I ran across this image today and I think it really drives home a point about forgiveness that I’ve shared with several people lately. It’s something that I’ve personally had to learn the hard way over the last few years because I guess I’m just bent this way. I want to help people, I want to have compassion for others, and will help just about anyone I can do anything I can. Even people I can’t stand to be around. But I also think popular church culture really screws up when preaching on forgiveness without also addressing boundaries and consequences.
We’re taught and it is absolutely biblical that if you are going to call yourself a Christian, covered in blood of Christ by the grace of God through faith and forgiveness, that you have to forgive others. It’s a must. No question about it. But, forgiveness has boundaries. Forgiveness does not absolve the forgiven of consequences for actions. God’s forgiveness is not a doormat to be abused.
Here in Genesis, Adam and Eve had just sinned and rightly should have been crushed into hell by the wrath of righteous God. Yet by grace alone, God made a sacrifice and covered their sins. They were forgiven. Yet “He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.” Genesis 3:24
This is a boundary as much as any When others wrong you, hurt you, lie about you, cheat you, betray you, etc… You are absolutely to forgive them. And the sad part is that toxic manipulative people will use forgiveness as a tool to weasel their way back into your life. BUT You do not have to let that person back into your life. You don’t have to be their doormat to forgive them. Even and especially God has boundaries that come with forgiveness.
He cursed the ground they walked on and guarded his boundaries with a flaming sword. Again, in Genesis we see when Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, he tested them three times before revealing himself to them. He didn’t just let them waltz back into his life and fling his arms open to receive them. Not without seeing that they had owned their sins and offed amends did he reveal himself to them.
Even then He told them. “what you planned for evil, God intends for good.” He recognized that in forgiving them, it was God’s sovereignty at work. He was not a victim of the evil plotted in their hearts, but rather a ordained good that would come out of it so that “many would be saved.”
Likewise, I sincerely hope this helps someone avoid some of the things that I’ve been through. There are volumes more that could be said of forgiveness and boundaries, but you can forgive others without allowing them back into your life to use you and do you more harm.
