Golgotha
"Father forgive them..."
Luke 23:34
Paul tells us in I Cor. 13:5 something else about love. "...it keeps no records of wrongs..."
One premise of this writing is that where there is no love there can be no unity among Christians. This description of love is proof because as long as Christians point accusing fingers at one another disunity will prevail.
This explanation of love may be one of the most telling about one's genuineness as a Christian. What an admonition! Yet who has not been guilty of violating this evident principle of love? Wrongs done to us can be so devastating to us physically, emotionally, psychologically, financially and in many other respects.
The best place to go when confronted with this detriment to unity is Golgotha, a lonely chunk of rock in Jerusalem where supposed malefactors were crucified. View the visage of that broken and lacerated and torn one. View the violated one. View the one who had no place to lay His beautiful head. View the one who walked dusty roads and climbed rock strewn mountains. View that Sacred One who gave Himself for all men. And hear him say "Father forgive them..."
Hear Him speak to us His children. Our scorekeeping of others' sins and our rationalizations for doing so fade in the light of the one who died for us all. They are much like the accusations of that mob who presented the adulterous woman to Jesus and told Him she deserved to be stoned. Jesus said "If anyone of you is without sin, let him begin stoning her."(Jn. 8:7) So while He wrote on the ground "...those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first..."(Jn. 8:9)
Jesus had no sin, yet from that pain racked body came to words "Father forgive them..." That my friends was love in action. And He calls on His children to love like that. "...forgive your brother from your heart."(Mt. 18:35) "...if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you."(Mt. 6:14) "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if repents, forgive him." "If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him."(Lk. 17:3-4)
God keeps no such records and He expects the same of His children. He forgives completely. "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us."(Ps. 103:12)(KJV) "Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered." "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit."(Ps. 32:1-2)(NIV) "I will forgive their wickedness, and will remember their sins no more."(Heb. 8:12)(NIV) "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more."(Heb. 10:17)(NIV) "And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins."(Ro. 11:27)(NIV)
Sad note that God will do for us what we sometimes won't do for others. No doubt our humanity gets in the way sometimes. Performance based Christianity demands that.
I wonder sometimes, knowing human nature, if some of those folks at Corinth were not angered as the brother of the prodigal son was when that boy came back to the Father. The prodigal had made so many mistakes. He had ruined his life. He had spent his inheritance. He had hurt so many. And so had the immoral man of Corinth. Yet Paul told the Corinthians about that man "forgive and comfort him."(II Cor. 2:7)
Why would Paul ask them to do that. It was all about agape love. And that love "...keeps no records of wrongs..." The word for wrongs here is kakon. It means, according to Zodhiates, "evil done to anyone, harm, injury." Paul is saying that love will not record those things.
When love is present recording others sins is not. The word for record keeping is logizomai. It means "to number" "to count." God counts the righteousness of Christians and makes no notations of our weaknesses by His grace. "...for us, to whom God will credit (logizesthai) righteousness--for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead."(Ro. 4:21) That is the kind of counting a loving God does..
Where would we all be if God were more interested in keeping records of our weaknesses, faults, sins than understanding our weaknesses and forgiving and saving us?
How thankful we should be that love "...keeps no record of wrongs..."
No comments:
Post a Comment