So there in an eternal liberty for us in the forgiveness we find in Jesus Christ. That's the critical one. But there are a few temporal liberties that are worth considering.
Forgiveness, and specifically forgiveness in Jesus makes us free from mendacity, to be people of truthfulness. The connection between forgiveness and truth may not be immediately obvious. Let me set it up for you. We lie about ourselves, particularly our faults and failings - sins to use the biblical term. We don't want people to know. Sometimes we don't even want ourselves to know - enter the myriad of excuses for the stuff we know we should not do, or should have done and didn't.
But when we have received forgiveness, the sting of our sin is removed. Speaking the truth to Jesus and coming clean with him makes us free to do the same with others. "Wait.", he says, "I find it easier to tell that kind of truth to God privately, but telling other people, there's the problem." Then I wonder if I have understood, fully grasped what forgiveness really is. It is the removal of sin - it erasure. And here is what we must remember, again in the words of St. Paul, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31) Being justified and forgiven by God means, and really means, that there is no longer any condemnation. Our friends and neighbors might judge us - and some do - but it just doesn't matter. "It is God who justifies, who is to condemn?" (Romans 8:33-34)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer says it this way:
Complete truthfulness is only possible where sin has been uncovered, and forgiven by Jesus. Only those who are in a state of truthfulness through the confession of their sin to Jesus are not ashamed to tell the truth wherever it must be told. (The Cost of Discipleship, chapter 11)
In forgiveness we have the freedom to speak the truth. We are no longer afraid of the disgrace of our sin. That indeed is liberty.
But wait, there's more. Freedom from vengeance. This has more to do with extending forgiveness than receiving it. Here we will consider Klingons as an illustration of a kind of culture. The fictional (and friends it fictional; there are no real Klingons.) The fictional culture of the Klingons is based on honor - living and dying honorably. And when one is dishonored there is shame and rejection by others. When shamed or dishonored, Klingons seek vengeance and retribution. The one who has shamed or dishonored me must be made to pay.
To make it more real, this is also the nature of gang culture. To be bested, to be sinned against causes shame which demands vengeance. To make it even more real, it is the nature of my heart. When another shames me, I want to strike back, to get even. I must regain my honor. Think Eliza Doolittle and 'Enry 'Iggins - just you wait (also previously noted here).
But forgiveness is about guilt - acknowledging that guilt, and being absolved - being done with it. And this brings liberty. Margaret Visser, in her book The Geometry of Love, says this:
But if no one will forgive, then human beings have no recourse but to a shame/revenge mechanism. Here, people are defined by what they have done, or by what other people have done in their name... Christianity advocates forgiveness, which enables human beings to feel guilt rather than shame for the wrong they have done - guilt being preferable to shame precisely because guilt, unlike shame, can be forgiven. Revenge, which is indispensable for the recuperation of honour after its loss through shame, can be renounced if guilt replaces shame.*
Vengeance and the desire for it, pervades our every experience of personal injustice, real or imagined. Having received mercy, however, we are free to extend mercy - to give up revenge and break the cycle of sin. Here we experience a liberty ourselves, but we also extend a liberty to others.
*Margaret Visser, The Geometry of Love, Harper Collins, Toronto, 2000 p.131
