The sixth kind of forgiveness is the personal forgiveness of the believer. This is the believer’s forgiving of others today and it is related to escaping future punishment in the millennial kingdom.
1. That we ourselves may be forgiven (Matt. 6:12, 14-15; 18:21-35; Mark 11:25-26; Luke 6:37; Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:13).
Conflicts easily arise when people spend time with one another. After believers are together for a while, there will be wrongdoings and mutual offenses. Thus, the Lord wants us to forgive and pardon one another. Since the Lord knows that it is easy for us to offend others and difficult for us to forgive others, He often spoke in the Bible of forgiving those who offend us. In His teaching, He used not only plain words but even illustrations of how God has forgiven us. He also spoke of the punishment in the millennial kingdom to warn us to take heed to the matter of forgiving others. This may be a small thing in our eyes, but it is a big thing in God’s eyes. He spoke seriously both of pleasing God today by forgiving others and of not escaping punishment in the kingdom if we do not forgive others.
Since a believer has been forgiven by God and possesses God’s life, he should forgive those who offend him, according to God’s forgiving grace as well as His life and nature. However, some do not like to forgive others and have a hard time forgiving others. Although some brothers and sisters say that they have forgiven those who have offended them, they do not forget the offenses as God does when He forgives. Charles Spurgeon once said that the forgiveness of some is like burying a dead dog but leaving its tail above the ground. Although we may have forgiven someone, we still remember his wrongdoing, and we even tell others about the offense. We continually recount the matter with all its details and speak of how we have forgiven him. This is not forgiveness from the heart. In God’s eyes, this is not forgiveness at all.
Failure to forgive others will not cause believers to perish eternally, but it may cause them to be punished in the millennial kingdom. If we do not forgive others today, the Lord will not forgive us in the coming kingdom until we forgive them from our heart. To escape such punishment in the coming kingdom, we must forgive others from the heart today.