Forgiveness: Is It About Us?

Everybody desires forgiveness.  Forgiveness is necessary for maintaining relationships.  Even those who do not know or desire the forgiveness of God through Christ view forgiveness as necessary in their friendships, dating relationships, family relationships, and other areas of life.

But were we made to forgive or were we made to be forgiven?  If one holds that God is the Creator of the individual, then it seems that God creates the individual for his purposes.  And if God's greatest purpose in creating the individual is that the individual might know Him, then we must have been created to experience forgiveness. 

In the Old Testament we find that the Psalmist asks to be forgiven not for the sake of his self, but "for your name's sake", or for the sake of the Lord (Ps. 25.2; 79,9).  This theme is repeated in the prophets.

You see, when we follow the commands for Christ it is not out of a vain pursuit for our own holiness but for His.  It is love for Christ that motivates the believer to right living.   He says, "If you love me, you will obey what I command" (Jn. 14.15). 

That is how we know those who are in Christ.  They show love for Him and so they follow his desires and not their own for again, "No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either known him or seen him" (1 Jn. 3.6).

If our motivation for not failing Christ is out of love for Christ or Christ Himself, then is our motivation for forgiveness the same?  Do we ask forgiveness to appease our conscience or to ease or guilt, or in order that God might be glorified?  True forgiveness is for "his name's sake."

Jonathan

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity