Faith to Forgive

At one point during the Savior’s mortal ministry the apostles said to Him, “Lord, Increase our faith.”  This is certainly a worthy petition of the Lord from any of us in about any circumstance, but I think it is significant to note the context of this request.  The Savior had just taught this to them: “Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.  And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith” (Luke 17:3-5).  This must have seemed almost an absurd proposition to think that if someone were to “trespass” against you seven times in a day and likewise repented seven times in that same day that you would forgive him each time.  Jesus was certainly using hyperbole to teach, but He was completely serious in His message: there is no limit to how much you should forgive.  Surely if there is a commandment that takes faith to fulfill, it is the command to forgive, and understanding the Lord’s difficult requirement to forgive invoked the apostles’ plea to help them have more faith. 

Although in the above scenario the Lord included the fact that the offender repented, other scriptures seem to show that even without this (i.e. even when the offender does not repent) we are still to forgive.  In what is perhaps the most famous scripture about forgiveness we read of this encounter between Peter and the Savior: “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:21-22).  This contained no stipulation on the offender repenting, and surely the Savior did not intend to suggest that we forgive only up to 490 times; our forgiveness is to be unlimited and unconditional.  He made this very clear in the Doctrine and Covenants: “Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin.  I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men” (D&C 64:9-10).  One of the reasons that we are to forgive is the lesson taught by the parable given at the end of Matthew 18: if we cannot forgive, then God cannot forgive us.  “But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses” (Mark 11:26).

                I think this last principle—that we must forgive in order to be forgiven—helps us understand how there remains “the greater sin” in the person who does not forgive.  At face value that phrase seems to suggest that if we cannot forgive, the seriousness or magnitude of our sin (i.e. the sin of not forgiving) is greater than that of the actual sin committed against us.  But that principle simply doesn’t make any sense when you think about extreme examples: suppose a man struggles to forgive another who murdered members of his family.  It can’t be that the Lord would condemn more harshly the man who can’t forgive such an atrocious crime than the person who actually committed the crime.  I don’t think the Lord is comparing the sin of the offender to the sin of the offended who doesn’t forgive; rather, perhaps He is comparing the state of the one offended who does not forgive with his state if he had forgiven.  In other words, when we don’t forgive, there remains in us a greater portion of our sins.  The Lord forgives us less when we can’t forgive others, and so there remains in us more of our sins.  I think this matches the whole context of the verse (D&C 64:9): “He that forgiveth not his brother his trespass standeth condemned before the Lord” because the Lord can’t forgive us as freely when we don’t forgive, and so there remains in us a greater portion of our sins.  And whether that original sin or offense against us was large or small, we limit ourselves spiritually if we don’t in time exercise enough faith to forgive.