I listened to "The Weight of Glory" by C.S. Lewis on audiobook while on the treadmill recently (10/19/19) and heard the following from an essay entitled, "On Forgiveness"
Now it seems to me that we often make a mistake both about God's forgiveness of our sins and about the forgiveness we are told to offer to other people's sins. Take it first about God's forgiveness, I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch myself very carefully) asking Him to do something quite different. I am asking him not to forgive me but to excuse me. But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing. Forgiveness says, "Yes, you have done this thing, but I accept your apology; I will never hold it against you and everything between us two will be exactly as it was before." If one was not really to blame then there is nothing to forgive. In that sense forgiveness and excusing are almost opposites. Of course, in dozens of cases, either between God and man, or between one man and another, there may be a mixture of the two. Part of what at first seemed to be the sins turns out to be really nobody's fault and is excused; the bit that is left over is forgiven. If you had a perfect excuse, you would not need forgiveness; if the whole of your actions needs forgiveness, then there was no excuse for it. But the trouble is that what we call "asking God's forgiveness" very often really consists in asking God to accept our excuses. What leads us into this mistake is the fact that there usually is some amount of excuse, some "extenuating circumstances." We are so very anxious to point these things out to God (and to ourselves) that we are apt to forget the very important thing; that is, the bit left over, the bit which excuses don't cover, the bit which is inexcusable but not, thank God, unforgivable. And if we forget this, we shall go away imagining that we have repented and been forgiven when all that has really happened is that we have satisfied ourselves without own excuses. They may be very bad excuses; we are all too easily satisfied about ourselves.
This was a very helpful clarification to consider. I think I easily slip into the head space of considering offenses in terms of excuses. The more viable the excuse, the more apt I am to forgive it, but according to Lewis, in reality, the less it needs to be forgiven. The less viable the excuse, the less apt I am to forgive it, but according to Lewis, in reality, this is the sin that God commands me to forgive.
If the excuses are adequate, it costs me nothing to forgive the sin.
When the excuses are inadequate, it costs me a great deal to overlook the offense.
Before I congratulate myself for being so generous in spirit, I need to consider how lazy I am in "forgiving" sins when I've only accepted excuses and held grudges when I reject the excuses. But when the excuses don't cut it, it's time to forgive. When the excuses do, it requires nothing of me to overlook it, because... there's nothing to overlook.
This is helpful on a boots on the ground kind of way for me, but also on a throne up in Heaven kind of way. God forgives the inexcusable. He doesn't overlook the offenses of mine for which I come best prepared to offer mitigating evidence. He does not count sins which are actual, inexcusable, solid, sins.
Praise God!
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