“Doomed for all Time” A World with No Forgiveness?

This blog is in response to an interesting post by Paul Louis Metzger entitled Imagine A World Without Forgiveness where he discusses Amida Buddhist teachings and the meaning of John Lennon’s song “Imagine” with a Buddhist scholar in Japan.
 

It is a terrible thing to offend another and very hard to fix the damage wreaked from the outside. Proverbs 18:19 poetically describes the offended as almost impervious to reconciliation from the outside.

A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, 

 and quarreling is like the bars of a castle.

The reconciliation with an offended brother does not come by force from the outside, but from a heart change on the inside. My son is in a place to care for wounded soldiers, which I told him sounded like a great place for him to show compassion and kindness towards them. I was reading yesterday in Proverbs 25 about how we should treat our enemies,

If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat,
    and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,
for you will heap burning coals on his head,
    and the Lord will reward you. (25:21-22)

One commentary (EBC) on this passage says, “People who treat their enemies with kindness will bring remorse to them and blessing from God... The imagery of the "burning coals" represents pangs of conscience, more readily affected by kindness than by violence. These burning coals produce the sharp pain of contrition through regret.” By blessing those who don't deserve it, the thatched roof of their prejudiced world-view starts to burn away opening them to the light of God's love. 

Romans 12:20 quotes this verse and in v. 21 the Apostle Paul adds the admonition, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” This is a really hard thing for people to do when they are being mistreated! Our kindness towards the offender is not a guarantee that they will change, but rather a witness that we have changed as a result of the presence of Christ in our hearts. Such a counter-intuitive testimony can start the coals of reconciliation glowing, fanned by the breath of God, on the inside of the offender’s heart.

Have we come to that place of honesty where we cry out for forgiveness as David did in Psalm 25:11 & 18?

For your name's sake, O Lord,
    pardon my guilt, for it is great…
The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
    bring me out of my distresses.
Consider my affliction and my trouble,
    and forgive all my sins.

The key for me in forgiving others is my realizing within my heart how much I am in need of the forgiveness of God—how dependent I am on the gift of God’s grace—that awareness demands that I show mercy to others. I am personally quick to ask for forgiveness from God and people I have offended and thus I must be equally quick to forgive. Jesus makes forgiving others a justice issue in the Lord’s Prayer,

"…forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors…
For if you forgive others their trespasses,

your heavenly Father will also forgive you,

but if you do not forgive others their trespasses,

neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:12, 14-15)

Metzger rightly rejects the laws of karma as described in his article,

The law of karma states that every action performed in life creates another reaction which in turn produces a new counter action. Thus an endless chain of actions and reactions is produced which binds the living entity to his good and bad deeds. This is the way how karma works. It creates an action and another reaction simultaneously and this increases the chain of material activities, keeping the performer in material bondage.

So are we "doomed for all time"? The Bible teaches that we are not trapped in such a cycle of action and reaction where we are forever tied to our offenses. The good news is that we are not “doomed for all time” to wear “a chain forged by our misdeeds”—no matter what Marley & Marley appear to say—if we receive the help God has offered in the atonement. Even Marley comes to the point...at .48 they sing,

"As freedom comes from giving love
So, prison comes with hate"

God has given us his love—in Jesus Christ—to escape the chains of our own making and those that come from hating the misdeeds of others. He provides a way of escape!

In the Old Testament, there were easily accessible cities of refuge (see Numbers 35 and Deuteronomy 19) on both “banks” of the Jordan River where offenders could run and seek a fair judgment instead of getting caught up in a cycle of vengeance. In the New Testament we see that we (and those who have offended us) can find refuge in the sacrificial death of Christ (Heb. 6:18). It is in such a refuge where we can not only be free, but set others at liberty as well. Coincidentally, Glenn Burris, the president of our denomination, posted the following testimony of freedom in forgiveness yesterday on his Facebook page.

Eric Lomax was a British officer in WWII. He was captured and severely tortured at a POW camp in Burma. Forced to build a railroad and subjected to intense daily humiliation, he became deeply scarred by the experience. Even after being rescued, he suffered for decades with nightmares and roller coaster emotions. One of his friends discovered that his primary torturer (Takashi Nagasi) was still alive, handed him a knife, suggested he go kill him and end his suffering.  made the decision to go and confront his nemesis. Once there, he had a change of heart. His torturer profusely apologized and asked for forgiveness. It was a life changing event for both of them. They became good friends and the story is retold in the book and recently released movie "The Railway Man". Forgiveness sets a prisoner free, and you discover that the prisoner was you. Matthew 6:14He made the decision to go and confront his nemesis. Once there, he had a change of heart. His torturer profusely apologized and asked for forgiveness. It was a life changing event for both of them. They became good friends and the story is retold in the book and recently released movie, "The Railway Man". Forgiveness sets a prisoner free, and you discover that the prisoner was you.

The story of Eric Lomax ends with the words "Sometime the hating has to stop." So who has offended me? Who has offended you? It is time for us to stop bringing up the past and forgive them, not because they deserve it (they probably don’t) but because Jesus took their punishment on himself (whether they realize it and appropriate it or not) and because we have been forgiven so much it would be wrong not to offer them a share (see Matthew 18:15-35; Ephesians 4:31-32).

I fully agree with Dr. Metzger when he writes,

Only as we receive God’s forgiveness for our sins for which we can in no way atone can we break out of the perpetual cycle of hostility and extend forgiveness to others. Only by a life of faith in God’s sacrificial love can we live in a way that produces actions of love rather than those of indifference and hate. Only then is reconciliation truly possible in our homes, churches, and towns. It is not something we can produce on our own.

I will finish this post by including a poem I wrote over 30 years ago about our common need for forgiveness and our pervasive efforts to hide that fact by blaming others.

The Strangely Elastic Rug

Days oozing by.

Grains of sand

Standing, now falling.

A finite future,

Through a brief

Crowded, bruising,

Now;

Into Increasing

Past.

We strain

Struggle,

To squeeze through

Present;

That infinitely narrow isthmus,

Connecting

What-might-be,

With

What-has-been.

In the crush,

Today,

We scatter each other's

What-might-be(s)

—as they inhibit ours—

On to the floor, of

What-might-have-been;

Broken dishes.

Bringing into our collective

Past;

Things, more often than not,

Twisted, misshapen, perverted

To second best,

Or,

Never best,

By our struggle, greed,

Panic at passing through.

Today,

We lose much of

Our best

Future,

Which might have become

Our noblest

Past.

We push, pull through

Now, our desires, plans, dreams.

Whatever seems best

At the time.

An instant later,

We see;

What-might-have-beens

All around.

In shame, we sweep them under

The strangely elastic rug.

We reach out to others,

Help them quickly,

To do the same.

Briskly sweeping

What-might-have-beens,

No,

What-should-have-beens,

Under the strangely elastic rug—

Rationalizations, explanations,

Other excuses.

This,

After all

Todays-becoming-Yesterdays

Since that first

Should-have-been;

Building a great hill

Under the strangely elastic rug,

Now stretched taught.

All mankind,

But one,

Sculpting the hill,

Stand on the edge,

Of the rug,

Lest, horror,

Our should-have-beens

Might be exposed.

All stood around

The Hill,

But One,

Hung

Upon the Hill.

The One,

Who birthed

No What-should-have-beens,

Who died,

Now lives.

The Rug,

Now, torn asunder.

 

                             © 1984 Greg K. Dueker