NTEB RADIO BIBLE STUDY: What Is Biblical Forgiveness?

Holocaust survivor Corrie Ten Boom had this to say about true biblical forgiveness. She said “forgiveness is setting the prisoner free, only to find out that the prisoner was me”. That is a great, all-purpose statement on forgiveness, but in the specific instance surrounding that quote, it was in relationship to the Nazi concentration camp guard who, after the war, approached her and told her he had gotten saved. That was stunning enough, but then he said, I am asking you to forgive me. Corrie froze, filled with justifiable hatred for the man who had killed her sister, and had almost killed her. What would you have done? On this episode of Rightly Dividing, we are looking at some of the things that the Bible says will be present in the life any and every born again Christian who is doing their best to follow the Lord. One of those things is forgiveness, and the Bible is quite clear about what type of forgiveness that is. It is not a namby-pamby or wishy-washy type of forgiveness that you see out in the world. Rather, it is a biblical forgiveness based on how since God has forgiven you of your many trespasses against Him, a forgiveness made possible only by the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Corrie Ten Boom reached deep within herself to find the strength to forgive the Nazi guard, and came up quite empty. She had nothing but hate for him. But when she looked at it through the eyes of Jesus on the cross, when she looked into the scriptures, she found herself suddenly filled with a strength and a love that comes only from God, and she warmly and enthusiastically gave the man the right hand of Christian fellowship, looked him in the eyes and forgave him. We look at one of the hardest attributes to develop in the Christian life, forgiveness.