Forgiven to Love - Learning from Others

– from Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace? 89.

Why would God require of us an unnatural act that defies every primal instinct? What makes forgiveness so important that it becomes central to our faith? From my experience as an often-forgiven, sometimes-forgiving person, I can suggest several reasons. The first is theological…

…Theologically, the Gospels give a straightforward answer to why God asks us to forgive: because that is what God is like. When Jesus first gave the command, “Love your enemies,” he added this rationale: “…that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Anyone, said Jesus, can love friends and family: “Do not even pagans do that?” Sons and daughters of the Father are called to a higher law, in order to resemble the forgiving Father. We are called to be like God, to bear God’s family likeness.

Wrestling with the command to “love your enemies” while being persecuted under Nazi Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer finally concluded that it was this very quality of the “peculiar … the extraordinary, the unusual” that sets a Christian apart from others. Even as he worked to undermine the regime, he followed Jesus’ command to “Pray for those who persecute you.” Bonhoeffer wrote, 

Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God. Jesus does not promise that when we bless our enemies and do good to them they will not despitefully use and persecute us. They certainly will. But not even that can hurt or overcome us, so long as we pray for them… We are doing vicariously for them what they cannot do for themselves.

Why did Bonhoeffer strive to love his enemies and pray for his persecutors? He had only one answer: “God loves his enemies – that is the glory of his love, as every follower of Jesus knows.” If God forgave our debts, how can we not do the same?