What Philemon Teaches Us About Forgiveness
Introducing Philemon
If you read Paul’s letter to Philemon, you’ll notice that this letter is full of people. You can count twelve different people in the twenty-five verses of this brief letter. In addition to Paul, Philemon, and Jesus, you have Timothy, Apphia, Archippus, Onesimus, Epaphras, Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke. But I want to focus on the three fullest portraits presented by this New Testament miniature, this moment of real life, captured in a verbal frozen frame on the pages of our Bibles between Titus and Hebrews. Here we find the picture of someone needing forgiveness, the picture of someone with the opportunity to forgive, and the picture of someone who is encouraging forgiveness. As we consider these pictures, I pray that you might see a living Christian faith both in the pictures and in yourself.
A Picture of Someone Who Needs Forgiveness: Onesimus
The story of Onesimus is something we can reconstruct from the basic parts of this letter. Paul refers to him as “no longer . . . a slave,” suggesting that slavery was his former station (Phil. 16).
Yet something had gone wrong. In verse 11, Paul refers to the fact that Onesimus had been “useless” to Philemon. And in verse 14, Paul acknowledges that Onesimus should not remain with him without Philemon’s consent. Then in verse 18, Paul is more clear—Onesimus may have wronged Philemon, or he may be in debt to him. Paul does not get more specific than that. It seems likely that Onesimus had wronged Philemon by fleeing, since Paul knows he cannot justify Onesimus’s continued absence from Philemon without his consent. Onesimus is AWOL—absent without leave.
Based on the words “if he . . . owes you anything” in verse 18, many have speculated that Onesimus must have stolen something from Philemon and then, in fear of retribution and justice, fled. Whatever the reason, Onesimus left Philemon on bad and unresolved terms.
After his escape, Onesimus somehow ended up with Paul. Once in Paul’s company, it seems, Onesimus became “useful.” More than that, he became a Christian. Now, following his conversion, Onesimus needs to redress the wrongs he has committed. Philemon may offer to free him from his obligations, but Onesimus must begin the process of restoration by offering to make restitution for whatever wrongs caused him to flee from Philemon in the first place.
Onesimus needs Philemon to welcome him back into his household, his service, and his good graces. The relationship needs restoring. Onesimus needs Philemon to forgive him, so Paul is sending Onesimus back to Philemon.
The Message of the New Testament
Mark Dever
Mark Dever surveys the historical context, organization, and theology of each New Testament book, in light of God’s Old Testament promises. Dever’s message echoes that of the New Testament—one of fulfilled hope.
A Picture of Someone with an Opportunity to Forgive: Philemon
Philemon is being asked to “welcome” Onesimus (Phil. 17). He is being asked to open his arms to the very one who (possibly) stole from him and then abandoned him. He is being asked to invite this man back into his home. But can this man be trusted? Will Philemon have to count the silverware every day? Will he have to count his change whenever Onesimus returns from the market? Will he have to keep an eye on the chickens?
Interestingly, Paul does not just say, “Forgive and forget, Philemon. It’s all in the past. Let go of it.” No, he acknowledges a genuine indebtedness that must be reconciled. He says to Philemon, if Onesimus “owes you anything, charge it to me” (Phil. 18). I wonder if Philemon will take this to mean, “Eat the loss, Philemon.” After all, is Philemon actually supposed to send Onesimus’s bill to the great apostle who sits languishing in a Roman prison? Whether that means eating the loss or asking an aging apostle to foot the bill, it has to be dealt with; it is part of the problem. Forgiving Onesimus means Philemon will have to take such real issues into account. They cannot simply be swept under the carpet.
A Picture of Someone Who Encourages Forgiveness: Paul
Finally, we cannot overlook one more picture in this story, the picture of the person encouraging forgiveness—Paul. Paul is the one who somehow intercepted Onesimus. Paul is the one who shared the gospel with him. And Paul is the one who has now sent him back and has written this letter to accompany him. Orchestrating all of this is Paul.
What True Christian Faith Will Look Like in Us
Nothing is nearer the heart of Christian faith than the recognition of our own need to forgive because of our own need for forgiveness in Christ. In this little letter, we see three miniature pictures of what true Christian faith will look like in us.
We Will Be Peacemakers, Like Paul
Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9). There is something particularly Christlike about peacemaking, which Paul exemplifies so well in this letter.
I fear that some of us may have the idea that being a Christian means shrinking back from others’ problems and failures. We take great care not to be contaminated by other people’s problems. But if you think that is what it means to be a Christian, I fear you will go to hell. That is not what it means to be a Christian at all! Have you found your own soul so pure before God that you are happy to shrink back from others, forgetting that God could have done that with you? Do you think the followers of the One who went to the cross are called to go through life kindly and nicely, neither being bothered nor bothering themselves for anyone? Peacemaking, going out of one’s way as Paul does in this letter, striving with all one’s might to bring reconciliation, smells like Jesus. If we have a true Christian faith, peacemaking will mark our lives.
We Will Forgive Others, as Philemon Should
If we have true Christian faith, we will also seize opportunities, as Philemon has presented before him, to forgive others. Forgiveness will typify our responses to injustices both large and small. Sometimes, of course, it can be harder to forgive the small things. Teddy Roosevelt liked to tell the story of the Texan who remarked that he might, in the end, pardon a man who shot him on purpose. But he would surely never pardon the man who shot him accidentally. Malicious intent he could stand. But the sheer incompetence of a man who could not handle a gun he could not tolerate. We might laugh at that story, but we can be very small people. It is amazing how we can find it within ourselves to forgive people for huge sins, particularly if they do not affect us. Yet when their incompetencies act like sand in our nicely oiled schedules, well, forgiveness is out of the question. But should sin bother us less than incompetence? As Christians, we must forgive.
Only the sacrifice of Christ can provide such satisfaction and meet the just requirements of God’s holy nature.
Perhaps you read one prominent public official’s remarks during a ceremony marking the thirty-fifth anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. This public official said,
“All of you know, I’m having to become quite an expert in this business of asking for forgiveness. It gets a little easier the more you do it. And if you have a family, an administration, a Congress and a whole country to ask—you’re going to get a lot of practice. But I have to tell you that in these last days, it has come home to me, again, that in order to get it, you have to be willing to give it. The anger, the resentment, the bitterness, the desire for recrimination against people you believe have wronged you, they harden the heart and deaden the spirit and lead to self-inflicted wounds. And so it is important that we are able to forgive those we believe have wronged us, even as we ask for forgiveness from people we have wronged.”1
You know that remaining bitter—whether for accidents or actions of ill intent, whether for sins against us large or small—is a contradiction to the confessed Christian faith. Remember what Jesus taught his disciples to pray: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12). Do you really want to pray that? Think carefully about that phrase before you pray the Lord’s Prayer next time. Do you really want to be forgiven in the same way you have forgiven others?
We Will Know Our Need for Forgiveness, as Onesimus Did
Finally, if we have true Christian faith, we will know our need for forgiveness.
From others. Like Onesimus, we will know our need to be forgiven by other people. Have you ever heard this saying: “A non-Christian is someone who is wrong. A Christian is someone who is wrong but will not admit it”? The exact opposite should be the case! We do not become Christians simply to wrap a veil of virtue around our evil hearts and lives and to pretend before the world that we are righteous. On the contrary, we pray that God will strip away the veneer—the pretense of our own righteousness—and leave us to rely on Christ’s righteousness alone.
So we cannot be offended by the idea that we will sin against others. If we are Christians, like Onesimus, we will necessarily acknowledge that we have not been paragons of virtue, and we will seek the forgiveness of those around us. That is an inevitable part of being a Christian.
From God. How can we seek the forgiveness of others? Fundamentally, by recognizing our need for forgiveness from God. One modern author has written,
When you get what you want in your struggle for wealth
and the world makes you king for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself
and see what that guy [or gal] has to say.
For it isn’t your father or mother or wife
who judgment upon you must pass,
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
is the guy staring back from the glass.2
Do you believe that? I don’t. Not for a moment. At the end of the day, the verdict of the person staring back at you in the mirror doesn’t matter at all. Our sins—against others and ourselves—bear a gravity that cannot be explained entirely according to human realities.
A few years back, a friend told me of a young woman who came to him in great distress. She was a college student who had had an abortion. In the days after her abortion, she experienced growing feelings of guilt. Her friends said to her, “Don’t be silly. This is just some kind of postnatal depression. Snap out of it. You have done nothing to be ashamed of.” Her psychologist friends analyzed her guilt feelings. Her social scientist friends assured her that her feelings of guilt were rooted in socially constructed values. But she still felt guilty.
No amount of rationalization could take her guilt away. She had discovered that guilt was not a neurosis to be erased, or to be deprogrammed, or to be eased through reassurance. She wanted to be treated like a responsible human being. She wanted an answer to the guilt that she had incurred, to what she knew was an objective stain on her life for which she was personally accountable. Ironically, her conscience cried out for justice to be done against her sin and she wanted true forgiveness. Yet she found these two things were irreconcilable, especially from the resources within herself. For we cannot finally forgive ourselves, because all our sin is ultimately against our divine Creator and Judge. He must forgive. Nor can we finally provide a just satisfaction for our own sins. Their offense is too great. Only the sacrifice of Christ can provide such satisfaction and meet the just requirements of God’s holy nature.
So what about moral character and absolutes and right and wrong? Christianity is not primarily about any of these things. Primarily, true Christian faith recognizes not that we are right but that we are wrong.
Though Justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy . . .3
We need God’s condescending, self-lowering love in our own lives, offered to us only because Christ has met the demands of justice for all who repent and believe. We need to be forgiven, and we need to forgive, if we would have true Christian faith.
Notes:
- President Bill Clinton, August 28, 1998.
- Quoted by Marsha Witten in All Is Forgiven (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993), 111.
- Portia to Shylock in William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, IV.i.198-200
This article is adapted from The Message of the New Testament: Promises Kept by Mark Dever.
Related Articles
Does the Bible Condone Slavery? (Philemon 1)
Paul addresses a delicate matter in his epistle to the leader of a Colossian church.
Why Study the Books of Colossians and Philemon?
Why study Paul’s letters to the Colossians and Philemon? Let me provide three reasons.
The central gospel themes in Paul’s shortest letter are surprisingly substantial.
What Is Distinct about the Theology of Philemon?
Some question whether we should even say that the book of Philemon has a theology since it is merely a short, practical letter written to an individual Christian rather than a church.
