Appropriating Forgiving Love.
By Walter B. Vassar
BY REV. WALTER B. VASSAR. In the SIGNS OF THE TIMES for November 21 there is quoted language from Abraham Lincoln that needs careful attention by all who propose working in the vineyard of Christ. What we do for the Master will largely depend on what we are as living witnesses. The quotation is, “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not themselves, and under a just God can not long retain it.” The editorial comment is, “And this is as true religiously as it is civilly.” And this is just the point of the whole matter. The Christian world has been waiting two thousand years to take this in. Let sentiments like the foregoing, and all scriptures enforcing them, be quoted constantly. To appropriate forgiveness is to dispense it. One act goes with the other, and they can not be divorced. God has joined them together; man will never put them asunder. The forgiven man is the forgiving one. It is the one and selfsame man in action. As fast as he receives, he gives, and no faster. We need to know this; for some have made the mistake of looking only on one side, the Godward; yet it has a manward side also, and without both there is nothing of value for us in either. Some one has said, “God regards us, not only in our relations with Him, but with the people with whom we live.” Brothers have a common father. In the moral world they have common interests, tho it may not always be so in financial ways. The one Father who loves one, loves all. But there is a difference between being children and being worthy children. The entire work of Christ is comprised in making us fit to be members of the kingdom; and in our relations one to the other, God Himself is the pattern for conduct. “He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” The appropriator of forgiving love is the man who is in heart sympathy with such manifestation of good will. Jesus calls this conduct “perfect;” we are to be like it. If we ask the question, “How does God forgive?” we find one answer, “In making us forgiving.” This is having the witness in one’s self. The apostle in his Epistle makes it a sign: “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.”