INTRODUCTION
Robert Louis Stevenson described two sisters who lived in Edinburgh, Scotland, and who refused to have any dealings with each other: “The pair inhabited a single room. From the facts it must have been doublebedded; and it may have been of some size; but when all is said, it was a single room. Here our two spinsters fell out—on some point—but fell out so bitterly that there was never a word spoken between them from that day forward. You would have thought that they would separate; but no, whether from lack of means or the Scottish fear of scandal, they continued to keep house together where they were. A chalk line drawn upon the floor separated the two domains; it bisected the doorway and the fireplace, so that each could go out and in, and do her own cooking without violating the territory of the other. So, for years they co-existed in a hateful silence, their meals, their ablutions, their friendly visitors, exposed to an unfriendly scrutiny; and at night, in the dark watches, each could hear the breathing of her enemy. Never did four walls look down upon an uglier spectacle than these sisters rivaling in unsisterliness.”1
I. THE NATURE OF UN-FORGIVENESS
A. Its universality.
The ugliness of an unforgiving spirit threatens all of us. Into every life there comes an opportunity to cherish hate or to extend forgiveness. All of us will suffer many wrongs in a lifetime. A friend that we admire, for no clear reason, may turn against us. A business associate whom we trusted may betray us. Someone may borrow money and refuse to pay it back. Words said in anger may wound us deeply, or gossip may stain our reputation. We may be completely innocent. We may have done nothing to deserve the treachery of a friend.
At a time such as that, an unforgiving spirit grows like a choking weed in the soil of our souls. Our strong sense of justice makes us remember the slights. We have a righteous cause, and we want “an eye for an eye, a slight for a slight”—or even more! The injustice done to us can become the consuming passion of our lives.
B. Its unforgettability.
A rather well-to-do man was asked the purpose of his life. He replied bitterly, “To get even!” Someone had wronged him, and he lived his life to pay back that wrong.
Sometimes we say rather piously, “I can forgive him, but I can’t forget what he has done!” What we mean is that our memory is at work nursing our anger to keep it warm. Like a dog with a bone, we let our minds dig up all the dirt and go back to past faults.
A colleague of mine sat at dinner with a couple who told him how some friends had wronged them. The wife reviewed all the details, and it was clear that, if their story were accurate, they had been done a wrong. Then he discovered that all the events had taken place ten years before. For a decade, they had crippled themselves by refusing to forget. The world is filled with men and women who brood over their wounds until it is impossible to forget them.
C. Its vengefulness.
How you respond when others treat you wrong is a matter of great concern to God. In 1 Corinthians 13:5 Paul writes that love “thinketh no evil.” At least that’s the way the King James Version puts it. Of course, that is true. Love could never plot evil against someone else; but that’s not what the text is talking about. The New English Bible translators made it clearer, “Love keeps no record of wrongs.” Love does not store up memories of wrongs that it has received.
The Greek word that Paul uses is an accountant’s word. It is a word used for entering an item on a ledger so that it will not be forgotten. When we take an account of evil it is because we plan to recall it. We plan to use it to accuse our neighbor or to get revenge.
You and I select our memories. If you want to remember something, you go over it again and again. The child reviews his spelling words; the actor goes over his lines; you write down the names of people to remember. If you don’t, you will forget. Paul is saying that love chooses to forget the wrongs done against it. It forgives and forgets. It refuses to be resentful.
II. THE REMEDY FOR UN-FORGIVENESS
A. Leave revenge to God.
Forgiveness that forgets is hard and costly. You give up your rights and your feelings of innocence. How can you do it when the wound is sore and the hurt is deep? I don’t know what others do, but I can suggest what they can do.
Christians can forget the desire to get even by realizing that they can’t do it. Sir Walter Scott once wrote, “Revenge is the sweetest morsel to the mouth that was ever cooked in hell.” Revenge may seem sweet, but it doesn’t really settle the matter. It doesn’t heal your scars to hurt other people. Let God take care of it. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,” (Rom 12:19, KJV). God knows what has been done to us and why. If I leave such matters with Him, then I can live in love and forget. Revenge belongs to God.
B. Remember how God has treated us.
If we use the old system of bookkeeping—in which we make a careful record of wrongs—it is a good indication that we have never understood God’s forgiveness of us. How could we, and behave like that? Through the cross, God has forgotten the Christian’s sin. God gathered up our evil and laid it on His Son—evil that we did against God, evil for which we had no excuse, evil that poured out from the hatred of our hearts. God took all that evil and laid it on Jesus Christ not merely to forgive it, but to forget it. All of my sin has been placed on Christ and by accepting what He has done, I know it is forgiven—and forgotten! That is the force of those magnificent words in the epistle to the Hebrews: “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more” (Heb 8:12, ESV).
David sings, “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Ps 102:12, ESV). When I first heard that verse, it disturbed me. I knew that, since the earth is round, if you traveled east, you would eventually arrive in the west. Is it possible that if you went far enough, you would meet your own sin again? But, true east and true west go off into space and extend out into infinity. The Psalmist assures us that our sins are gone—God has forgotten them. If God did that for my sin, can I not act to forget the single sins of others toward me?
C. Realize that forgiveness is difficult and costly.
Like the two sisters of whom Stevenson wrote, some Christians worship together with a line drawn between them that might as well be a wall. No love or warmth can penetrate that shield. A congregation without forgiving and forgetting love is a farce, not a force. But, forgiving is difficult and costly. Sins which have wounded us and have left their permanent marks on our lives cannot be shrugged off easily. Yet, God commands it: “Forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Col 3:13, ESV). That command demands action. Forgiveness starts in the will, not in the feelings. It demands our willingness to practice it, to admit our failures, and to keep at it—continually.
CONCLUSION
Forgiveness is not easy. The cross of Christ was not “easy.” But it was necessary. Are you bearing a grudge against a friend? Why not write or call them and restore your relationship? Is there an apology that you should make? Is there a matter that you should bury deep and consider gone forever? For the sake of Christ, for your own sake, for the sake of others, do it today.
1 Robert Louis Stevenson, “Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes,” accessed August 17, 2023, https:// www.gutenberg.org/files/382/382-h/382-h.htm.
Rex D. Edwards, DMin, is a former vice president for religious studies at Griggs University.
