The Lord spoke to my heart about people who keep other people prisoners. Jesus opened his first message by quoting Isaiah 61:1. In his Mission Statement (Luke 4:18), he proclaimed “liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” Who were these prisoners? After all, no gospel narrative records Jesus liberating people from captivity or opening prison doors.
The Lord opened my understanding to the tendency of some to ‘imprison’ their partners by ‘locking’ them into a past sin: an act of adultery for example. The refusal of the aggrieved partner to forgive the act of adultery is an effective way of sentencing the guilty partner to lifelong punishment.
The marriage continues as normal in the eyes of others, but when the two are alone, the lack of forgiveness is palpable in the lack of communication. The guilty one accepts the silent punishment by the partner as due payment for the sin committed and the suffering as a sentence deserved. The Lord made me know how much this pains Him when things like this take place in marriages in which both of the partners are Christians.
I was then directed to the account of Jesus in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50). Simon invites Jesus to his home and accepts him as a rabbi. But when a prostitute enters uninvited and pours expensive oil onto the head of Jesus, then washes his feet with her tears and proceeds to dry them with her hair — well, to Simon that was a bit much! If this man Jesus were really a prophet, he says to himself, then he would know that this woman is a known sinner! A rabbi Jesus might be, he thinks, but hardly a prophet!)
The Lord Jesus, discerning his thoughts, “answers” Simon with a parable, in which he contrasts the reverential acts of the prostitute with the Pharisees’ lack of commonly accepted courtesies, such as the washing of feet and the pouring of fragrant oil on the head of an invited guest. Both actions were normally done by servants.
The psalmist sings, “My head you do anoint with oil” (Psalm 23). Jesus, maybe with that in mind, says to Simon: “My head you did not anoint.” Jesus then tells his host a parable of a man who owed much, could not pay, and yet was forgiven the debt; and another man who owed a lot less and was also forgiven his debt. Jesus then asks Simon a question: “So tell me, which of the two would love him most?” The answer is an obvious one. “I suppose the one whom he forgave most.” Jesus then turns to the prostitute and says to Simon…
I’m sure that you know the rest of the story, but if not you can likely guess. Bear in mind that Jesus did not select a married couple with a secret, ongoing marriage rift due to a past sin committed. No, he used the loving, repentant acts of a well-known town prostitute — the opposite extreme to the strait-laced Simon, who in his mind would long have ‘imprisoned’ the woman as a sinner who was well-deserving of his rejection and God’s inevitable judgement.
Forgiven? A sinner who had entered his home uninvited? Simon was a Pharisee, and as such was righteous in his own eyes, one whose sins sinned nowhere as bad — and Jesus was saying that he needed to be forgiven?
Well, then, how about a Christian couple whose marriage to all appearances appears good, but is anything but because one of them is secretly locked up by the other’s unwillingness to forgive? Within me, I heard: “It’s as though My hands are tied by the lack of forgiveness among My people. They pray, ‘Forgive me my sins, as I forgive those who have sinned against me’ — but they do not — will not — forgive one another.” However, God’s promise to forgive us requires that we forgive others.
Many more verses from the New Testament came to mind, but the message was clear. It’s that God’s will is not done on earth “as it is in heaven” because of divisions such as this between God’s people.
This is not about God refusing to love us because of our sins — Jesus died for the sins of the world, and he lives as the Great High Priest of those who serve him. If we have sinned and confess our sin to God, He forgives (1 John 1:9).
The people we imprison prevent God from doing more for us than He can because there’s something in one marriage partner — or between two — that prevents Him from being much closer and more intimate with us in our prayers and fellowship.
We can renew our devotion and fellowship with God by releasing the person from personal captivity. The key of forgiveness is in our hands, and by releasing the offender from prison, we might, somewhat to our surprise, release ourselves from the one we didn’t know we were in.