Understanding God’s Forgiveness and Our Freedom

Victims often talk about how forgiving their perpetrators brings them freedom.

As a child, Eva Kor was taken to Auschwitz where the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele used her, and her twin sister, for cruel medical experiments. Years later, she wrote a letter of forgiveness to her Nazi doctors. Through this act, she says the burden of pain lifted from her and she no longer felt gripped by hate. 

Sarah Montana’s mother and brother were murdered in their home by a boy from their neighborhood. Sarah was 22 at the time. In her compelling TED talk, she admits forgiveness is tricky and says “If you’re still hemorrhaging in pain, it’s too soon to forgive.” Having worked through this herself she concludes, “Forgiveness is the only real path to freedom...from the grief, the pain, the anger, and the trauma.”

And Marcus Doe plotted for 18 years to kill the man who murdered his father in Liberia. Eventually, he discovered forgiveness freed him from a life of angst and revenge.

the act of forgiving brought them freedom from anguish and hate, and gave them the ability to reclaim their lives.

Photo by Janelle Pol

HUMAN FORGIVENESS AND FREEDOM

For each of these three people, the act of forgiving brought them freedom from anguish and hate, and gave them the ability to reclaim their lives. 

We do not have to encounter such blatant evil to know freedom in our own lives. Even if we only suffer micro-slights and mini-betrayals, as Laura realized, practicing letting go brings release from negative thoughts and unhealthy behaviors we can be stuck in. Or, when we’re in a distorted relationship like Hope, forgiving the other person gives an opportunity for that relationship to be turned around and the bonds of shame, anger, and messiness to melt away.

Both Laura and Hope found their motivation for forgiveness in their faith, through an understanding that they had been forgiven by God. 

DIVINE FORGIVENESS AND FREEDOM

We may struggle to believe God is all about extending forgiveness to us. Perhaps religion has turned your understanding of God to be the Man Upstairs who condemns you for mistakes you’ve made or not being good enough. Yet, if we look at Jesus we absolutely see what God is about. The first thing Jesus said when he went public and began his work was that God’s Spirit was on him to bring the good news of freedom. And then he went on to demonstrate what that looked like in people’s lives — freeing them from physical, mental, and spiritual captivity. 

If we take this idea further — of God being a forgiving God — it means we must have wronged him. Even when we don’t understand we are guilty before God, his forgiveness is still offered to us.

Unlike the examples of Eva, Sarah and Marcus, who did not need their perpetrators to be part of the forgiveness process in order to experience freedom, God wants us to be active in the forgiveness he gives us. He wants us to acknowledge we need him and his mercy. Even if it is a cry for help — I know this from my own life — or a turning to him instead of away from him, God responds generously. “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

There’s one major difference in the individuals’ stories above and how God is involved in our forgiveness. God doesn’t extend forgiveness so he can have freedom. Instead, his mercy is extended to us so we can be free to live a life that is full and lasting. This is the difference between human forgiveness and divine forgiveness.