Summary
Forgiveness as the Foundation of Life Together
"God in Christ has forgiven you." With these words from Ephesians 4:32, Paul names the reality that makes Christian community possible. Before the foundation of the world, God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless, destining us for adoption as His children Ephesians 1:4-7. In Him we have redemption through His blood—the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. This is not a vague hope but an accomplished fact: our sin is no more; it is forgotten; we are free.
The right response to that announcement is the joy of Psalm 32: "Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." David describes how silence about sin made his body waste away under its weight, until he confessed and the Lord released the guilt. The Christian life begins here. Every time the church gathers, we confess our sins and hear that we are forgiven, and only then do we continue. Forgiveness is not a footnote to worship or to fellowship—it is the starting point of our common life as God's people.
Because Christ has died for sin and risen victorious, the forgiven are made a new creation. Through the waters of baptism the old Adam and old Eve are drowned, and we are moved into a new being. Like a household that has packed up and moved, the Christian leaves the old behind. Paul names what must be packed away: "all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice" Ephesians 4:31. Bitterness is the brooding rumination over a wrong, real or imagined, that takes root and seeps in. Left to grow, it erupts in wrath, settles into a sour mood, spills out in quarrels, and leads even to slander—a word Paul borrows from blasphemy, because to tear down a brother or sister is to diminish one whom God Himself has made.
A.W. Tozer warned against the common excuse that we were "provoked." Provocation, he observed, "cannot stir up what is not there. It does not change the character. It simply reveals it. The mud must be at the bottom of the pool, or it cannot be stirred up." Paul's answer is not that we manage our outbursts better, but that this muddy heart is no longer who we are. Sealed in the Holy Spirit and called as God's own, the baptized can put these things away because God's own Spirit dwells within and gives the strength to do so.
In their place, Paul sets a positive picture: "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another." Kindness in Paul's day described how a ruler treated his subjects or a benefactor his clients—generous, courteous, serving. Tender-heartedness names a compassion felt to the very gut, especially toward a brother or sister in error. Rather than lashing out at the one who has wronged us, we look at them through the cross of Christ and are moved to pity, and so to forgiveness. When the demand for justice rises in us, honesty must rise with it: has anyone wronged us more deeply than we have wronged the Lord? And how does He treat our sin? He forgives—holy, freely, fully, beyond what we can imagine this side of heaven.
That is the measure Paul gives. We forgive one another not minimally, not begrudgingly, but "as God in Christ has forgiven you." There is no terminus on this forgiving; as Christ has never stopped forgiving us, we are never called to stop forgiving one another. 1 Peter 4:8 sums it up: "Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins." God's love has called you to be His own, washed you in baptism, sealed you with His Spirit, and now empowers you to love and forgive your neighbor. Forgiven through the blood of Christ, the church is at last free to forgive.
Video citations
- "Forgive One Another" 2-26-23 — If you would please open your Bibles to Ephesians the fourth chapter that's on page 171, if you're using a Pue edition of the Bible, Ephesians chapter 4. Paul writes, under the inspiration of the…