Sober now for over 30 years, Bill1 attends Alcohol Anonymous (AA) meetings several times each week where he and others stand together against their common enemy, addiction. Bill occasionally shares with me the wit and wisdom of AA, tidbits to savor amid life’s trials and temptations, including this little homespun gem: “Not accepting forgiveness is a way of keeping the focus on yourself.” The point is a good one, and it ushers us to an important topic: the popular notion of self-forgiveness, or “the need to forgive ourselves.” Scripture does not address the assertion, but it speaks plenty about for God’s higher, better way. Let’s look.
There is this pattern in Scripture: Forgiveness comes not from the offender, but from those we offend, be they our peers and/or our God. In His teaching on prayer, for instance, Jesus petitioned, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”2 Paul likewise exhorts believers, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”3 And in His parable about the unmerciful servant, Jesus illustrates the workings of forgiveness: Though it was within the servant’s ability to forgive his coworker’s debt, he lacked the power to absolve his own—only the king could do that.4 Do you see the common thread here? We are not our own debtors; our debt forgiveness—the forgiveness of our “selves”—comes hopefully from others and most assuredly from God.
Then what must we do but receive from God in faith what is already ours in Christ: forgiveness. Indeed, boldly so, for divine forgiveness is complete and total. God has made us “alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”5 Receive this gift. Moreover, Jesus’ sacrificial work for us is sufficient, hence “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”6 Rest in this reality. And when we do sin, God is “faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”7 Trust in His promise. For there is nothing more we must do—indeed there is nothing more we can do—than to trust, receive, and rest in the divine forgiveness that is already ours in Christ Jesus.
Jesus, thank You for sacrificing Your body and blood for my sins. Grace me to trust, receive and rest in Your atoning work. I rejoice, for forgiveness is mine through Your selfless love. Amen.
1 This name is changed for privacy purposes.
2 Matthew 6:12 KJV
3 Ephesians 4:32 NIV
4 See the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:21-35 NIV.
5 Colossians 2:14-15 ESV
6 Romans 8:1-2 NIV
7 1 John 1:8-9 ESV
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Paul Nordman—Author 