By Robert Roberts
"I cannot forgive an offender till he seeks forgiveness, or I make myself as great an offender."
There can be no doubt that acknowledgment is the natural and prescribed condition of forgiveness in all cases of unquestionable personal injury in word or deed. Nothing admits so clear and sweet and lasting a reparation. It is the lesson of Moses' Law throughout, and continually exemplified in God's dealings with Israel.
But in the confusions of human intercourse, in the present state of weakness, there arise hundreds of cases in which it is impossible to apply this law in any strict manner: first, because it usually happens that there are faults on both sides; and second, because it nearly as often happens that where one side may be clean-handed enough, the other side is the offending side not through any intention or desire to do injury--but through a wrong understanding of things.
In such cases, no wise man would insist on the unconditional surrender implied in the request for forgiveness. Even in a clear case, he is too conscious of his own shortcomings to take an imperious attitude. He would run more than half way to meet his offending brother if he saw the least disposition to concede the point.
But as for the idea that forgiveness cannot be granted without confession, and that such forgiveness would be sin, the brother broaching such an idea will be likely to abandon it on full reflection. We are commanded to forgive if confession is made, for this was the point in question when Jesus spoke (Matt. 18:21; Luke 17:3-4).
But we are not forbidden to forgive in the absence of confession. We are at liberty to forgive without it if we like certainly. Jesus gave us this example:
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).
Paul also: "I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge" (2 Tim. 4:16).
Stephen also (Acts 7:60): all this without confession on the part of the offenders, for they were too dark-minded to know their need for forgiveness. This is the magnanimity which belongs to the children of God, who can even return good for evil. A man may be within his rights who says, "I will not forgive him unless he ask me"--though he is marking himself thus as the feeblest of the children of God (if indeed he be of the children, showing thus he hath not the spirit of Christ).
But there is nothing to hinder a man soaring far above his rights, and saying-- "This man who has wronged me is too ungifted from God to see what he has done. I will let the matter pass. I will pray God to forgive him; and if He forgive at the judgement seat, the man will gladly see and own his fault: I can wait."
The man who applies the rule of confession before forgiveness too strictly is in danger of having the same measure applied to himself. So Christ says (Matt. 18:35). And how then? WE CANNOT BE SAVED, for we are too dim-eyed to know all our sins. And if those only are forgiven that we see and admit, the unforgiven balance must sink us to perdition.
Another point the offended brother should consider is whether his state is due to wounded pride or violated righteousness. If he is expert at self-examination, he will probably find it is the former three times out of four, at least--for he discovers that other offenses against the law of God do not hurt him at all if they do not touch HIM. If so, he will act wisely to hold his hand, and be as little exacting with the offender as possible.
On the other hand, the offender should be frank and gracious in his acknowledgments. He rarely is so. As a rule his concession is tardy and ambiguous, and generally takes the shape of an insulting hypothesis-- "If I have given offense, I am sorry for it."
This is not acknowledgment at all, my friend. It may even be an insulting implication to this effect-- "I am sorry my neighbor has been such a simpleton as to take offense where it was perfectly unwarrantable he should do so."
If you mean confession, let it be fair and square and handsome "I have done this: I ought not to have done it: I am sorry for it."
Graciousness on one side will lead to graciousness on the other, and
love will flow. But that good time has to come! But it will come
and the children of mercy will prosper and rejoice. --June, 1890
