Curtis Klingle

Facebook Post- February 17, 2023

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” William Blake

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.”

I know in my own life I sometimes find it very trying to receive forgiveness, in fact there was a time that I honestly could not. In conversations with others, I have found that many battle this same issue. We are quick to forgive another, but hesitant to be forgiven. I have thought about this many times in the past, but I have never come to any real reasons as to why, and certainly not to any conclusions. In hopes of finding the reason behind it, I worked the problem backwards, trying to take it back to its first principles, or as far as I could go.

The question of my own resistance has cycled through my thoughts for a very long time. Sometimes it is as if I stand obstinately before the waters of forgiveness donned in a rain suit so none of it can get on me. The question “Why?” is always present. The first answer to my question regarding this reluctance came in the form of the word: atonement. I recognized that at least a part of my problem was that I sensed a debt when I needed to be forgiven, and that I believed I needed to make payment/atonement in order to receive that forgiveness. While this view was not erroneous, it was not complete. In atonement we are making reparations for the incurred debt and procuring the release from the debt. Reduced to its simplest form, it is righting a wrong through monies or provision of some service to the one offended. For example, “Yes, I recognize that I have wronged you. I would like to write you a check for one hundred dollars for this offense, and now we can call us square again.” While this does make reparations for the wrong, it is not payment in full in the Christian perspective.

In Christian forgiveness, there are two parts intertwined: atonement and reconciliation. That reconciliation is usually part of the process should be understood, but not in all cases mind you. In our wrongs against one another our atonement is typically found in the form of an apology to the one offended. The apology is the payment, or at least in part, and mingled with this apology is a sense of sorrow having committed the wrong. I cannot imagine being in this state without humility, and I have come to believe it also must be present. (Keep this in mind, for we will see this again shortly.) But there are cases in which the offender will refuse to offer an apology, to atone, and in that situation the giving of forgiveness is still required.  

Forgiveness is a release of a debt. Like grace, it is unmerited. It cannot be earned nor purchased by us. As C.S. Lewis put it, “…we are releasing the person of the debt owed us and declaring, we shall not think on it anymore.” The recipient thus receives the forgiveness and the release of the debt from the forgiver. But it is so much more than that. The giver is also freed from the recipient the moment forgiveness is meted out. Whatever sense of justice he held over the offender, is released with his extension of forgiveness. (This is covered more in depth in other essays I’ve written on forgiveness.)

The basis for forgiveness is found in God’s love for us and is outworked in our reciprocal love for God, and our love for one another. I am referring to agape love, the love of God. The love that sacrifices; that kind of love that gives itself away. The love that prefers the happiness and wellbeing of others over its own. In the act of forgiveness, we are releasing the offender of our need for rectification, and this is accomplished through an act of love. Now, please understand that love is not an emotion, though emotions can and often do accompany it. Love is an action; it is a willful decision to choose to love. In 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Paul aptly describes it, “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails…” If you will notice, in each facet of love there is an action or a restraint of something, and even when in a mode of restraint, we are performing an action. It is this love, agape love, that was exemplified in Jesus’ work on the Cross. Just ponder for a moment the level of restraint God Himself showed when Jesus was nailed to the Cross. Imagine an angry God, the God depicted in the Old Testament, that same God that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah viewing this scene. At any second He could have brought down hail and brimstone, sent 12 Legions of angels (72,000), or consumed all present at Calvary with holy fire. I can assure you; this was an act of, if not the ultimate display of restraint, and this act of love is far beyond anything any of us can fathom.

Each of us is guilty of sin against God and against each other. We are in a near constant state of rebellion against God, in fact, it is incessant prior to salvation. With each offense comes guilt, and with guilt there must be punishment. It is also impossible for us to atone for our sins against God. To add to that, our sins against each other are ultimately sins against Him as well. Jesus’ sacrifice was the atonement for our sins. He paid the price required to atone for our sins, our individual guilt, and to make the way for our forgiveness. Some synonyms of atonement are- amends, expiation, indemnification, payment, propitiation, recompense, redress, restitution, and satisfaction. Our books were stamped, “Paid in Full.” C.S. Lewis wrote, “Christ died for men precisely because men are not worth dying for; to make them worth it.” Bear in mind that all sins, all wrongs must be accounted for. With a rejection of God’s gift of forgiveness, you will have to make the atonement yourself, and being that you cannot, you will be found wanting. The atonement performed at the Cross is something we will never fully understand, at least not on this side of eternity. I can see the heavenly host fixated on Calvary for those six hours of horror. All of Creation reacted violently, literally convulsed at His crucifixion and subsequent death. Matthew 27:51-53; Luke 23:44-45.

Based upon this Christian perspective, we can then deduce that I cannot make atonement for myself. If it were possible for me to pay the debt, then Jesus’ sacrifice was unnecessary. So, if Jesus paid my debt, then all I have to do is receive the reward, that being the forgiveness that He paid so dearly for. Understand that my belief in atonement is correct as well as biblical. Where we see it go quickly askew in my relationship with my Creator is when I decide that rather than receive God’s provision of forgiveness, I try to make my own atonement for my wrongs.

I have written about forgiveness many times and have even published a couple of articles on this very subject, and yet I still have difficulty in grasping this. I sensed that the issue must be deeper than merely my desire to pay my own way. Where was my resistance to forgiveness, as well as my desire to atone for my wrongs to be found? They seemed to be inseparably linked. What I discovered disturbed me.

I, like you, have this thing which resides within me which has caused me untold problems in life and inflicted suffering upon all I know. His name is Pride. No matter how many times I try to destroy him, he always resurrects. If my problem is Pride, then I am at odds with God, for pride is enmity with God. It was the first sin in the universe, and it has been the pinnacle sin of every man ever born. In pride, we are always trying to be better, but not so much for self-improvement, but to be better than our brother or our sister. We want to be elevated above their status, we want to be better known, to be the resplendent example that others look to. It impels us to not only step over, but to step upon all who would hinder our progress as we climb to the summit of our pride.

Pride can taint even the most beautiful of acts, including forgiveness. In receiving forgiveness, if you recall, I mentioned that there is an aspect of humility, and because of that, there can be a sense that the recipient is taking a subservient role. Think for a moment when someone gave you an unsolicited or unwarranted gift. A good example would be the receipt of a Christmas gift from someone you had not even thought of giving a gift to. Was there not some resistance to receiving the gift? Did you not feel less generous or less kind than they? Isn’t it refreshing to discover that you too have pride?

So, when I receive your forgiveness, I am at the moment subordinate to you. I am indeed taking the role of a lesser before you, a servile position. Now, if it were not for pride, I would be willing to receive because I am not only receiving forgiveness, but the love that is interlaced within it. Remember, forgiveness is an action of love. But that horrid creature that dwells within me, that thing called Pride, will be resistant to receiving forgiveness, any forgiveness, even that from God. Let this imagery develop in your mind: I genuflect before you, my head bowed, and like a beggar, my palm is upraised before you to receive. Even describing this humble position, I can feel my hackles rise. I abhor this position, this feeling of being a lesser. That being the case, every alarm of self-respect and self-adoration will begin to scream its alert.

Within a mere two steps, I have uncovered the root of the problem I set out to discover. With pride as the foundation, the human mind will make every attempt to lessen the blow of humility in order to preserve self-respect. There is an incessant need to preserve the “self” the origin of our individual pride. In order to obviate any damage to my “self” I will again revert to atonement. From this “need” to preserve the self arises the doctrine of penance, and the belief in a host of modes of mortification of the body. These latter are all forms of atonement, which we have already shown is impossible for us to do. They are driven by guilt, and we now know that where there is guilt, there must be punishment. Penance is in essence, self-punishment for a sin; the outward expression of repentance.

Now, there is some benefit in introspection and reflection, even a reverential penitential reflection upon one’s sins can assist in our spiritual growth. I can also think of one form of mortification of the flesh that is beneficial, that being fasting. The key is that the practice of these does not entertain any aspect of atonement. You cannot atone for your sins. Penance in the form of atonement and done so outwardly is also explicitly forbidden. Jesus Himself spoke out against anything that remotely elevated one’s religious status above others, or drew attention to the penitent, especially when one was seeking the accolades of others for their religiosity. Matthew 6:5- “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.” In Matthew 6:16, Jesus addressed what could be called fashionable fasting, “Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.”

In both of these examples we are admonished not to put on a display for others. Your prayers and fasting, anything you do for God is for Him, not for recognition before others. Penance, performed as defined, is an outward display of repentance, thus, it is performed for others to see. It is just that, a performance.

If one has a conscience, then guilt will occur when a wrong is committed, and accompanying that is the desire to exact punishment, to make atonement. When guilt is driving the person, punishment will become a reality. What is especially interesting to me is that though I reject the deplorable doctrine of penance when it is used as form of atonement, I find that I am one of its most ardent practitioners! I perform penance when I sin, granted in a more psychological fashion without any of the various modes of mortification of the flesh, but the affect is the same. The modus operandi looks like this: I commit a sin and feel unworthy to go before Him to ask for forgiveness. I next enter into a state of travail to atone for my sin. When I deem I have suffered enough, I have performed enough psychological penance, I can then move into the final phase. Now that I have suffered, I can finally ask for God’s forgiveness. Think about this carefully. What exactly have I done here? Every action I have taken, save the last one, has been putting my salvation and forgiveness back in my own hands, and effectively removing it from Christ’s. I am once again trying to force myself to atone for my own sin. I have indeed nullified His work on the cross!

Self-atonement for our sin is out of the question. We cannot pay the price of atonement through penance in any of its various forms. As I continued to work the problem, with the acknowledgement that my pride was the basis for my aversion to receiving forgiveness, what came next was the topic of self-forgiveness. We have been taught about self-forgiveness for many years now. We have been told that we must forgive ourselves in order to forgive others.

The term self-forgiveness troubles me, and it has always troubled me and for good reason. I will forewarn, this may shock you. Self-forgiveness is not scriptural. There is not a word of it anywhere in the Bible. The term itself implies or infers that I can forgive myself. The fact is, I cannot forgive myself. None of us are in the position to be able to forgive ourselves. Self-forgiveness has crept into our Faith through the mediums of modern psychology and positive thinking gurus. In fact, some modern psychology admonishes the individual for experiencing an elevated sense of guilt, but it is guilt which provides a revelation in a person’s mind to the fact that they need forgiveness! A guiltless person, a person without conscience, fits the definition of a sociopath or a psychopath.

You will not find a single scripture that refers to self-forgiveness, not a one. Self-forgiveness is a ruse, and it is such an effective one that it has nearly been elevated to the level of doctrine. What you will find instead though is that there are two types of forgiveness depicted within Scripture. The first is that which we receive from God. The second type of forgiveness is the forgiveness that we give to others and that which we receive from them. That received from God is vertical and that which we share with others is horizontal, and interestingly the visual of these forms a cross.

So, what does it really mean to receive God’s forgiveness, and thereby experiencing what is referred to as self-forgiveness? First, we are told in Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart; these O God, you will not despise.” In this verse, we are presented with something of a list of prerequisites in order to receive forgiveness.

1. There is no pride present. There is no self-assertion to be found.

2. The one seeking forgiveness is heartbroken at his own sin. It is guilt over one’s sin that brings a person to this state.

3. His spirit is humble and crushed before God. Again, there is no pride. The one seeking forgiveness before God has been brought to his lowest state. As the maxim declares, “When a man is flat on his back, he has but way to look, and that is up.”

The only way to freedom is to come to the realization that you cannot earn your forgiveness through any practice of self-atonement, penance, or the various forms of mortification. You cannot forgive yourself, you must receive His gift, the gift of forgiveness. Upon receiving God’s forgiveness, one can in effect take ownership of this forgiveness to the degree that it becomes something which appears to be self-forgiveness. Be mindful though that it is not; it only appears that way. It is the receipt of God’s forgiveness. It may sound like I am splitting hairs, but I am not. In God we find forgiveness; in ourselves we find excuses. If it seems I am beating the proverbial dead horse, then I do so with good intentions, I am making every effort to drive this home to you, as well as to myself, our eternal destination depends on it. The moment you grasp this, it is in that moment that your entire life changes. Try to visualize yourself before Him as His only child, because at the moment you are His only child. All of eternity is standing still as you bask in His presence. At that moment you are all that matters to Him. All of Creation has culminated in this beautiful child that now stands before Him: you. We must receive His forgiveness, taking His forgiveness within us and letting it permeate every cell, every atom, every dark place within us, completely extinguishing the sin and the guilt. All of eternity has been standing breathlessly by awaiting this day. Time stops. The planets and galaxies cease in their orbits. It is in this moment that the heavenly host sings. Imagine the symphony of 12 legions of angels, 72,000 of the heavenly host singing because you received God’s forgiveness! It is only in this moment, through the experience of God’s forgiveness that you can encounter Him. There is no other way. (John 14:6)

I will add that to continue to recall that sin and to become consumed by it is not conviction, it is not guilt leading to repentance, it is condemnation and that is from the enemy. He wants you to believe that whatever the sin may be, that you are not forgivable for it. That is a lie.

As this writing nears its end, let us imagine ourselves once again in a position of forgiveness, genuflected before His throne. I have taken a knee before my great King, head bowed, arm upraised, palm skyward, once again in the position of a beggar anticipating to receive. I have nothing to offer Him, only sin, and a filthy wake of destruction that my sin has left behind me. Only this time, things are different. His penitent child is humbly bowed before Him, there is no pride to be found. Christ steps down from His throne and approaches, He gently reaches down and takes my hand, raising me up to look into His eyes. What I see is love; love and forgiveness is what I receive.

I close with a thank you for bearing with me, and also with a quote from the old Scottish preacher and author, George MacDonald.

“Forgiveness is the giving and so the receiving of life.”

C. Klingle