"Out-Do God"

[Kevin H]

Jesus gives us a mindboggeling challenge.

Genesis 4 tells that Cain killed his brother Able. Cain's punnishment was that he was to live the life of his late brother. (Had it been Able who killed Cain the punishment would have probably been having to give up his wandering with the anamals and to stay in one place to be a gardener). One positive point in Cain was that he trusted in God's promice to perfectly punnish anyone who killed Cain (whether this was enough to indicate repentance and salvation we will find out when we get to heaven.)

As we read through Genesis 4 we come to the story of Lamech, who also killed someone. Lamech said "If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold [perfectly and completely] truely Lamech seventy and seven fold."

Linguists tell us that there is a poetic and literary pattern here and from the pattern you know how it should end. If I said "Knock-Knock" it would be expected for you to reply "Who's There?" So with this verse, the linguists say that the verse should read either "If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truely Lamech seven plus one." or "If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truely Lamech eightfold." This pattern shows up again and again in both Biblical texts and in other ancient writings. But the text does not read according to the poetic and literary structure. Lamech mangles the last line. Had Lamech completed the poem correctly he would have been asking God for the same protection as what promiced to Cain, and a trusting in God for perfect vengence. Instead Lamech gives an answer which is outrageous. He is saying that God's perfect vengence would not satisfy his thurst for vengence, that he wanted vengence to an extent that God could not conceive. The last line was shocking as to how outrageously unforgiving and vengenful Lamech was.

Now we move to Matthew 18:21-22. We with our western minds pull out the calculater thinking that Peter was asking about numbers. No Peter was asking about quality. Peter was asking "Shall I forgive perfectly and completely and totally? Shall I forgive like God forgives." Peter was showing that he was paying attention to Jesus in Matthew 5 saying "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." and "Be Ye therefore perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect" and was expecting a pat on the back by Jesus saying to him either "Blessed art thou Simon..." or "No you shall forgive seven plus one" or "No you shall forgive eightfold" which poeticly would have been an agreement with Peter's statement.

Maybe Peter was hoping that Jesus would say something like "Good answer Peter, but God's ways are much higher than our ways. God understands that you have been hurt and understands if you can not forgive as completely as he does, and thus end up holding a little bit of a grudge but it is good goal to try to go after."

But Jesus' emphesses on the importance of having a forgiving spirit by turning to the story of Lamech. Jesus tells us that when it comes to forgiveness that we are to try to out-do God, and to not beat God's forgiveness by a little bit, but to leave God in the dust, that our goal is to be far more forgiving than God can even dream of being.

What is ironic is that we need to have this impossible goal to realize no matter how much we try to do a better job of forgiveness than God does, it is not even a drop in the ocean compaired to the love and forgiveness of God, which means that we need to become even much more forgiving as we still face Jesus' command to become far more forgiving than God is capable of. This challenge forces us to see the importance of forgiveness in God's eyes: He challenges us to do much better than he does. <img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/23_30_104.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/untitled.bmp" alt="" />