Forgiveness by D. E. HUFFMAN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 27, 1916

Forgiveness

By D. E. HUFFMAN

D. E. HUFFMAN

The two commands, to hate evil and to love your enemy, are very difficult for many to understand. Some have struggled with them for years before learning how to obey both at once.

We have the hope that when Christ shall appear “we shall be like him.” 1 John 3:2. To be “like him” is to be willing and anxious to forgive and forget a wrong, just as he did.

To forgive is to forget the wrong and love freely, as if the wrong had not been done. “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” Heb. 8:12.

“If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?” Matt. 5:46. Yet “we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” 1 John 3:14. Since love of the brethren is not natural, but is evidence of regeneration, it follows that such love is possible only by the power of God through faith.

God refuses to cancel my sin debts unless I let him cancel all the sin debts of others which I hold against them. Matt. 5:7; 6:12, 15; 7:1, 2. Thus in accepting his sacrifice to pay my sin debts I have also accepted full payment and have receipted him in full for all the sin debts of my brethren against me. If I cherish a memory of any wrong thus canceled, I hinder his promise to remember my sin no more.

So long as I cannot forgive, sin has dominion over me; but the promise is “Sin shall not have dominion over you.” Rom. 6:14. “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” Gal. 5:17. “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ.” 2 Cor. 2:14. “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” 1 John 5:4.

My faith is the victory, because it takes away my sin accounts, both debits and credits, and gives me the righteousness of Christ instead. Phil. 3:9. All my sin is forgiven and forgotten, and all the wrongs of my brother I have forgiven and forgotten. As I stand clear in my Saviour’s love, as if I had never sinned, so my brother stands clear in my love, as if he had done me no wrong. I am free. I have the victory by faith. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Yes, thus free in Christ you cannot take offense, “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.” Ps. 119:165.

Joseph’s brothers “thought evil” against him, but he saw God’s hand in it for good. Gen. 50:20. Paul found joy in forgetting those things that were behind, and in pressing toward the mark. “The Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends.” Job 42:10. “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.” Matt. 5:11, 12. “The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” John 15:20. “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” 2 Tim. 3:12. “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” 2 Cor. 4:8-10.

It may help us sometimes to remember that even the Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering (Heb. 2:10); and if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him. Therefore “we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” Rom. 5:3-5.

Centerville, Kans.