In part 7 we were exploring and explaining the specifics of what jubilee forgiveness is, what it entails. We finished #2.
3. Jubilee forgiveness is refusing to punish.
Okay, first, we are talking about on a personal level here. It is a different matter on a corporate level—on a group level—on a body level. If you are a duly elected or appointed government official, then it is your godly duty to punish evildoers, and you have no right to forgive them their punishment.
What we are talking about here is our carnal desire—because that is what it is—our carnal desire to see someone who hurt us to be punished for what they did to us. We all have that feeling, and yet the Bible says: Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Let’s take a look at the whole context, though, shall we? It is in Romans 12.
Romans 12: 17 Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
We should pause there. What does that mean? “but rather give place unto wrath?” We would naturally think wrath means vicious anger. Sometimes it does, but in this case, it is the Greek word orge {or-gay'} and in this case, it refers to meaning #4a) of punishments inflicted by magistrates. The magistrate in this context is obviously God.
20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
“Aha!” some people think. “If I actually do him good, then I guess spiritually it will be like the fires of hell are raining down on his head—good! Then I’ll do it because I want to see that scoundrel burn in hell.”
Well, you know, if that is the attitude one has towards one’s offender, then we will probably not even have the grace to be able to feed him and give him drink in the first place, will we?
Furthermore, that statement has nothing to do with what the casual reader imagines; i.e., a pile of hot coals burning the offender’s head. Actually, it is a positive thing. We must understand the customs of the time.
It meant that if one’s fire in the fireplace or wood burning stove got extinguished in the night (or anytime), a man would go to his neighbor and ask for help. The neighborly thing to do was to go to one’s own fireplace, and shovel out some hot coals into a suitable bucket and give it to your neighbor.
The needy neighbor would then carry it back home atop his head—with suitable insulation between his head and the bottom of the bucket, of course!
21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
That sounds a lot like the Lord’s sermon on the mount, doesn’t it? Love thine enemies. Do good to those who despitefully use you, and so forth? Well, if total forgiveness includes refusing to punish our offender, then on an everyday practical level, how could we punish our offender?
In the case of a husband and wife, the ways are as myriad as the imagination allows. Of course, probably the most commonly known method of punishment from the wife’s perspective has something to do with headaches, right?— 😊 as in “Not tonight, honey, I’ve got a headache.”
Well, if she does not have a headache and she is withholding conjugal relations only as a means of punishing the husband, then that is falling short of the highest level of love and forgiveness.
And on the husband’s side, I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that an equally detrimental means of revenge or punishment is when he says “Not now, honey, I have a headache.” And he really does not have a headache.
But his excuse would be in response to when his wife says: “Can we talk?” Am I right? Ooops! Don’t answer that, men. I don’t want any of you incriminating yourselves. Let me put it this way: …not that we have ever done that, but you husbands and wives here have all heard of other men who have done that, haven’t we?
So when we say that jubilee forgiveness is about not punishing the one who offends you, it comes right down our own street now and right into our house, doesn’t it? Children and teens can relate to this also—big time! Listen up, teen-agers.
How about when you find out that someone you thought was your good friend is telling other kids lies about you? That hurts big time, doesn’t it? And so what do you want to do? You want to get back at them, right? And we can think of a million ways to get them back, can’t we?
Reaching into the dirty tricks bag from a previous generation, a teen-aged boy might mutter to himself: Why, I could put sugar in his gas tank and ruin his car. I could put limburger cheese under the hood right on his engine block and his car would smell like vomit for a year. Why I could …
Now with the girls, I understand that there is considerable debate whether it is in middle school or in high school where girls can be the most cruel to one another. And, so I am told by many females, it is worse than the on the boys’ side.
When a girl gets hurt, the retaliation is sometimes to initiate a social smear campaign. And with the ubiquity of social media now, the news outlets have often reported on terrible tragedies among young people by besmirching another’s reputation because in some cases it has led to suicides and/or homicides.
Remarkably, it is the same childish, spiritually immature behavior exhibited by President Kennedy who once said: “Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”
Well, among the teen-aged girls, the retaliation takes the form of spreading malicious rumors and innuendo, and it is especially useful if your former friend had confided a deep secret to you, which if revealed to the rest of the school would really be devastating. That is the equivalent of the social nuclear bomb.
Let’s say we have a teen-aged girl (let’s call her Mary) who had been hurt by her supposed best friend (let’s call her Suzie). In retaliation, Mary might try to break up the relationship between Suzie and her boyfriend, Tom, by letting Tom know in a roundabout way that Suzy really likes Michael better than him. Oh, what sweet revenge for Mary, right?
Or so we think, when we first try to exact revenge. But we don’t really look upon it as revenge as Christians, do we? Because we have been taught that to seek revenge is wrong. And so sometimes we assuage our consciences by calling it restitution.
Honest to heaven, dear readers. I actually saw some Christian material on forgiveness once that advocated always confronting your offender and demanding that they make restitution to you before we are obliged to forgive them.
Of course, it would be ideal if every person who offended you would confess to you and repent of their offense. But we know that in most cases, the offender thinks he or she did nothing wrong.
But concerning revenge, we mistakenly think that revenge is going to make us feel better. Oh, it might give a momentary burst of pleasure, but does it settle anything? No, it usually only escalates the war, doesn’t it? Whether it is at middle school, high school, at the workplace, in a marriage, or in the ministry, revenge is never the answer.
[gasping, in-breathe] Huh? Did he just say in the ministry? Oh yes. Brothers and sisters, never put ministers on pedestals. They don’t belong there any more than politicians do. They don’t belong there any more than you do either. There is no one righteous, no, not one, says the Bible. (Romans 3:10)
So yes, there is every bit as much temptation to unforgiveness in the ministry as there is in other fields of life. The Christian thing to do is to forgive the offender unconditionally, no matter what field of life we are talking about.
4. Jubilee forgiveness is not revealing what the offender did.
Oh my! This is a tough one. Because when we have been hurt by someone, we want other people to know how we’re hurting, don’t we? Now there is a fine line to be distinguished here, because the facts and circumstances of the offense will determine whether or not something needs to be talked about for therapeutic or health reasons.
For example, if a child is molested, if a woman is raped or battered—in other words, if we are talking about crimes; then obviously, action needs to be taken. The victim may absolutely need to consult with a specialist in dealing with the emotional wounding from such a trauma.
But that is to be distinguished from a person who has been offended in some manner and then gets on the phone and tells others about it with the intention or with the knowledge that it will get spread around the community and thus damage the reputation and credibility of the offender, that kind of behavior is falling short of true forgiveness.
And what is that, really? Isn’t it the same thing as the teen-aged girl trying to get revenge that we mentioned earlier? Yes. It is our means of trying to punish the offender, usurping God’s right,… right?
(To be continued.)
~END~
