emotions and will humans image God, but spiritually dead the ways in which God is imaged are limited. Not in kind but in scope. Humans image God in being able to reason, to think abstractly and concretely, in being able to experience emotion, and in language, the ability to communicate thought and emotion. Humans image God by creating from what we think and feel.

All humans image God. In Christ, those who are born of the Spirit image God in ways that those who are dead in sin cannot. Not in kind but in scope. We will not necessarily be better at what we do but by the Spirit we know why we do what we do. Apart from Christ humans can do great and wonderful things, but only in Christ can we do anything for the glory of God.

God created mankind in His image for His glory. How am I imaging God? How will I image God today? Am I living for His glory in ways that those around me see His glory? May it be so, Lord.

Two things that have marked the time

“America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.” Terrence Mann, Field of Dreams

Two things that have marked the time for me have been baseball and books. Last week two markers were set. On Tuesday morning just before I left for work I got the news of Ray Bradbury’s death. I’ve been rereading The Martian Chronicles, spending time in the wonderful and amazing imagination and the rich and beautiful writing of Bradbury. I considered staying home.

I wasn’t born yet when The Martian Chronicles was published. I can’t remember exactly when I read it the first time. It wasn’t my first trip into Bradbury’s mind, that was The Illustrated Man, but I’ve loved His work ever since I first read The Veldt. I read from the public and public school libraries first; then I bought, lost or left behind, and bought again new and used volumes. The copy of The Martian Chronicles I am reading is in a nicely hardbound collection given to me by one of my daughters for Christmas. I couldn’t have imagined today the first time I handed over my library card to secure the loan of Bradbury’s images. Today I can’t imagine a world or the world in my head without them.

On Saturday I went to Seattle with one of my adult sons and a friend and saw my beloved Dodgers play the Mariners. In the spring of ’58 I was five and living in central California. The newly relocated Dodgers were instantly our team. I remember coming home from school to my mom watching a game while she ironed our shirts. I remember listening to Vin Scully on the radio in the house and the car and from the cheap seats at Dodger Stadium. I saw countless games on television, following the joy and agony pennant races and World Series won and lost.

What’s the connection? What do the work of Ray Bradbury and baseball have to do with one another? Maybe nothing outside of my overcrowded head, but consider that the work Bradbury did as a man grew out of his experiences as a boy. The work ball players do as men grows out of experiences they have as boys, watching and playing and loving a game enough to make it a career. Bradbury got a toy typewriter for Christmas when he was twelve and decided to be a writer. Like other boys who dream of throwing a no hitter or hitting a grand slam in the big leagues, Bradbury followed his dream. I’m thankful he did. I’m thankful the men we watched play on Saturday did. It takes courage and gives us courage to trust our own dreams.

God's Revelation in the Incarnation

Hebrews 1:1-4 says; "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs."
God is a God of revelation. He reveals himself to all mankind in creation. Throughout history He has revealed himself to His people. He reveals himself to us in the Scripture, giving us understanding of the Scripture by His Spirit in us.
We can only know God as He reveals himself to us.
The first thing we see in the beginning verses of Hebrews is that God spoke. Long ago He spoke to the fathers of Israel by the prophets, and more recently He had spoken by His Son. The next thing we see in his text is a description the Son. He is the heir of all things. Through Him God created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. We see what the Son does; He upholds the universe by the word of his power. We see where the Son is; at the right hand of God the Father, the Majesty on high.
Long ago, throughout the history of the descendants of Abraham, God spoke at many times and in many ways. But now, the writer says, God had spoken by His Son.
How did God speak by His Son? In the incarnation of Christ.
In Jesus, God became a human. In the incarnation, God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, eternal, infinite, and uncreated, entered time and the world as a finite human.
In the incarnation, God the Son became one of us. In the incarnation God became human.
The incarnation is a truth we will never completely understand. I am making propositional truth statements, and we consider these with our minds because God made us thinking beings, but ultimately we understand the incarnation because God has revealed it to us.
When we come up against truth about God that is beyond our understanding we are to study hard. We are to think hard; faith is not anti-intellectual. At the same time we must never be so arrogant to think that we can understand these things apart from the revelation of God by the Holy Spirit.
God revealed himself in the incarnation. This was His activity by His initiative. The apostle John begins his Gospel with "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." John 1:1-5
John begins his story about Jesus with "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
It’s important to hear what John is saying. The Word was and is God.
As the writer of Hebrews tells us, with this Word God spoke to His people but this Word was more than God speaking. This is more than a verbal expression; it is the Divine Expression.
John says; "He was in the beginning with God." This Word is a Person; this Divine Word gives us an understanding of God because He is God. In Him we see the invisible God. John uses the personal pronoun He in describing the Word. Who is the Word? We find the answer in John 1:14
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."
The Word is the One who became human and lived with humans. The Word was in the beginning with God and everything was made through Him. The Word, who was in the beginning with God, who was God, who created everything, became flesh and lived among people. This is the mystery and majesty of the incarnation. In the incarnation God spoke, revealing himself in His Son in which we see His glory.
How did this happen? Like this:
"In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, 'Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!' But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.'
"And Mary said to the angel, 'How will this be, since I am a virgin?'
"And the angel answered her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy – the Son of God.'" Luke 1:26-35
The angel came to the young woman with unbelievable news. She would be the mother of the child who will be her Savior and King. She will be the mother of the Son of God.
The incarnation of the Son of God began with a miraculous conception. This had never happened before and has not happened since. This miraculously conceived baby grew as any other baby. The Son of God was a human baby in the womb of His human mom. This Child who would be called holy, the son of God, was the son of a young woman from Nazareth. The Creator would be carried in the womb and the arms of one He created.
To fulfill the law of Caesar Augustus, Joseph and Mary traveled to Bethlehem, the City of David, in order to be counted in a census. Fulfilling the prophecies of the Messiah, the Christ, the One who would come and save the people from their sin, Jesus was born, God in human flesh.
"And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn." Luke 2:6-7
Outside of Bethlehem an angel of the Lord appeared to some shepherds announcing to them
"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." Luke 2:11-13
This is what we remember and celebrate at Christmas, but this is not the whole story. Jesus was born and Jesus lived as a baby and a toddler and a boy and a man. All of this is part of the incarnation.
In the incarnation Jesus, who created humanity, was submitted to His earthly parents. In the incarnation Jesus, who gave the Law to Moses, observed the Law of Moses. Indeed He obeyed his parents perfectly and He obeyed the Law perfectly.
Jesus was like the other kids in the neighborhood, except He was without sin. When He was grown, Jesus went to be baptized by John the Baptist who had been sent by God to prepare the way for Him. After He was baptized, Jesus went into the wilderness and fasted for forty days and was tempted by Satan. Adam, in the comfort of the Garden and with a full belly, failed. He sinned. Jesus – who the apostle Paul called the last Adam – in the wilderness and without food for forty days, triumphed. He rebuked Satan. He did not sin.
All of this happened in the incarnation and is part of the incarnation.
Jesus was born with a mission, and that mission was to die for the sin of all who believe. He humbled himself as a man and humbled himself before men, but at every turn he was accomplishing everything that He came to do.
Philippians 2:5-8 says; "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."
Jesus was obedient to fulfill His part of the mission to redeem humanity. He said; “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” John 6:38
After three years of proclaiming the kingdom and healing the sick and even raising the dead, Jesus was betrayed by one of His disciples and handed over to the Roman authorities to be executed. What was His crime? There was no crime; Jesus never broke the law of God or man. The priests and elders condemned Jesus for blasphemy because He claimed to be the Son of God.
In the incarnation the Son of God was at the same time the Son of Man, and the priests and elders couldn’t get their minds wrapped around that. Jesus was their Messiah but they rejected Him because they were looking for a different kind of messiah. They were looking for a conquering king who would deliver them from the oppression of the Romans. But God the Father sent the perfect sacrifice for sin so that all who believe will be delivered from the oppression of sin.
In the incarnation we have the great mystery of the majesty of God in man. Jesus was God and man at the same time, possessing the full divine nature and human nature in the same person. Jesus was in every way human, He was born in a physical body just like we were and physically He was subject to the corruption of sin. Had His body not been subject to the corruption of sin He would not have died.
Jesus was in every way human but He never sinned. Hebrews 4:14-16 says; "Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
In His humanity Jesus did not inherit the spiritual corruption of the sin of Adam. We, on the other hand, were all born dead in sin and by nature children of wrath. We inherited this from Adam and Eve just as we inherited size and hair and eye color from parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. Jesus inherited size and hair and eye color from Mary and her parents and grandparents but He didn’t inherit the sin of Adam. This is very important.
Romans 5:18-19 says; "Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous."
Adam’s sin brought condemnation on all mankind. By Adam’s disobedience all humans are born sinners. But, one act of righteousness – the sinless life and substitutionary death of Jesus – leads to justification for all who believe. We were born in the sin of Adam; we are born again in the righteousness of Christ. We are born of the Spirit and given a new nature. We are made new in Christ.
This is only possible because of the incarnation. The incarnation is profoundly significant. The sacrifice for sin had to be a human so it could be a substitute for humans. The sacrifice for sin had to be sinless to be acceptable to a sinless God. This is only possible in the incarnation. Every human ever born is born a sinner and condemned for their sin. All humans inherit the sin of Adam. In Jesus, God the Son was the only human ever born that did not inherit the sin of Adam.
The penalty for sin is death. Jesus was born without sin and lived without sin and died without sin for the sin of all who believe. Jesus wasn’t under the penalty of death for sin so His death could pay the penalty for our sin. This would be impossible for a sinful human to do.
John Frame writes in Salvation Belongs to the Lord: "Unless our savior is God, we are without hope. It is the deity of Christ that sustains his human nature through terrible suffering, that gives worth and power to his sufferings, that makes his salvation sure. . . . Only the Lord can be the savior.
It is equally important that our redeemer be man. . . . He shares our flesh and blood so that he can defeat death."
Without the incarnation, without God in flesh, without the sacrifice that was fully God and fully man, there could be no atonement.
Hebrews 9:11-14 says; "But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God."
Year after year the priests offered sacrifices for their own sin and then for the sin of the people. They entered the most holy place in the Tabernacle and later the Temple to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the cover of the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat. The ark represented the presence of God and the blood of the sacrifice made God favorable toward the people yet the people were still in bondage to their sin natures and their sinful behavior.
Hebrews 10:11-14 says; "And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified."
The priests entered into the most holy place with the blood of the sacrifice, but it was only a type, looking forward to Christ, our great high priest who entered the true presence of God to present His own blood securing eternal redemption.
There is only one sacrifice for sin, the blood of God’s one perfect Son. There is no redemption from the penalty for sin and there is no forgiveness for sin apart from the shed blood of Jesus. Apart from the incarnation there would have been no blood.
The redemption and forgiveness secured by the blood of Jesus is eternal. The blood of the animal sacrifices held back the wrath of God for a time, but the blood of Jesus cleanses us. All who by grace through faith trust in the person and work of Jesus are eternally redeemed from the bondage of sin and eternally forgiven for their sin because of the blood sacrifice. This happened in the incarnation and because of the incarnation.
God is perfectly righteous and absolutely holy. He demands perfect righteousness from you. Unless you are perfectly righteous in every thought and word and deed every second of every day, you cannot stand in the presence of God.
Apart from Christ we are all dead in sin and children of wrath, but God in His infinite mercy sacrificed His Son and by grace through faith we are cleansed from our sin by His blood, the blood of the incarnate Son of God who paid the penalty for our sin by taking the wrath for our sin on himself, exchanging our sin for His righteousness so that we will be welcomed into the presence of God.
Hebrews 10:19-23 says; "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful."
The incarnation is supremely significant. Full atonement has been made in the substitutionary sacrifice of the perfect Son of God. None of this would be possible without the Son of God becoming a human, living a sinless life, dying for our sin, and being raised from the dead. We enter into the holy places by the blood of Jesus, the way being opened for us by His flesh.

Give Thanks

Thursday is Thanksgiving Day. It’s not just another Thursday, it’s a day when most of us won’t go to work and for many of us it is a paid day off. Most of us will gather with family and friends for a special meal and time together. Many will watch football and some will play football in parks and fields.
We eat a meal to remember a time of thanksgiving celebrated in 1621 by some of the first European immigrants and their indigenous neighbors. They had fled religious persecution in England, moving first to Holland and then to the new world. They were heading for Virginia but a storm pushed them to land off the coast of what is now Massachusetts. What might be seen as a problem was – in their worldview – seen as providence, God working in their circumstances. The pictures we see of the Pilgrims do not accurately convey the hardship they had suffered. Death had come to nearly every home, and many of the families that gathered were made up of a man who had lost his wife married to a woman who had lost her husband and their combined surviving children. In their hardship they gave thanks for God’s care and provision for them.
On October 3, 1789 George Washington called for a day of national thanksgiving in his Thanksgiving Proclamation. It says in part:
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced . . .
How far we have come.
As we gather on Thanksgiving Day we might think or even talk about what we are thankful for, but how much thinking or talking will be about who we are thankful to?
Romans 8:28 says: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
I know I’ve ripped this text from its massively rich context, but I do so to remind us that God is working. God is working in all things. God is working in all things for the good of those who are called by Him.
The Pilgrims knew this as they went through hardship from persecution by a state controlled church to travel across a very large ocean in a very small boat and faced the New England winters. Our founding fathers – not all of whom were Christians – knew this as they declared independence from England and established that independence with blood.
Here we are the beneficiaries of the sacrifice of the Pilgrims and those who gave everything for liberty. Here we are the beneficiaries of the sacrifice of our families for us. In all of this, God is working and if you are called by Him He is working for your good.
We have been going through hard times. We all know someone who is unemployed or underemployed. In this God is working. We all experience disease, either personally or in those we love. In this God is working. We all experience strained relationships. In this God is working. I could go on but I think you get what I am saying. In this world we will hardship and suffering, and God is working.
Is hardship and suffering all we experience? Absolutely not, though sometimes it feels that way. We also experience great joy and satisfaction, but if our joy and satisfaction is only in our experience it is misplaced. Our greatest joy and satisfaction is in Christ.
We don’t hear the word providence much anymore, but just because we quit talking about it doesn’t mean that God quit. He is working. God is not only our Creator, He is our Sustainer. In Christ God holds the universe together. Colossians 1:15-17 tells us that by Christ all things were created and in Him all things hold together. If He stopped, the universe would fly apart. That’s providence on a big scale, but that’s not where providence stops.
God’s providence affects every part of life. It is by common grace, grace given to all mankind, that the sun shines and the rain falls and food grows. Whether it is recognized or not it is by God’s grace that we have people to love and work to do and homes to live in. But what if we don’t have people to love or work to do or homes to live in? God is still sovereign and He is still good and He is still working.
Are you OK with that? Or do you think that if things aren’t “good” God must not be working? I’m afraid that many have an entitlement mentality about God. Many believe that because they are Christians God is obligated to make life easy. That’s not what Scripture teaches.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
God works all things together for good. That doesn’t mean that everything we experience will be good. When we are born again we receive a new heart, a new nature, but we continue to live in bodies corrupted by sin in a world corrupted by sin. We live with the effects of our sin and the sin of those around us; in this God is working all things together for good.
This Thanksgiving and always I encourage you to remember the One to whom you give thanks. God is good and is working all things together for the ultimate good, redeeming a people for himself who will be resurrected in sinless bodies and worship Him in the new earth where there will be no sin. Give thanks in your circumstances. Be thankful for what you have and what you don’t have. God is good and working all things together for good. If you are in Christ God is caring for you, but His work to conform you to the likeness of Christ does not guarantee ease and comfort in this life. He does guarantee that we will see Christ as He is because we will be made like Him in the resurrection.
Life can be hard, but God is always good. Have a blessed Thanksgiving. Ray

Seventy Times Seven

In Matthew chapter 18 we read the account of Peter coming to Jesus and asking how many times he should forgive his brother when he sins against him. “As many as seven times?” Peter asks.
I suspect this is not a hypothetical question for Peter. He not thinking that someday some brother might sin against him repeatedly and he should be ready. No, I think Peter is living with a brother sinning against him. He is living with forgiving the same guy for the same thing over and over again.
Jesus replies; “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”
Imagine Peter’s thinking; “Seventy times seven? I have to forgive this guy 490 times?”
Jesus, knowing what Peter was thinking when we can only imagine, explains by telling a parable, a story made up to make a point. The story was about a king who came to settle accounts with his people. A servant was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. A talent was about twenty year’s wages for this man. To convert it to our thinking, if you make $50,000 a year that would be $1,000,000. This was an impossible debt.
Unable to pay, the king ordered that this man, his wife, his children, and everything he owned be sold to pay the debt. The man begged his master to give him more time and he would pay him. Does this sound realistic? Does this seem like a good risk? I don’t think so. I think his master would have been ahead to take what he could get and move on.
But the king had pity on the man. He had mercy, not giving the man what he deserved or even the extension he asked for; he forgave the debt.
I don’t think we really understand how huge this was. Our possessions might be seized to pay our debt, but we wouldn’t be sold into slavery. This man received mercy beyond calculation in the debt being forgiven.
This should have changed his life. He should have never looked at anyone who owed him anything without thinking of the debt he was forgiven. But that’s not what happened.
The man found another man who owed him 100 denarii. A denarius was about a day’s wages. At $50,000 a year for six days a week that is just under $160.00. When he could not pay, the man had him put in prison.
This man would not forgive $160.00 even though he had been forgiven 6,250 times more.
What do you think? I think that what this man was despicable. Sadly, I have acted every bit as despicably.
Apart from Christ I owed an impossible debt, a debt I could not pay. Unlike the king in our parable, God didn’t just forgive my debt, He paid it in full. The debt I owed, the penalty for my sin, was eternal death. God paid my debt as His eternal Son took on himself the penalty I deserved.
If you are a Christian, if you are in Christ by grace through faith, your sin, past present and future, has been forgiven because the penalty for your sin has been paid.
Having received this great forgiveness from the One I sinned against, how can I not forgive those who sin against me? Jesus humbled himself in His incarnation and was humiliated in His crucifixion and yet, as he hung beaten and bloodied dying the most agonizing and painful death ever conceived by mankind, asked God the father to forgive those who unjustly convicted Him, mocked Him, beat Him, and nailed Him to a cross to die.
Our parable continues as some of the other servants went to their master and told him what the unforgiving servant had done.
The king called in this servant and said to him; “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” Then he threw the servant into prison until he could pay.
Jesus concludes the parable with; “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
Jesus is not saying that God will condemn us for unforgiveness, He is saying our unforgiveness condemns us. Salvation is not based on anything we do, nor is condemnation. Salvation is by grace – the freely given unmerited gift of God – alone. What Jesus is saying is that if we are unforgiving we are not forgiven. Unforgiveness is a sign of one who has not been reconciled to God.
Don’t misunderstand, we get hurt by others and we get angry at others and we may struggle with unforgiveness, but if we are in Christ His Spirit is in us and we will be convicted of our sin and come to forgive those who have hurt us and those we are angry with. Those who do not are not in Christ.
I find the way to forgiveness is to consider what forgiveness cost God the Father. I find the way to let go of an offense is to consider the offense of the mocking and beating and crucifixion of the Son of God. Considering this, how can I hold on to an offense? Considering this, how can I not forgive? Considering this, I should gladly forgive my brother more than seventy times seven times.