Necessary but not Sufficient

Meditation June 3, 2020

Matthew 6

 

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sin.

 

My thoughts on these verses are just that; i.e. my thoughts, my wrestling with it to try and understand it within the context of the whole of Scripture. It is for me a somewhat difficult passage to explain. It is one of those things you see clearly but when try to put it into a coherent statement it becomes more and more slippery. Nonetheless, given the emphasis Jesus puts on it, it is that about which we must make as much effort as needed to gain at least a basic understanding of that He is saying.

 

When Jesus repeats something, it is good indication we should give close attention to what is being said. Jesus has just ended teaching his disciples the pattern after which they should pray and has taught them in the end of that prayer they should pray “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” He turns immediately now in His teaching, as much by way of emphasis as to clarify, and says to them “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sin.”

 

We hear this and cannot but wonder what He means. We are taught that it is by grace that we are saved and not of works; yet, It sounds so simple and straight forward here; i.e., forgiveness is contingent on forgiving, if you want to be forgiven, then you must first forgive others, if you want the Father to hear your prayers and bestow on you His forgiveness, then you must first forgive others. That is precisely what Jesus is saying. In the Lord’s prayer, as we have noted is implied when we are taught to pray forgive me as I forgive others. Here Jesus immediately follow the prayer and distinctly asserts this to be the case; not as a suggestion, not as a matter of indifference to be chosen or omitted, but as a condition of God’s order of things, if we wish to be forgiven, then forgiving others is a necessary condition. We need, as did Jesus to emphasize this thus; we will repeat it: If you wish to have God’s forgiveness, you must first forgive others for in the original language it is clear it is saying forgive me as I have forgiven (past tense) and not forgive me as I will forgive (future tense). To emphasize what He is saying, Jesus, so that we might not miss it, says it both positively and negatively: If you forgive your Father will forgive you (positive) and if you do not forgive, your Father will not forgive you (negative). This is the third time within a few sentences that Jesus makes the point. How, if we do not earn God’s forgiveness, if by grace we are saved and not through works (Eph. 2:8-9) how are we to understand this.

 

For me the easiest way to understand this is to borrow from the study of logic and understand it in terms of necessary versus sufficient conditions. A necessary condition is a condition that must be present for a given condition to follow. A sufficient condition is a condition such that if it is present then a given condition must follow. In other words, forgiving others does not guarantee your being forgiven. You may forgive others without yourself being forgiven at all. Forgiving does not produce your being forgiven (a sufficient condition) but without forgiving you will not be forgiven (a necessary condition).

 

Jesus does not mean that the forgiveness of others is the thing that procures for us forgiveness with God. That forgiveness is procured only by the finished work of Christ; nonetheless, forgiving others is so much of the essential character of a follower of Christ that we are walking in the valley of the shadow of self-deceit if we think we are merciful peacemakers; yet, we do not forgive others. We must not infer from this that forgiving others entitles us to forgiveness but we may infer from it that not forgiving others is evidence we have not ourselves been forgiven; we are not yet that new creature in Christ who is humble and meek and merciful and a peacemaker. This is fundamental to our understanding what Jesus is saying.

 

However, that said, one cannot read much of Scripture without realizing that throughout the Bible it is taught that there is a secondary part of God’s covenant. The first part of the covenant of grace, the foundational part, the part that makes the second part possible, is unilateral. God makes that covenant and fulfills its conditions making of us His people. There is nothing of that covenant that is contingent on any work of ours. God says “you are mine; I have called you by name” and I have paid the price for you. But now, having made us His people there is that part of our relationship to Him as His people in the outworking of His covenant of grace such that His blessing or discipline follows on our behavior and God says, if you will, then I will. There is a contingency to the blessings of God in our walk with him and while our obedience is not a sufficient condition to procure those blessings yet, they are such necessary conditions that apart from them we will not see the blessings God in His wisdom has made necessary for them. Thus, God says, “if my people will…then I will.” (II Chron. 7:14)

 

Here God says, if my people will forgive, then I will forgive. When a man asks our forgiveness, whatever he may have done, we are to forgive, to pardon that offense, that trespass against us. And if forgiveness is not asked we must yet stand ready to forgive, to show kindness toward him and hold not grudge against him but to be ready to do him only good whether or not he ever asks forgiveness. May God grant us such understanding as needed to act on this teaching as we ought.

 

Peter came to Jesus and asked, “’Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven time?’ ‘Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” By this Jesus meant to indicate there are no limits. We must stand always ready to forgive. That we may fully understand, Jesus gives us this example; “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.”