Fifteen years ago, I asked a faithful Christian woman, we will call Mary Ellen, when she was going to forgive her former husband. It was a hard question. She had been physically and emotionally abused even beyond what most abused women have had to endure. She had fled from that husband five years earlier, moved far away from him, and had started over with a new marriage. The problem was that her new marriage wasn’t going well either. She had come in seeking answers and, after three sessions, I felt compelled to ask the question. In fifteen years I haven’t forgotten her response. With her hands clenched into fists, the veins on her neck popping out, and her jaws tightened, she snarled, “Forgive him? Forgive him? I hope he burns in hell for what de did to me!” In her heart there was no impulse to forgive and in her mind she felt totally justified in hoping for his eternal damnation.
Although this was a woman who had grown up in church faithfully serving in various ministries, she was in bondage to bitterness, rage, and unforgiveness. She was the poster child for the old saying that “unforgiveness is like drinking poison, believing that it will make the other person sick.” She was aware of the multiple verses in which Jesus was very clear that if we don’t forgive those who have sinned against us, then our heavenly Father will not forgive our sins against him (Mt.6:14-15, Mt. 18, etc.). She simply felt that her case was exceptional so that those verses did not apply to her. The truth was that the toxic bitterness and rage she still felt against her first husband was spilling over into this new marriage and poisoning it.
Of all the sins that Christian men and women are in bondage to, I believe that unforgiveness is the most common and, in the long run, the most destructive. It is also the most common because we have all been wounded and betrayed and have all felt fully justified in our anger or bitterness toward the perpetrator.
In fact, we have likely been truly justified in our feelings. We just haven’t been justified in holding on to those feelings and keeping them alive. Because we are justified in our feelings in the beginning, we feel justified in keeping those feelings alive forever. But the decision not to forgive is where sin begins and when the door swings open for the enemy to enter. It is even where we begin to take offense at God when we discover that he is not hammering the person who wounded us.
Concerning unforgiveness, the apostle Paul counsels us, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Eph.4:26-27, ESV). This verse reveals several things. First of all, we can experience anger and not sin. Perhaps, our anger is a righteous anger such as the anger Jesus demonstrated in the temple when he was turning over the tables of the moneychangers. Perhaps, it is just the normal human experience of anger welling up within us when we feel threatened or betrayed. There is a point, however, in which our failure to manage our anger becomes sin.
Our experience of anger becomes sin when we take the next steps of retaliating against the person who wounded us or when we choose to nurture our anger to keep it alive. We forget that Paul had some experience with the kind of rage that begins to take control of a person. As Saul of Tarsus, he was not just attempting to discourage false doctrines about Jesus of Nazareth from arising within the Jewish community. Rather, he was described as one who was “breathing out threats and slaughter” against the church (see Acts 9:1). He was the one who coordinated the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7, without any evidence of remorse. Saul was a man who was full of rage and obsessed with the destruction of Jewish people who simply had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Before his encounter with Jesus, Saul was not a righteous man trying to defend truth, but an angry man filled with rage against people he had never met. He was in bondage to his anger in the same way that Mary Ellen was in bondage to hers.
We are also told that we should not let the sun go down on our anger. In other words, deal with it in short order. Don’t even go to bed until you have dealt with it as Jesus would. Why? Because…any kind of prolonged unforgiveness gives the devil an opportunity to establish a beachhead in our hearts. Some of the older translations say that we must not “give the devil a foothold.” The Greek word is “topos” and means a position, a sanctuary, or some standing in our lives. When we refuse to forgive or keep putting it off, we come into agreement with Satan. All Adam and Eve did was to come into agreement with Satan. Whatever we agree with, we give authority in our lives and you never want Satan to have any authority in your life.
Many Christians are not living a spiritually abundant life nor are they making progress in their faith or their freedom because they have chosen not to extend forgiveness to someone in their life. They unknowingly have given Satan a foothold that has probably become a silent stronghold over the years. A satanic stronghold is not typically the stuff that The Exorcist was made of where the presence of demons is totally weird, extreme, and unmistakable. Typically, strongholds manifest as compelling, persistent thought patterns that, in the case of anger, keep anger alive and provide total justification for continuing in our unforgiveness.
From these strongholds, the devil tells us that our case is the exception to the commands and warnings of Jesus about a refusal to forgive. He convinces us that our case is so extreme that it is not the kind of thing Jesus was talking about when he insisted on forgiving our enemies or he convinces us that we have been hurt so deeply that it is impossible for us to forgive. Because it is impossible, Jesus will give us a pass on that command. He will go on to convince us that our anger is righteous and just because to forgive would let evil people off the hook or excuse their behavior altogether. He will also tell is that our anger and unforgiveness is the very thing that protects us from more hurt and, therefore, is both necessary and justified.
The problem is that Jesus gave no exceptions to the rule and demonstrated the “no exception” clause on the cross when he asked the Father to forgive those who had just betrayed, beaten, and crucified him. What we must understand is that forgiveness is primarily for us, not for those who have wounded us. Forgiveness frees our heart from bitterness, from the past, and from those who would continue to hurt us. Forgiveness keeps the devil out and keeps us from poisoning our own wells. Forgiveness opens the door to God’s blessings in our lives and aligns our hearts with the heart of Jesus. Justice will be done. God will deal with those unrepentant individuals who go through life harming others whether you have forgiven them or not. If they are not right with God, he will deal with them. The bigger question is always whether or not we are right with God.
Forgiveness frees, heals, and makes reconciliation possible when it would bless all parties. It is the ultimate chance to trust God by doing the very thing that seems most risky and trusting him to bless and protect us in our obedience. It is the ultimate measure of how aligned our hearts are with his. The first step to forgiveness is acknowledging that there are no “exception clauses” for us, no justification to ignore his command, and that God only asks us to do those things that bless us. After that, we can receive God’s help in fulfilling his commands.
