DRL Ministries - ISU

A couple years ago I was sitting at the Coffeehouse in downtown Normal typing a paper when a couple of college professors sat down next to me.  I heard them discussing forgiveness and they were attempting to define what forgiveness meant.   

Earlier today I was doing some reading in preparation for my first pre-marital counciling session of all time, and I came across this definition of forgivenenss by Tim Keller…its really good and I wish I had had it that day at the coffeehouse…:

“When someone has wronged you, it means they owe you, they have a debt with you.  Forgiveness is to absorb the cost of the debt yourself.  You pay the price yourself, and you refuse to exact the price out of the person in any way.  Forgiveness is to a.)free the person from penalty for a sin by b.)paying the price yourself.

We are told that our forgiveness must imitate God’s forgiveness in Christ.  How did God forgive?  We are told that He does not ‘remember’ them.  That cannot mean that God literally forgets what has happened–it means he ’sends away’ the penalty for them.  He does not bring the incidents to mind, and does not let them affect the way he deals with us.  How did God forgive ‘in Christ’?  We are told that Jesus pays the price for the sins.  The Father gave up the Son, and the Son gave up His life.  God absorbed the cost in Himself.”

Please let me know what you think about this definition, and how this definition could play out in our lives (what would this definition of forgiveness acted out look like?)