Peter had had a bad day at the office. He had worked hard and faithfully, but everything had gone badly. It started when his train was held up on the way to work, and he never caught up the lost time. He was late for appointments, made mistakes because of haste, forgot a task he had promised to do for the boss, and in silent fury he listened to that same boss offer some well-meant advice on the subject of efficiency.

      The smouldering Peter went home. Just inside the gate he tripped over Junior's scooter, and caught his coat cuff on the garden latch. All that remained was to burn himself with the soup. This he did; and the volcano erupted. Mary, his wife, received most of the hot ashes of his temper. Temper is the only thing known to man which multiplies as he loses it. Peter said some very bad words, broke a plate, and slammed a door. Peter's first feeling was one of intense relief at having got even with life. His second was one of deep shame and remorse. Trying to do the right thing, he went humbly to Mary and apologised for his bad behaviour. Mary accepted his apology and forgave him.

      The incident was closed, or should have been. Peter was on his best behaviour; kindly, considerate, self-humbled. But Mary, by no means perfect, was enjoying her role of the injured queen. Came the day when Peter thought Mary's imperious demands rather unreasonable. He referred to the matter in a mild kind of way and then devoutly wished that he had not. Mary recalled to his mind that fatal dinner: bad temper, bad words, broken plate, and slammed

door. Mary may have forgiven, but she certainly had not forgotten.

      Not a very world-shattering event, was it? Not to be compared with the sins of murder, infidelity, robbery, or treason. But it was a sin nevertheless . . . Perhaps more than one. And its very triviality may help us to see the problem of forgiveness and its answer. We shall try to see what happened inside Peter when he felt the need for something or someone to take away his shame.

Peter had Sinned Against his Better Self

      He felt that he could kick himself for having lost his temper. Even though he had been pushed around by circumstances, he felt the responsibility was his. There was a very real thing in his life that needed to be forgiven.

      You can't understand forgiveness until that real thing is felt. You must be involved personally to know the nature of forgiveness.

      There are two classes of disasters that happen to us. One class we call the misfortunes of life, like sickness, accident, unemployment, floods and earthquakes, and the rather little things that happened to Peter. The train hold-up and what followed were misfortunes. Peter felt a bit persecuted by them, but he had no sense of responsibility for them.

      Misfortunes are very real things. They can cause tragedies and near tragedies. Very often, they develop character because the conflict they provoke can result in a victory for the good life. Many men and women have thrilled the world with their triumphs over misfortune. But sometimes, misfortunes find out weaknesses in their victim, and this is what happened to Peter. He rebelled against misfortune.

      The other class of disaster contains all those things for which we feel personal moral responsibility. They involve a loss of self-respect. We feel unclean because of them. A misfortune may build up our self-respect, it would not take it away. But when we are involved in the other kind of disaster, we feel that we have failed the best in life. We have been unmanly and untrue.

      This idea is written not only into the religion of the orthodox and organised church. It is a fact of human experience. We call it playing the game or being a man. We realise that man is a moral being with a personal responsibility for his actions. The fact of being a man involves him in a recognition of standards. He may not keep them, but he cannot break them without shame. As Chesterton said, "If I wish to dissuade a man from drinking his tenth whisky and soda, I slap him on the back and say, 'Be a man!' No one, wishing to dissuade a crocodile from eating his tenth explorer would slap it on the back and say, 'Be a crocodile!'"

      Sin may be universal, but we still feel it is unnatural. When we are involved in it, we do feel a sense of failure.

      Peter was miserable because he knew he had done a wrong thing While he was doing it he knew it was wrong. He could not claim his wrong was due to ignorance. A lot of sin is due to ignorance, and it may well be that there is some ignorance in every sin. Peter did the wrong while knowing it, and he was shocked at its consequences to himself.

      When Jesus prayed, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do," it may well have been that the guilty ones of Calvary did not know all that they were doing. But they surely knew they were doing a wrong thing. Pilate knew; and tried to wash his conscience as he washed his hands. Judas knew; and tried to

      kill the conscience he felt, that nothing could clean. And there is no doubt that Peter's great Pentecost sermon was addressed to minds haunted by their complicity in the crucifixion. They may not have realised the enormity of their act. They may have been in ignorance of their full commitment to evil as instruments of hate. But they did know that they were doing wrong, Therefore, they knew that they had sinned.

      In this way Peter knew that he had sinned. Because his inner self condemned him, he felt less than a man. When misfortune comes from outside, the whole man rises to meet it. Sin comes from the inside with the surrender of the will to evil, and the half man hides in shame.

Peter Sinned Against God

      If a man is aware that behind this universe and within it, there is a Power and a Spirit, no matter how vaguely his awareness of God may be, as soon as he is aware of his sin against his better self he is made aware of his sin against God.

      The man who is conscious of his sin against God will suffer more than the man who finds no place for God in his world and life. But the latter is in the worse condition by far. He may not feel his wrong to be so great, but he can find no relief from the wrong he knows. The other man, who may magnify his wrong until it seems to crush him, can be given a true release. This is the miracle and the mystery of forgiveness.

      Peter's sin against God was a very real thing. Although his anger was directed against Mary, his sin was first an offence against God. Man needs forgiveness as a real experience. It must be as real as the offence which makes it necessary. The sin cannot lie ignored. God is not the sort of person Omar Khayyam tells about:

      God is in no way the casual God who considers our ways with undisturbed good humour, nor is He like an indulgent parent who accepts his children's wrong-doing as a kind of high-spirited living, secretly being a little proud of this waywardness, provided it does not go too far.

      But, by the time it has started, it has already gone too far. Too far to be handled with a smile and, "Now, boys, that will do." Too far to be fixed with a frown.

The Wrath of God

      Where sin is present, the wrath of God is present. In our emphasis upon the love of God, we often make too little of the wrath of God. But wherever sin is present, His wrath is present. We appear not to like talking about the wrath of God. Or we like to keep it for the Old Testament or for churches other than our own. But the New Testament also has a lot to say about the wrath of God. When we see Christ gathering His disciples or taking up a child, or dying on the Cross, we say "he that hath seen Him hath seen the Father." But when Jesus showed His anger we also see the Father.

      In "The Mediator," Emil Brunner develops this thought of the anger of God as a fact in man's relationship with the Father. He points out that sin is an injury. Not a mere injury to property, but an injury done to the Divine Person Himself. As sin is a personal action, so there is a personal reaction, the anger of God.

      It is against the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees that Jesus most displays a righteous anger. And they were the very people who were most offensive to God. These people claimed to see and know God's will, but they refused to do it and they refused to let others do it.

      God's anger is a very real thing. Men are a little afraid to think of God as being really angry. This is partly because our anger is usually so wrong that anger itself is felt to be wrong, and we cannot ascribe a bad thing to God. And it is partly because His anger is hard to reconcile with His love. So we have a clever way of side-stepping the issue. We say, "God hates the sin, but loves the sinner." But, surely, the sin and the sinner are made one in the act of sin. It is the sinner who, by his sinful act, has been guilty of rebellion against God and injured the Divine Person.

      Man in his terrible sense of guilt, is powerless to restore the original personal relationship with God. There is an obstacle between God and man that man cannot surmount. This barrier is not only a subjective thing, present only in the mind of man. It is an objective thing. That is why it needs much more than just a change of mind on the part of man.

The Atonement

      One of the many theories of the atonement is called the "moral influence" theory. This emphasised the fact that Jesus, because he was obedient to His Father in everything, and faithful to God's call even when it took Him to the Cross, has given us a perfect pattern for our lives. When we look at Him and see how completely He lived the godly life, we are challenged to carry our cross and follow Jesus as His disciples.

      Jesus must be our example. But is it enough to have a good example, even one willing to surrender his life?

      To one who is struggling with a guilty conscience, a long look at the person of Christ and His blameless life will accentuate rather than lessen the sense of shame. Something more than the death of a good man is needed if forgiveness is to be experienced.

      Whatever view of the atonement we have, it must take account of the redemptive element in the death of Christ. His death is not the whole gospel. But it is at the very centre of the gospel; with the Incarnation before it and the Resurrection to follow it. Even if we cannot completely understand the manner in which Christ removes the obstacle between man and God, it is removed. Its removal is taught by the New Testament and it is a fact of experience. Men do feel that there is neither barrier nor condemnation.

      The obstacle is gone and God removes it. The New Testament never says that God is reconciled to man. If it were expressed that way it would suggest that reconciliation comes through man's activity. God reconciles, but He is not reconciled. He reconciles Himself to man. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself."

      And whatever view of the atonement we have, it must take account of the anger of God. "Just as truly as sin is real, and cannot be explained away, so God's anger is real, and it cannot be denied or explained away. But the wrath of God is not the ultimate reality: it is the Divine reality which corresponds to sin. But it is not the essential reality of God. In Himself, God is love." ("The Mediator," p. 519.)

      Room must be found for the fact of God's anger as well as God's love. Forgiveness is not possible unless we account for both.

      In some way Christ accepted our sin, became the object of God's anger, and made it possible for man to live in God's love.

      It is possible to experience forgiveness without fully understanding it.

Peter Sinned Against Mary

      Almost always, our sin, though it is first against God, is against our neighbour also. It is possible to sin only against God. But usually, like Peter in hurting Mary, we hurt others. Our sins of avarice, envy, lust, pride, and false judgment affect others as well. Even the sin of the Cross against Jesus the God, involved the sins of lying and murder against Jesus 'the man.

      Where our sin is against God and man, forgiveness cannot coma from God unless man makes restitution. All our relationships with God involve relationships with man. If we expect God to forgive us, we shall do all in our power to undo the wrong that we have done to others.

      Sometimes a wrong cannot be set right. If one man kills another, he cannot restore the thing that he has taken. He cannot give back to his victim his life. He cannot make up to his victim's loved ones their loss. Nevertheless, the murderer can receive full forgiveness. In every case of wrong we are to make whatever restitution we can, and where restitution is beyond our power we can and must yield the remaining burden to God in full trust that He will remove it.

      Henry Drummond once preached a great sermon on the text, "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction(Psalm 103: 3-4). Drummond dealt with the Guilt of Sin, the Stain of Sin, and the Power of Sin. All three mar our relationship with God, and all three are covered by God's forgiveness. But there are aspects about the stain of sin that make us realise how far beyond our powers it is to undo the wrongs we commit. "The stain of sin concerns your own soul, but that is the smaller matter. That can be undone--in part. There are open sores enough in our past life to make even heaven terrible. But God is healing them. He is blotting them from His own memory and from ours . . . He restoreth thy soul. He healeth all thy diseases. But thy brother's soul, and thy brother's diseases? The worst of thy stains have spread far and wide beyond thyself . . . You must retrace your steps over that unburied past, and undo what you have done. You must go to the other lives which are stained with your blood-red stains and rub them out . . . And let the thought that much that we have done can never be undone, that many whose lives have suffered from our sins have gone away into eternity with the stains unremoved, that when we all stand round the Judgment seat of Christ, we may behold among the lost the stains of our own sin, still livid on some soul."

      There is so much that is true in that terrible picture, but, with all respect, it is suggested that Drummond's great God of forgiveness is even greater than Drummond knew. And He has some secret way that leads through the Cross so that no other will suffer for my forgiven sin.

      We make what restitution we can, but where restitution is impossible the grace of God can still reach.

      Our friend Peter made what restitution he could. He apologised and bought another plate. Then he brought his life into line with his repentance and tried as hard as he knew to be so much above his normal self as his unfortunate lapse was below it. Everything was going fine. Perhaps Peter was even feeling a little dangerous pride in

making such a good job of his new role. But Peter's pleasure in his willing slavery was due for a jolt. You see, Mary had her own flaws of character.

The Forgiveness that Failed

      She would have been shocked to be called one, but Mary was a kind of blackmailer, She was prepared to forgive Peter so long as he was prepared to pay her in reverence, humility, service, and, yes, a few gifts. Peter was very anxious to punish himself. Immediately following his repentance he took over more of the domestic tasks, gave up some of his own interests either to share with Mary or to help her develop her own diversions. As time went on, the extra things Peter did were accepted by Mary as permanent. His very willingness trapped her into asking more and pressing him further. It was now her right to receive all that Peter could pay.

      At first puzzled. Peter was soon troubled. The whole pattern of his life was changing. He felt more of a mouse than a man. A subject mouse of a queen cat.

      So one day Peter thought he should talk things over in a friendly reasonable way, only to find that Mary had not forgotten a single action of the incident that she said she had forgiven.

      So there was another scene as Mary recalled all of the details of Peter's sin, endeavouring to flog him into submission with the whipping sting of her words. Peter slammed another door, and didn't feel sorry. Mary did. And so the last state was worse than the first.

What had gone wrong?

      Simply this, Mary had not forgiven Peter anything. She said she had, but all she had done was to say to herself, "So long as he behaves himself by doing what I want him to do, just so long, will I refrain from mentioning it. But if he makes one little slip . . . !

      When God forgives, He forgets. When Jeremiah was looking forward to the new covenant which God was going to make he quoted God as saying, "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their no more" (31:34).

      Our standard of forgiveness is the same as God's. We may not reach it, but we must not lower it. Mary's relationship to God was upset long before the second scene with Peter. It was upset when she only pretended to forgive.

      Now, forgiveness is not unconditional. The conditions governing it are important and natural. You receive forgiveness only as you forgive.

Jesus Teaches Forgiveness

      To forgive others is not to earn forgiveness. You can never do that. Mary shut God out of her life when she kept Peter's sin against him. There was no room for both in her heart, so God had to go. For Mary to live in the place where forgiveness is possible, she must be forgiving. One of the parables of Jesus is very much to the point here. The Apostle Peter asked Jesus to give a ruling about the limits of forgiveness. The rabbis had given some thought to the matter and they decided that if man forgave another three times he had done all that could be expected of him by either God or man. However, Peter knew that Jesus was likely to have higher standards than the rabbis, so he went much further than three. He more than doubled it. Seven times! Is this enough? "No," said Jesus, "not even seven times. Seventy times seven!"

      Even this astronomical figure, will not exhaust the limits of forgiveness. It is not a matter of arithmetic at all. You can no more reduce forgiveness to a sum than you can divide eternity into day, hours, and minutes.

      The parable Jesus told concerned a man with an impossible debt to his king. The man pleaded for patience and received pity. The king forgave the whole debt. Then that man went to a fellow-servant, who owed him a trivial amount and had him thrown into prison. When the king heard what had happened, he was hot With anger and the unforgiving debtor was punished with utmost severity.

      Now the interesting question is: How could this man's debt be reimposed? The king forgave him, and later withdrew his kindly action and handed him over to the torturers who would make him pay all his great debt.

      It seems reasonable to state that the man who owed the great debt never did receive forgiveness. What was being offered to him out of pity and love, he was trying to receive with bitterness and revenge. And this was impossible. It would be as easy to carry a gallon of water in a bucket of holes as carry forgiveness in a heart with bitterness.

      It may seem hard to say it, but Mary was now in the same position as the unforgiving debtor. God was willing to receive her and forgive the great debt we all owe to Him, but she was not willing to forgive the trivial debt which Peter owed to her.

      It is not enough to forgive a debt outwardly. Even if Mary had never mentioned the matter again, if she had kept it in her heart she would have been just as much in error. At the close of the parable, Jesus said, "My Father will do the same to you unless you each forgive your brother from the heart." Forgiveness from the heart means much more than a form of words. It is not forgiveness to say, "I forgive, but I cannot forget what you have done." It is not forgiveness to say, "I will forgive you but I can't be friends with you again." Whenever we place restrictions upon the limits of our forgiveness of others, we place restrictions upon God's forgiveness of us.

Three Examples of Forgiveness

      Peter and Mary would do well to read them. They are in themselves a course in the art and mystery of forgiveness.

      1. The first concerns the prophet Hosea. Hosea found that his wife had deserted him and sold herself to a worthless man. Her life was unrelieved degradation. Hosea sought her until he found her, bought her back as a slave, and restored her to her former place in the home as a wife.

      Without following Hosea in the way he found his own experience a parallel with God and His chosen people, we can find in Hosea's restoration of his chosen partner an example of human forgiveness. In a day when most men had little real affection for their wives, Hosea showed a respect for human personality and a capacity for forgiveness that has proved an inspiration. Through the shadows of his own sorrow there came a piercing shaft of light to blaze the Divine conviction that God is also willing to forgive. If man can forgive like that, how much more will God forgive.

      From Hosea we learn of man's capacity for real forgiveness, but even this great example is but a pale reflection of God's love for man.

      2. The second story is about the paralytic healed by Jesus (Mark 2). Let down through a roof before Jesus, the Lord told him first that his sins were forgiven, and second that he was healed. Christ's enemies called it blasphemy to claim to forgive sins, but Jesus proved that He had power over the unseen illness by healing the visible.

      The two things to note here are: first, the comparative unimportance of the physical disease when considered alongside the spiritual: second, the ability of Christ to give pardon as a present experience. Christ does not say, "Your sins will be forgiven," or "God will forgive," but "Your sins are forgiven." Both healing and forgiveness are impossible for man, both possible for Christ.

      3. The third story is that of the woman who came to the house of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7). Simon was shocked to see this woman, notorious for her life, come to Jesus Who permitted her to stand weeping at His feet, anointing them with tears and ointment. Obviously she had come in penitence, and this earned for her the gracious word, "Your sins are forgiven." Penitence means a sure and certain access to pardon, which is otherwise beyond reach. H. R. Mackintosh quotes an old story of a vision in which Satan is seen standing before God's throne. The evil spirit said, "Why hast Thou damned me, who offended Thee but once, whereas Thou art saving thousands whose offences were so many?" And God answered, "Hast thou but once asked pardon?"

      Forgiveness is available for all who know God, seek it in penitence, and receive it in hearts that are equally ready to give it.

ALFRED E. WHITE.

      Comes from Coburg, Victoria. As a student-preacher, he served the churches at Montrose, Bentleigh, and Brunswick. Graduated from the College of the Bible, Glen Iris, in 1939, and from the Melbourne University in 1941. He was Director of Religious Education for the New Zealand churches from 1945 until 1951, when he returned to Victoria, to become minister to the church at North Essendon, and lecturer at the College of the Bible in Apologetics and Religious Education.