Epiphanies can come at the strangest times, and in the strangest places. Yesterday as I was leaving King’s Cross, my tube station, I was struck with the most trenchant insight I have received in ages: We are the only persons who can truly ever harm ourselves.
The Word tells us of mighty restoration – of our physical selves, sown into the grave in corruption raised to immortality through the first resurrection. The same too for our souls – John’s first epistle speaks of the mightiest of promises – that those who truly hope in Christ will “be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”
So then, if our bodies and souls are promised perfection and immortality through the healing work of Christ’s atonement and resurrection, who then can ever truly harm us? Can men who harm our mortal frame? Can those who wound our hearts and souls ever do lasting damage?
It is in fact the case that they can never do us lasting harm. It is only we ourselves who can do that. It is only our intentions and our actions that can remove us from the grace of God and take us from His path of eternal life.
How much more should we therefore abundantly forgive our neighbor who can do us no real harm, even as we daily forgive ourselves our faults? Can we really hold our neighbor to a debt we know redemption will repay while we casually forgive or ignore our own and damning faults?
