I recently read Yours, Jack, letters of C.S. Lewis. In a few of the letters, Lewis talks about a moment much later in his Christian journey when he came to a full realization of forgiveness.
Tonight in Bible Study we were looking the grumbling and fear of the Israelites that led to their punishment of 40 years of wandering. (Numbers 13 and 14) One of our discussion questions was related to God forgiving them, but still placing on them just consequences. It's easy for me to acknowledge that God has forgiven me my sins by Christ's sacrifice on the cross and to acknowledge that God is just and that just consequence for my Sin was paid by Christ's death. But in thinking more deeply about this tonight, I realize that this implies that forgiveness can somehow negate discipline if I define forgiveness by this understanding. And that isn't consistent with what we find in the Bible--such as the sacrifices of atonement that still had to be made with restitution. Forgiveness is not a contrasting idea with discipline. I realized I need to better define my understanding of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is NOT releasing someone from consequences of sin. That seems like a hard idea at first. God has forgiven believers, but he still disciplines us as our Father (Hebrews). So what are we doing then when we forgive someone?
As I'm understanding this now, forgiveness is NOT holding sin against a person--a releasing of guilt. So how then are there still consequences? I thought that maybe forgiveness--since it typically comes after an apology--must be an acknowledgment of a person's repentance, grief, regret. But there seems to be times that Jesus says we must still forgive even if the other person is not repentant.
Now in discussing this with my husband and trying to put some biblical support into it, he claims that punishment and discipline are not the same thing. Therefore, Christ paid the punishment and that is our forgiveness-not paying the punishment for sin. By this idea--parents should never "punish" their children and claim to forgive them, parents should forgive and discipline their children. So I ask him, and myself, what then, is discipline?
So this is my next step in the journey of faith, of growing and understanding God more. I stress that I still trust that God has forgiven me and I am justified by Christ's death on the cross. I'm just on a journey to seek how forgiveness, justice, and discipline work together--in salvation, and in life--as we forgive others, and especially in the context of parenthood (of which I have no experience but hope by God's blessing to have one day).