Calvary Road Baptist Church
“FORGIVENESS”[1] Part 5
Ephesians 4.32
This is the fifth and final in my brief series on forgiveness. In this message, I want to speak on the place of restitution and forgiveness and the concept of restoration and forgiveness. Before proceeding, let’s make sure we grasp one of the implications of Second Timothy 3.16, which declares,
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”
The Scripture referred to by this verse, recognizing the New Testament had not yet been completed when Paul wrote Second Timothy, is the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures. They are profitable. That understood, what principles and truths are revealed and established in the Old Testament, understood in the context of the Bible, continue to remain valid.
Therefore, just because truth from the Old Testament is not explicitly stated in the New Testament does not mean the truth is not a timeless principle whose validity remains. With that in mind, there are four passages I would like us to take note of.
Exodus 22.1-6:
1 If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.
2 If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him.
3 If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.
4 If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep; he shall restore double.
5 If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man’s field; of the best of his own field, and of the best of his own vineyard, shall he make restitution.
6 If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.
2 Samuel 12.1-14:
1 And the LORD sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.
2 The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:
3 But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.
4 And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.
5 And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die:
6 And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.
7 And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul;
8 And I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things.
9 Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.
11 Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.
12 For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.
13 And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.
14 Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.
Proverbs 6.20-35:
20 My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother:
21 Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck.
22 When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.
23 For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:
24 To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.
25 Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids.
26 For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.
27 Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?
28 Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?
29 So he that goeth in to his neighbour’s wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.
30 Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry;
31 But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house.
32 But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.
33 A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away.
34 For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance.
35 He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts.
Luke 19.1-10:
1 And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.
2 And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich.
3 And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature.
4 And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way.
5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house.
6 And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully.
7 And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner.
8 And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.
9 And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham.
10 For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
Let me briefly summarize these passages. Five times in six verses mention is made of the act of restoring and making restitution after another’s property has been stolen or destroyed through neglect. In Exodus 22.1-6, the law of restitution was established as part of God’s nation-building organization of the Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai.
Thus, when your actions or inactions result in another’s loss of property or are deprived of the enjoyment of property, you are to make restitution. Translated as restore and restitution, the Hebrew word is shalam, meaning to make whole.[2] What is important to note is that the theft or neglect victim is only made whole when what is repaid is some multiple of what was taken or lost. If you give back what you have taken, you are not even with the victim!
In Second Samuel 12.1-14, we find embedded in the narrative between guilty King David and the prophet who confronted him, Nathan, David’s insistence that restitution for the stolen lamb in Nathan’s story be four times what the owner was deprived of, verse 6. Thus, the principle of restitution is interwoven in King David and Nathan’s understanding of propriety a thousand years before Christ.
In Proverbs 6.20-35, we are presented a lecture on the high price to a man of an unchaste wife.[3] Verses 20-24 admonish the son to preserve the teaching of his parents.[4] The lesson of the lecture is contained in verses 25-35. However, in verse 31, we find our familiar Hebrew word for restitution, this time connected to a seven times multiple of the value of what the thief took.
Turning to the New Testament, we find the narrative of the interaction between the Lord Jesus Christ and the wealthy publican named Zacchaeus. Notice, in verse 8, Zacchaeus’ eagerness to make restitution is four times what he inappropriately took for taxes. Thus, the notion of restitution is a well-established principle in the Old Testament and in Jesus’ day, and nothing in the Gospels or the rest of the New Testament questions the propriety of the principle of making restitution.
What does this mean? It means that restitution is a thing in the Christian’s life. Restitution is a feature for reconciling two people whose relationship has been harmed, if not destroyed, by wrongdoing. The neglect of restitution is harmful to the process of seeking and granting forgiveness so necessary to reconciliation.
These things understood, I have two things to set before you for consideration:
Third, THE PLACE OF RESTITUTION AND FORGIVENESS
Is there any question in anyone’s mind that restitution is a thing, that it was in God’s mind for someone responsible for another’s material loss to be obligated to make that wronged or deprived individual whole?
Because restitution is an established protocol to make someone whole for the loss of their enjoyment of personal property, and that inconvenience, grief, and a sense of wrong is to be compensated by some multiplier given to the victim when making restitution, it is easy to see that restitution is not made when a sheep that was stolen is only a sheep returned, or household furniture stolen is the same amount of household furniture returned.
Restitution is more than merely returning property deprived. Restitution addresses the inconvenience of property loss, but it also addresses the emotional impact of being personally violated by property theft and some measure of compensation for the sense of invasion and potential threat to physical safety someone might imagine when their property is trespassed, and the sanctity of their home is violated to steal personal belongings.
Staying on the side of the victim of theft at this point, can you ever again trust the thief who stole from you? It is doubtful, apart from a willingness on the part of the thief to make restitution, steps taken to make his victim whole. And under the Law of Moses, the apprehended thief had no choice. He was told what his restitution would be, up to seven times the value of what he stole. So, in one sense, paying restitution is a form of punishment, satisfying our sense of justice for wrongdoing.
From the passages we have read, it is not a great leap to move from lesser to greater, from restitution to address another’s physical loss to restitution to address another’s emotional pain for a wrong done, and then restitution to address another’s harm to reputation for a falsehood told about them, or restitution to address another type of harm.
Thus, moving from the material to the emotional and spiritual, restitution would not always be monetary, not always be material, but would also include making a victim whole by the concerted effort to treat the victim then a certain way to compensate for the wrong done.
Fourth, THE CONCEPT OF RESTORATION IN FORGIVENESS
The reason for restitution is to succeed in the effort to effect a restoration as the ultimate goal of forgiveness. However, since most people do not understand the principle of restitution, they are saddled with the terrible burden of trying to forgive a wrong done to them after an apology but wondering why they cannot seem to forget the sin they have forgiven. It is elementary since restitution is the means to help the victim who has forgiven the offense to then forget.
We have this ministry of reconciliation, remember. We recollect that God remembers our sins and iniquities no more, so we want to be able to do that ourselves. Everything about our Christian lives is reconciliation, reconciliation, is it not? Therefore, we must strive to become masters (by God’s grace) of the art of seeking and granting forgiveness and understanding the place in forgiveness of making restitution to help the forgiver become a forgetter.
My goodness, you do not want to remember the wrongs done to you. And you have no business dealing with the wrongs done to other people, since
“He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.”[5]
So, when you observe someone overtaken in a fault, you straightway deal with them about something that is not your business so you can safely put it out of your mind:
“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”[6]
Switching from the side of the victim to the side of the perpetrator, the side of the wrongdoer, the person who is seeking another’s forgiveness, restitution is seen to be of critical importance to seeing your reputation restored, first with the person you give restitution, and then to others in that person’s circle of influence. Consider Galatians 6.10:
“As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.”
Is it good to ask for forgiveness when you have wronged someone? Anyone? Of course, it is. It is good to grant forgiveness when someone who has wronged you seeks your forgiveness? Again, of course, it is. Is it your job or mine to sit in judgment of the other person’s sincerity when they apologize to you? It is best to steer clear of that as much as possible, but restitution is a wonderful way to virtually eliminate that issue.
Let us say someone has wronged and approached me, seeking my forgiveness. First, I need to be the kind of Christian who can be approached without fear. Some people are ferocious, and anyone who knows them expects to have his head bitten off by them. Don’t be that kind of person. Just knock it off. Assuming you are approached, there is nothing wrong with admitting to the person seeking your forgiveness that you are uncertain about their sincerity and that you don’t have to evaluate their sincerity in light of the propriety and importance of restitution.
It is likely that someone willing to make restitution to you, who wants to go the extra mile to reconcile with you and sees the value of rebuilding his reputation with you, will be willing to make restitution agreeable to you both. The critical issue is whether you want reconciliation or have you grown accustomed and comfortable with having hate for that other person and do not want things to improve. That isn’t good, and that is on you. If I seek another’s forgiveness, but he doesn’t want to forgive me, I am now free, and he has a problem with God to deal with.
I conclude with this: Is there anyone whose forgiveness you should seek? Is there anyone who should seek your forgiveness? Either way, as I understand the Bible, it is on you to take the first step in bringing about a reconciliation by either asking for forgiveness or by informing (with humility) a person that you have wronged and they should seek your forgiveness and make restitution. Ephesians 4.32:
“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
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[1] This series of sermons draws heavily on information found in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia article “Forgiveness”
[2] Francis Brown, S. R. Driver & Charles A. Briggs, The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew And English Lexicon, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1979), page 1022.
[3] Bruce K. Waltke, The Book Of Proverbs Chapters 1-15, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004), page 348.
[4] Ibid., page 350.
[5] Proverbs 26.17
[6] Galatians 6.1
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