Why Can It Be Difficult for Christians to Forgive the Heathen Offender?
It's a good question to ask, "Why can it be difficult for Christians to forgive a heathen offender?" Let us try to think of the following truths:
1.) Light and darkness have no fellowship.
- Amos 3:3 says that the two cannot walk together except they be agreed and in Ephesians 5:12 says that Christians are not to have fellowship with them. Forgiving a heathen offender can be mistaken as, "Hey wait a minute! Don't tell me I'm going to hang out with them in porn shops and discos?!" Answer is, "Of course not. You don't." Forgiveness does not mean hanging out with the lost sinners in sinning with them. Jesus forgave sinners but He did not sin with sinners.
2.) The hurt is impossible to deny.
- Think about it- the world is wicked and is especially targeting the Christian. The Christian is frequently a victim of insults, injuries, persecutions, name callings, etc. The Christian man may be wrongly accused of being a homosexual by a male chauvinist and a male chauvinist by the feminist. Christians may even been spat at continuously by cults that rival each other. If that's not all, sometimes irreparable damages and injuries can be done- a lost limb, a lost eye, charred skin, lost family members and lost friends... that is even worse than a mere insult.
- Even if Christians have been sanctified and created unto good works (Ephesians 2:10) and two, even if God's grace creates a new life (Titus 2:11-15). The Christian can be consumed by pride like Samson was. Remember what Samson did? He took revenge on the Philistines which was going to really lead him into much trouble later. A hurt pride is very hard to recover from. Think about how painful for it is a straight male of virtue is wrongfully accused of homosexuality or for a person who is non-Antinomian gets accused of Antinomianism by the self-righteous crowd. In fact, when the pride is hurt, it's a very painful issue.
But it is not impossible. Why? Think about it one good example we can have is Joseph. Joseph the Dreamer had EVERY good reason to want revenge on his ten half-brothers who sold him into Egypt for twenty pieces of silver. He had to go through much trials there- he was framed by Potiphar's wife for refusing to commit adultery with her and two, he went to a stinky jail and the butler forgot about him until two years later. Certainly, Joseph after he was promoted as "Zaphna-Phanea" in Egypt could have used his power to kill all of them. But he chose not to though he tested them with only the desire to put the family back together. He had every right (by human standards) to hate them but instead he chose to forgive them.
The best example would be the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's think about it- He was rejected by His own kind, He was always antagonized by the self-righteous Pharisees and yet He chose to die for man. Grace is something that is undeserved. Truth is, nobody really deserves forgiveness especially if it's from God. However the Lord Jesus Christ chose to be afflicted by sinners, bruised by sinners and crucified by sinners to which He would later conquer death for the sake of the forgiveness of sins... which He did out of love for people who didn't deserve love and forgiveness.
Hard to forgive? God's grace alone can help, not the flesh. It's by God's grace alone that a Christian can truly learn to forgive and yet not negate justice.