The Cost of Forgiveness

I make it a practice, every morning to read scripture. This is my personal time of study, prayer and devotions to God. And it never fails that regardless where I’m focusing my attention that God will bring something to the front of my mind that I’ve never really seen before. Any of your guys ever have that happen to you?

The other morning I was reading in the Old Testament studying that time after God had brought His people out of slavery in Egypt and under Joshua’s leadership was giving them the promised land, one battle at a time - this verse caught my eye:

Judges 1:6-7 (NASB)
But Adoni-bezek fled; and they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and big toes.
 7Adoni-bezek said, "Seventy kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off used to gather up scraps under my table; as I have done, so God has repaid me." So they brought him to Jerusalem and he died there.

WOW! Can you imagine – having both your thumbs and both your big toes cut off? I read that and stopped dead in my tracks, trying to think just what that would be like. How humiliating. Especially for a warrior – instead of a steady and purposeful walk, I’d always forever after be wobbly with unsure feet. And that’s not to mention never being able to handle a sword again which I think was the weapon of choice then. I mean, how’d I even hold a fork? You know a lot of scientists say that the biggest difference between humans and other mammals are our apposing thumbs…………. Needless to say I spent several days just pondering having my big toes and both my thumbs cut off.

I just kept going back time and time again to these two verses and I finally landed on that 2nd verse. King Adoni-bezek himself had done this very same thing to 70 kings who afterwards were reduced to gather the scraps from under his table as they were no longer able to provide for themselves……

When I was a little girl, I loved to hang out with the adults. Listen in on their conversations and maybe if I was lucky be the center of attention for a little while. I remember it feeling so good, and eventually I’d start acting out a little – something my Mother called being “brigaddy.” Any of you ever hear that word, brigaddy? Anyway I’d start showing off, and one of the adults (usually one of the Aunts) would look me straight in the eye and say, “Little girl you’d better watch yourself, cause you’re going to reap what you sow.” Might not always be those exact words, sometimes it was “Laugh now, cry later;” Or “won’t be near as much fun if your Daddy catches you acting like that!” Man did they know how to dampen a party and bring me down. Because regardless of their exact words, I got their meaning! I was acting badly and I was going to pay for that bad behavior! I was going to reap the consequences for my behavior.

The more I read the more it seemed to me that King Adoni-bezek must have grown up around some of my relatives because he certainly was “getting” that same concept. He himself said, “As I have done, so God has repaid me.”

Now while I believe that there are consequences for my behavior, it doesn’t always set well with me when I’m pondering God’s mercy and grace in the New Testament with His “an eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth” in the Old. Any of you ever think like that, or am I the only one?

I mean it sort of seems that God is pretty ticked off through a lot of the Old Testament. Just look how quickly the victory in chapter 1 of Judges turns to God’s anger in chapter 2. It seems almost instantly the Israelites have gone and done it again and it isn’t near as much fun when Daddy catches them acting badly again!

Judges 2:20-23 (NLT)

So the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He said, "Because this nation has transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers and has not listened to My voice,
 21(I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died,
 22in order to (test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of the LORD to walk in it as their fathers did, or not."
 23So the LORD allowed those nations to remain, not driving them out quickly; and He did not give them into the hand of Joshua.

So which is He? Is He the “Eye for an Eye,” God or the “Mercy and Grace,” Savior?

No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t come up with an answer that made sense to me, so I decided to just keep reading and trusting that God is love and love is all about mercy and love is all about grace and trusting is all about faith. Faith that even when I can’t understand and don’t have the capacity for it that God is always faithful and true and can be trusted. Then I came to the third chapter of Judges.

Judges 3:1-2 (NLT)
These are the nations that the Lord left in the land to test those Israelites who had not experienced the wars of Canaan. 2 He did this to teach warfare to generations of Israelites who had no experience in battle.

Wait a minute, maybe it’s not about punishment at all. Maybe it’s about discipline? One definition of discipline is; “Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior.”

God wasn’t just being mean, punishing the Israelites for bad behavior. He was disciplining them – teaching them to be warriors so they could defend themselves. He loved them so much that He wanted them prepared for life and even though it was in His power to do so, for some reason He just didn’t hand it over to them - they had to do some work for it. Really sounds like a parent doesn’t it. His heart was for His children’s good, so He allowed a situation, circumstance, through which they could learn a specific character or pattern of behavior – He had an outcome in mind other than retribution! He wanted them successfully involved in their outcomes!

So this thought begs the question, when was the last time you had your thumbs and big toes cut off? What was your situation? Did you, like King Adoni-bezek, believe or even say, “God has repaid me?” Or maybe you tried to figure out what you’d done that made God mad enough to bring the catastrophe, this situation I'm seeing as punishment?

But let’s take a closer look.

Judges 2:11-16
The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight and served the images of Baal. They abandoned the lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They went after other gods, worshiping the gods of the people around them. And they angered the Lord. They abandoned the Lord to serve Baal and the images of Ashtoreth. This made the Lord burn with anger against Israel, so He handed them over to their enemies all around, and they were no longer able to resist them, causing them to be defected as as He had warned. And the people were in great distress.

Let’s continue....
Judges 1:16 Then the Lord raised up judges to rescue the Israelites from their attackers.

Now, let that all sink in just for a minute. How many times have I always focused on the “punishment,” here and not really comprehended everything that is being communicated.

1) They had been warned, time and time again - instructed on how to behave. Were told that they behavior had consequences. They refused to listen, like many children, believing they knew what was best and that they didn’t have to follow God’s
(Daddy's) instructions.
2) When their behavior opened the door to catastrophe, like most children do - they cried out to their Daddy (God) to take over and save them and get them out of a horrible situation (one created by their behavior).
3)God’s love for His children is so strong that even though it happened time and time and He knew they’d behave badly again and again, He stepped in with a plan to save them. (Judges 1:16)

He forgave them, put a plan in place that would give them the tools to be successful and it didn’t cost them anything. All they had to do was receive it. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Sounds like mercy, grace and love to me. Sounds like I've been focusing on the wrong portion of the scriptures!

According to Timothy Keller’s book “Prodigal God;” “Mercy and forgiveness must be free and unmerited to the wrongdoer - if the wrongdoer has to do something to merit it, then it isn’t mercy.” But this doesn’t mean that forgiveness is free, “forgiveness always comes at a cost to the One granting the forgiveness.”

You see God not only stepped in with a plan to save the Israelites this time, but because He’s God, He knew that they’d need help time and time again. He knew that we’d never be able to manage it either on our own either. He knew that forgiveness would be costly, not to us - but to Him. As Keller writes, “Jesus was stripped naked of His robe and dignity so that we could be clothed with a dignity and standing we don’t deserve. On the cross Jesus was treated as an outcast so that we could be brought into God’s family freely by grace. There Jesus drank the cup of eternal justice so that we might have the cup of the Father’s joy. There was no other way for the heavenly Father to bring us in, except at the expense of our true elder brother.”

He loves me so much that He's willing to discipline me as any good parent does and He willing paid the costs involved in forgiveness. How awesome is that?