3. Should we forgive a person if he doesn’t deserve to be forgiven? Matthew 5:44. Consider Luke 23:34.
NOTE: ‘He does not send us to condemn anybody; but that they may be saved. His name is “forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,” and His people are to know His name; they are to know what it is to be this to all. God is love. This is His name; and to know His name is to know love, His love. It is to know Him as He is Himself. And “he that loveth not, knoweth not God.” It is not in human nature of itself to manifest the disposition and character here outlined. It is not in human nature of itself always to treat people better than they deserve; to be always extending favour to the unthankful and the evil; to suffer long injustice and oppression without cause, and at the same time to be kind, and manifest abundance of goodness and truth; and to be always forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. This is not natural. It is natural for men to treat people only as they deserve; to extend favours only for favours; to resent injustice and resist oppression; to harbour enmity rather than to be forgiving.’ A. T. Jones: Review & Herald, September 24, 1895.
4. When we forgive a person, are we to try to forget what he has done?
NOTE: ‘Instead of favouring his poor brother, the sharp, exacting rich man takes all the advantage and adds to his already accumulated wealth by the misfortune of the other. He prides himself because of his shrewdness, but with his wealth he is heaping up to himself a heavy curse and laying a stumbling block in the way of his brother. By his meanness and close calculation he is cutting off his ability to benefit him with his religious influence. All this lives in the memory of that poor brother, and the most earnest prayers and apparently zealous testimonies from his rich brother’s lips will only have an influence to grieve and disgust. He looks upon him as a hypocrite; a root of bitterness springs up whereby many are defiled. The poor man cannot forget the advantages taken of him; neither can he forget how he has been crowded into difficult places because he was willing to bear burdens, while the wealthy brother ever had some excuse ready for not putting his shoulder under the load. Yet the poor man may be so imbued with the spirit of Christ as to forgive the abuses of his rich brother.’ Testimonies, volume 1, page 479.