What does forgiving others do for us?

The Saviour Christ, realising how much each one has to forgive the other, put in his own prayer that most protective sentence—

Forgive us, as we forgive them.

The position is this—

The Father neither judges you, nor does forgiveness in the earthly sense ever come into the relationship between Him and you.

The many expressions, regarding forgiveness, which appear in the sacred texts were used solely and only to try and dissipate that deeply-rooted belief that God Almighty was the Ruler and Condemnor.

You have been told that if you injure another and do not seek to right the wrong when you pass out of physical life, that deed has to be worked out with pain and effort.

You are conscious, too, that it is a dangerous thing to withhold forgiveness because it blocks the progress of the one who is beyond your range of knowledge—or understanding—in the sense that no visible act of theirs can right the wrong.

While it is true that those who have passed out of the body are hindered and hampered in a most terrible way by the lack of forgiveness from those on earth, yet it is unidirectional.

It is like this—

When you are free from the body, there are a multitude of things, which have to be done—there are those so-called sins of commission and omission, and these—each one—have to be made good, so that the pattern of the life may be true to the design of the God spirit within.

It would be grossly unfair if the absence of the necessary forgiveness should hinder the progress of the soul—now gifted with spiritual sight in any direction, but the one concerned.