How Unforgiveness Hinders Us From Seeing God’s Glory
(This is a powerful truth shared in my book, “Present Access to Heaven.”)
Forgiveness
Unforgiveness hinders us from experiencing the heavenly reality available for us in Christ because we only experience heaven to the extent that we participate in God’s love and nature. Walking in unforgiveness is walking in darkness.[1] Bitterness is defiling.[2]
When we don’t forgive, we behold God through our experiences with other people. Man was created in God’s image and likeness, to reflect his glory. Mankind was meant to reveal what God is like. Yet since all men sinned and fell short of his glory, the image that was reflected became distorted. Jesus came as a sinless man so that we could once again see, through a man, what God is like. He said if we see him, we see the Father.[3]
Yet if we don’t forgive others, we see God through sinful man, the first Adam, the earthly man. This distorts our image of God. Instead, we must forgive and behold the pure image of God as revealed through Christ, the sinless second Adam, the heavenly man.[4]
Dutch sisters Corrie and Betsie Ten Boom were arrested with their father by the Nazis for rescuing Jews. Their father died soon after. Betsie was able to live in a heavenly reality while in a concentration camp because she forgave and loved the Nazis who were spiritually blind and full of demons. Betsie died there. Corrie sometimes struggled with forgiveness, both when they were in the Ravensbruk camp and after her release and her sister’s death. But God helped her and taught her to forgive.
Forgiving the Concentration Camp Guard
After preaching forgiveness after the war, Corrie encountered a former S.S. guard who’d stood in the concentration camp’s showering room. Pain struck as she remembered the mocking men, the heaps of clothing, and her suffering sister’s face. Bowing and beaming, he thanked her for the message about God’s forgiveness and stretched out his hand to shake hers.
Overwhelmed with anger and vengeful thoughts, Corrie’s hand stayed by her side. But how could she sin by failing to forgive a man whose sins Jesus Christ died for? She prayed, “Lord Jesus, forgive me, and help me to forgive him.”
Attempting to smile, Corrie struggled to raise her hand, but she couldn’t. She prayed again, “Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give forgiveness.” Suddenly a current of God’s glory passed from her shoulder, along her arm, and through her hand as she was overwhelmed with God’s love for the man. Corrie learned that when God tells us to love our enemies, he enables us by giving us his love! [5]
Corrie asked God to give his forgiveness when she was unable to forgive. She entered a heavenly reality revealed in the gospel, God’s forgiveness. She beheld God’s glory revealed in Christ and experienced it as Jesus expressed his love and forgiveness through her.
Such forgiveness is supernatural! The whole Christian life is! The truth that, “Jesus lives in me” becomes so real to us when the Holy Spirit with God’s love and forgiveness takes us far beyond our mere human ability. The indwelling Holy Spirit works in us to will and to do[6] his will.
We forgive by faith. We are empowered to do so by beholding the forgiveness Jesus showed as he died and said “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”[7]
Corrie said forgiveness is like letting go of a church bell’s rope as it swings back and forth and rings. The bell continues ringing for a while because of the momentum. However, if you keep your hands off the rope, the bell slows and soon stops.[8]
Sometimes the bell still rings and you continue to feel vengeful and hurt over what has happened. Satan may accuse you, saying “You haven’t really forgiven them!” Tell the accuser to shut up, then stand firm on the fact that you have forgiven with the forgiveness of Christ, who lives in you.
Until we forgive, we will be overcome by evil instead of overcoming it.[9] But if you have turned to the Lord you are an overcomer, because whatever is born of God overcomes the world![10] Just as God is love, your new nature in Christ is love. Even when it seems impossible, you can keep loving because Jesus lives in you.
Forgiving Communist Torturers
Richard Wurmbrand, after enduring fourteen years of unspeakable torture in communist prisons, shared about his departure from Romania. He had the perspective of a heavenly person. Even the greatest of evils could never make him bitter or keep him from constantly beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Before finally escaping Romania, Wurmbrand visited the grave of the colonel who had ordered his arrest and years of torture. He place a flower on the grave of the colonel as a gesture of dedicating himself to bringing the joys of Christ to the Communists. Wumbrand suffered so terribly but had compassion on his enemies because of their spiritual emptiness. He said, “I love the Communists with all of my heart. Communists can kill Christians but they cannot kill their love toward even those who killed them. I have not the slightest bitterness or resentment against the Communists or my torturers.[11]
Wurmbrand described the love and forgiveness of many Christians who suffered unspeakable tortures. You may say “I could never forgive like they did. I could never love like that.” You are right. You can’t in your natural ability, but the Spirit of Christ in you can love beyond what you could imagine. We come to a place where we realize that we can’t do God’s will without supernatural empowerment. Christ in us can do what we cannot!
When I read of the remarkable love shown by so many believers who were so greatly wronged, it encourages me because I know that they were men like me[12], yet the same Holy Spirit which they had dwells in me. No bitterness or unforgiveness should ever keep me from beholding God’s glory and experiencing the heavenly reality of his presence.
Wurmbrand understood Christ’s love for the Communists because he felt it supernaturally flowing through Christians. Carrying heavy chains, tortured with hot pokers, deprived of water, starving, exposed to the cold, having had spoonfuls of salt forced down their throats, Christians prayed with fervor for the Communists. Such love is humanly inexplicable! It can only be God’s love poured out in our hearts![13]
Wurmbrand remarked that as the three men who were thrown in the furnace in the book of Daniel didn’t smell like fire when God delivered them from it, so the Christians who’ve been in Communist prisons don’t smell like bitterness against the Communists.[14]
Sometimes we behold God’s glory and love as the Holy Spirit indwelling us loves people in a way beyond our natural ability!
Footnotes:
[1] 1 John 2:11
[2] Hebrews 12:15
[3] John 14:9
[4] 1 Corinthians 15:45-47
[5] Boom, Corrie Ten; Elizabeth Sherrill; John Sherrill (2006-01-01). The Hiding Place (pp. 247-248). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
[6] Phillipians 2:13
[7] Luke 23:34
[8] http://spiritfilledchristianliving.com/my-favorite-christian-quotes-about-forgiveness/
[9] Romans 12:21
[10] 1 John 5:4
[11] Wurmbrand, Richard (2010-09-30). Tortured for Christ (Kindle Locations 948-955). Living Sacrifice Book Company. Kindle Edition.
[12] James 5:17, Hebrews 2:17-18
[13] Wurmbrand, Richard (2010-09-30). Tortured for Christ (Kindle Locations 992-997). Living Sacrifice Book Company. Kindle Edition.
[14] Wurmbrand, Richard (2010-09-30). Tortured for Christ (Kindle Locations 1157-1159). Living Sacrifice Book Company. Kindle Edition.