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Editorial
Alwyn Thomson
Comment:
Failed Politics?
Norman Hamilton
From
the Director: Words and Deeds
David W Porter
Loyalism
and Me
Philip Rankin
Real
Life
David Campton
Policing
Matters
Sam Pollock
The
Crisis Within
Eddie
Kinner
Loyalism
- The Issues
Mervyn Gibson
Scapegoating
Billy Mitchell
Review...Beyond
Retribution
Stephen Graham
Down
to Basics
Malachy
O'Doherty
Faith
in the Future
David
W Porter
For
God and His Glory Alone:
Study 1: Love
Matthew
5:7
Matthew
6:9-15
Matthew
7:1-5
Matthew
18:21-35
Mark
11:25
Luke
7:36-50
Luke
11:4
Luke
23:34
John
3:16
Romans
3:9-18
Romans
3:23-25
Romans
5:16-21
Romans
7:15-20
Romans
12:17-21
Ephesians
1:7f
Ephesians
2:8f
Ephesians
4:29-32
Colossians
1:13f
Colossians
3:13
1
Timothy 1:12-16
Titus
2:11-14
1
Peter 2:18-25
1
Peter 5:10
2
Peter 3:9
1
John 1:9-2:2
1
John 3:8
FOR GOD AND HIS
GLORY ALONE
Biblical Principles
Study 2
FORGIVENESS
"For if you forgive others 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 sins."
Matthew 6:13-14
THE ROOT CAUSE of the Ulster problem is that we are sinners. We have, like all humanity, a natural inclination to live without God and to rebel against His will. Pride, bitterness and bigotry have the same root cause as racketeering, kidnapping and murder. They are the inevitable consequences of our rebellion against God's purpose for our lives, which is to love and to be loved. All of us have sinned and deserve God's condemnation.
Yet there is complete forgiveness with God. It is not that He treats our sin lightly. The cross of Jesus reminds us how seriously God regards sin. He has borne the pain and cost of the forgiveness that we are invited to receive through the Holy Spirit.
By God's grace those who, through faith, acknowledge their need for forgiveness and accept His salvation in Christ, receive the gift of new life. In Jesus Christ we are completely accepted by God.
Through His amazing grace, God has done everything necessary for the salvation of His enemies. Believing in Christ and repenting of what we have done is our proper response to such grace. It is not the prior condition – for when we were still sinners, Christ died for us. In parable and in teaching us to pray, Jesus shows that we must now follow this model. We are to forgive others as we have been forgiven – unconditionally.
In a situation that demonstrates humanity's inhumanity and despair, it is our responsibility to be agents of such forgiveness. This will mean that:
- We take sin and its consequences seriously. To forgive is not to say 'it doesn't matter'.
- There will be an expectation of pain in offering forgiveness. It is not easy to forgive, especially when there is 'justifiable anger'. Nevertheless, we are called to leave the judgement to God and instead to offer mercy as we have received mercy. It is those who acknowledge that they have been forgiven much who in turn forgive much.
- Those who are offered forgiveness, including terrorists, will experience what it means to be forgiven only when they are truly sorry for what they have done and have a genuine change of heart and mind. However, whether this reaction is present or not, we are commanded by Christ to offer forgiveness unconditionally.
Read Luke 23:34 and 1Peter 2:18-25. The key to understanding how Jesus could utter the words in Luke 23:34 is found in 1 Peter 2. How valid is the observation that a refusal to forgive others is an expression of a lack of trust in our Heavenly Father and His care for us?
It would appear that an essential ingredient of politics in Northern Ireland is a long memory for the wrongs of the past. In what way would political aspirations and expressions be changed by taking seriously passages such as Matthew 6:14-15, Mark 11:25 and Colossians 3:12-14?
One of the key words for forgiveness in the New Testament is aphesis. Its associated verb, aphiemi, was used in everyday language to speak of letting go of something – a ship's mooring or an arrow from a bow. The idea is that when God forgives us, He lets go of our sins and does not hold them against us. They become part of the past, they no longer colour His attitude to us either in the present or in the future. Psalm 103:12, Isaiah 43:25 and Micah 7:19 are Old Testament parallels. Why do we find it so difficult to let go of the past? What does such difficulty say regarding our understanding of God's forgiveness?
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