Forgiveness

[PureX]

Purex, some read the bible, see exactly what it says, don't like it and then say that's not what God meant. They'll skew all those verses that makes them uncomfortable by using the "God is Love" verse. But some a noble enough to see what's actually there, in context, and accept it for what it is, and trust God.

Everyone thinks and feels that they are reading the text correctly. The only difference is that some people realize that thinking so does not make it so, and some don't.

 

[Rimi]

But how are you going to do that? It's YOU who thinks and feels that God wrote the bible. So when you go to the bible to see "what God really wants" you're still doing what YOU think and feel will clarify God's will.

There is no way for you or Bob Enyart or anyone else to escape the fact that what they believe to be true is based on their own thoughts and feelings about what is true.

WELL, DUH! That's right! I might actually be in agreement with God! Oh, wait, not being a fan of God's you'd have a problem with that.

I don't get around that. But I compare what I think to be right to what God has to say. If I'm wrong I do what God says. For example, I used to believe I had to forgive anyone who'd ever hurt me. Then I read what God has to say on it. Now I don't do that anymore even tho was against anything I'd been taught by parents, nuns, etc. They didn't match what God said on the subject. It was very foreign at first, alien. But with time, I've grown more comfortable with God's will in this.

 

[Rimi]

Everyone thinks and feels that they are reading the text correctly. The only difference is that some people realize that thinking so does not make it so, and some don't.

And there we agree. Homos want to see acceptance in Scriptures, and have to twist it to make it so. Same with the forgiveness thing. Same with preachers who want to bilk little old ladies.

 

[Poly]

And there we agree. Homos want to see acceptance in Scriptures, and have to twist it to make it so. Same with the forgiveness thing. Same with preachers who want to bilk little old ladies.

PureX is never going to see this, Rimi. There's not much hope in getting a person to see what is right when he thinks that no one can say it is absolutely wrong to molest a child.

 

[Rimi]

Ugh, he doesn't see that????

Where's my ignore button again . . .

 

[ebenz47037]

I'm kind of torn on this subject. I agree with PureX about forgiving because anger and resentment can tear a person apart. I know this from personal experience. But, I also agree with the others who say that you're supposed to forgive when the person repents.

But, another thing, that scripture about forgiving when the person repents says that when a brother sins against you and repents. To me, a brother is a fellow Christian. It says nothing about non-christians who sin against you. If your anger at someone who isn't a Christian for hurting you in some way is tearing you apart and making you live a life of anger, don't you think that forgiving that person for your own peace is right? I know that forgiving my step-father and mother changed me totally.

 

[Rimi]

I understand what you mean, Nori, I used to think it was only a Christian brother. Yet the same Greek work is used repeated for brother in the NT, when Jesus said it and when Paul said it -- the same word. So is a brother a Christian? Is a brother a Jew? Brother is anyone, is how I see it now. So, with that in mind, the saints under the altar in Rev are there in the very presense of God . . . yet, they demand vengeance. They're not crying for forgiveness so they can get over it and enjoy Heaven and time with God, just to be at peace. Also, not forgiving doesn't seem to tear God up.

It's not that we don't forgive that hurts us. It's that the perp doesn't ask for forgiveness. That hurts because it just emphasizes how little we meant, how devalued we are in the perp's eyes. It's insult to awful injury. That's what hurts. We want desparately to walk holy before God and think by forgiving that we'll be doing that. But it doesn't work. God knows this! and promises He will repay. It is His promise of vengeance and justice that should give us peace and the ability to move on and be released from it. Trusting in Him is our peace. He is our freedom.

 

[Truppenzwei]

I think the thing to be borne in mind is that forgiveness is separate from judgement.

Those who say God does not forgive us before we repent I simply don't think you understand what forgiveness is.

I fully believe that God forgave us before we repented - it is that forgiveness that allowed God to send His Son to die for us. I mean think about it - could a loving father really send his own son to die as a payment for people he had not forgiven?

But this unconditional forgiveness by God is what enabled Him to act the way He did in sending Jesus down. It did not make what we had done right - it was Christ's blood that did that. No, the forgiveness was necessary before the act. Being forgiven does not mean that we do not have to face the consequences of our actions, no this can be seen in the fact that Christ had to die to allow us to escape the consequences of our actions.

To put it another way - If someone hurts us or does something we regard as a sin against us then we should forgive them regardless of whether they repent or not. Why? Because this initial forgiveness is what enable US to walk as though the act did not happen and thus not allow it to dictate our future. For the other person howver to walk as though the act had never happened they must repent. This is what can be seen with the work of the cross and what it is to be a Christian. God forgave our sins, thus enabling Him to act in a fully loving way in arranging a ransom for us. This act where Christ went to the cross paid the price for ALL of our sins. However, even though Christ paid the price for ALL mankind, only those who repent and thus move themselves to a state where they can walk as though the act did not happen will see the benefit of Christ paying the price He did.

Now if we take the verse that is being bandied about;

Luk 17:1 He said to His disciples, "It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come!
Luk 17:2 "It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.
Luk 17:3 "Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.
Luk 17:4 "And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' forgive him."

Here we can see that this verse is rather specifically about disruptive brethren - it is not about sins against you as an individual but rather someone who is being disruptive. To use it to justify never forgiving without the other person repenting first is flawed in my opinion.

I'm sorry if this post doesn't make much sense I'll come back tomorrow after I've had some sleep

T.

 

[kmoney]

For those who believe we should only forgive when the offender repents....

how do you interpret the whole "love your enemies" scriptures. turn the other cheek etc...

also, if a friend sins against you and doesn't ask for forgiveness, do you throw that friendship away? to you "rebuke" them and treat them as the tax collectors and heathens as the verse says? does it matter on how 'bad" the sin is?

I'm not totally sure what I think, I go back and forth. I think that only forgiving when the person repents can be ok, but I also think that it can be dangerous to do. You have to make sure bitterness/resentment/hate doesn't take over. Unless the offender is a person you have ongoing interaction with forgiving them won't have much of a practical effect on your day to day life. If someone doesn't forgive you do you make a conscious effort to NOT forgive them? What is included in not forgiving them?

For the most part I have believed that we should always forgive and just let it into God's hands. God is just and will work for you if you give it to God. I understand that by witholding forgiveness you aren't necessarily attempting to get back at the offender, but I still think that not forgiving has potential dangers.

If they repent than forgiveness is for both of you. If they don't repent than I forgiving them is basically for you.

 

[PureX]

To put it another way - If someone hurts us or does something we regard as a sin against us then we should forgive them regardless of whether they repent or not. Why? Because this initial forgiveness is what enable US to walk as though the act did not happen and thus not allow it to dictate our future. For the other person however to walk as though the act had never happened they must repent. This is what can be seen with the work of the cross and what it is to be a Christian. God forgave our sins, thus enabling Him to act in a fully loving way in arranging a ransom for us.

This is an excellent observation. And I believe it is the truth.

 

[Sozo]

I fully believe that God forgave us before we repented - it is that forgiveness that allowed God to send His Son to die for us. I mean think about it - could a loving father really send his own son to die as a payment for people he had not forgiven?

.

It is because of the blood shed by Jesus that we can be forgiven, not that God forgave us and then sacrificed His Son. Forgiveness is "in Him", that is, in His life! NO ONE "repents" from sin for forgiveness; we repent of unbelief. We agree with God (confess) that we are sinners, but it is when we come to God by grace through faith in Christ that we receive the forgiveness.

 

[Servo]

But how are you going to do that? It's YOU who thinks and feels that God wrote the bible. So when you go to the bible to see "what God really wants" you're still doing what YOU think and feel will clarify God's will.

There is no way for you or Bob Enyart or anyone else to escape the fact that what they believe to be true is based on their own thoughts and feelings about what is true.

Why are you mentioning Bob Enyart? What does he have to do with this thread?

(Pure XXX, insert dumb answer here.)

I have seen Bible verses quoted and ignored, but you want to talk about Bob Enyart.
Go to the BEL forum if you want to talk about him. Here we are trying to discuss God, His Word, and the subject of forgiveness.

 

[Servo]

For those who believe we should only forgive when the offender repents....

how do you interpret the whole "love your enemies" scriptures. turn the other cheek etc...

We should have an attitude of forgiveness, forgive those who repent.

So you interpret it as forgive everyone each time every time, even if they don't repent?

 

[PureX]

Why are you mentioning Bob Enyart? What does he have to do with this thread?
I have seen Bible verses quoted and ignored, but you want to talk about Bob Enyart.
Go to the BEL forum if you want to talk about him. Here we are trying to discuss God, His Word, and the subject of forgiveness.

There were several posts written in response to this one. Perhaps if you'd actually followed the thread a little before you started spouting off, you'd have seen it.

 

[skeptech]

To forgive someone is to give them another chance. But that doesn't mean that they don't need to pay the price for their transgression, or that they should be entrusted to the same circumstances. I'm having difficulty pinning down one set of conditions for forgiveness. For instance:

- It might be a transgression committed by my child. Forgiveness is immediate, but there is a corresponding consequence that they must bear, in the hopes of learning not to do it the next time. (Yeah, right.... I'm ever the optimist!)

- It might be an unintentional transgression committed by someone who should know better. Then I'll forgive with no conditions (after, of course, I understand that it was in fact unintentional), but I'll be careful about entrusting the person under the same circumstances until they've shown that they're trustworthy.

- It might be an intentional transgression by someone who knew better. Then, I will forgive after either a)they have demonstrated that they are truly sorry, and would do different under the same circumstances; or b)they have paid the price and made amends, in some form (jail time, monetary, community service, etc.) Again, I'll be careful about trusting them until they've demonstrated trustworthiness.

Regardless of the circumstance, I prefer "forgive and learn" to "forgive and forget".

Purex makes some excellent points, but is forgiveness the only path to being free from resentment? I'm not so sure.... Can't I not forgive someone, and at the same time not feel resentment? I'll have to think about this some more....

 

[PureX]

To forgive someone is to give them another chance. But that doesn't mean that they don't need to pay the price for their transgression, or that they should be entrusted to the same circumstances. I'm having difficulty pinning down one set of conditions for forgiveness. For instance:

- It might be a transgression committed by my child. Forgiveness is immediate, but there is a corresponding consequence that they must bear, in the hopes of learning not to do it the next time. (Yeah, right.... I'm ever the optimist!)

- It might be an unintentional transgression committed by someone who should know better. Then I'll forgive with no conditions (after, of course, I understand that it was in fact unintentional), but I'll be careful about entrusting the person under the same circumstances until they've shown that they're trustworthy.

- It might be an intentional transgression by someone who knew better. Then, I will forgive after either a)they have demonstrated that they are truly sorry, and would do different under the same circumstances; or b)they have paid the price and made amends, in some form (jail time, monetary, community service, etc.) Again, I'll be careful about trusting them until they've demonstrated trustworthiness.

Regardless of the circumstance, I prefer "forgive and learn" to "forgive and forget".

Hmmmm. Seems to me that what you're talking about here aren't degrees of forgiveness, but degrees of offense. You aren't as offended when a child does something hurtful to you because you know that they aren't fully cognizant of what they do, or of how what they do effects other people. And the same may go for an adult that is not aware, specifically, that they have caused you harm. Though in that case you would expect them to repent once they have been informed of how their behavior has harmed you. And you would be most offended by someone who was cognizant of the harm they caused you and did it anyway, or worse, intended to harm you specifically.

The different responses to these different scenarios has to do with the degree of their offense. And you're saying that the degree to which you can forgive others is directly related to the degree of their offense against you. My guess is that this is true of most of us, but I'm not sure that this really answers the question at hand. The one thing that the bible does not seem to say is that we should forgive other people in proportion to the offenses they've committed against us: quick and full forgiveness for minor offenses, slow and conditioned forgiveness for major offenses, etc. The quotes that I've seen so far all seem to indicate that we should either forgive universally, or that we should forgive only those who repent.

For me to choose among only these two option, I would need to figure out exactly what it means to "forgive". And I think forgiveness refers to the offense committed, and not to the consequences that result for the person who committed the offense. I'll give an example. Let's say that Bob Enyart stole my car (*winking at Shimei*). If he is not caught, and I never see my car again, I can still forgive this unknown criminal for having stolen my car, even though I would still want the criminal discovered and the car returned. What I'm forgiving is the act committed against me: the theft of my property. I am not forgiving the consequences to the offender if he is discovered and apprehended. In fact, I'm not sure it's even my place to forgive the consequences of someone else's actions. And part of the consequence to the offender will be that he is removed from his society for some amount of time (as he has shown himself to be anti-social) and that he will be expected to return the car (or otherwise pay material restitution for it). So I can forgive him of the offense he has committed against me, but that does not mean he is relieved of the consequences of his having committed that offense. The theft of my car is an offense against all of society, not just an offense against me. I can forgive the offense against me, but I don't have the right or the ability to forgive the portion of the offense that applies to the whole of my society.

So if a child commits a non-criminal offense against me, and I forgive that offense, that's it. The whole incident is finished (except in the case of a child, it's important that they learn from such an incident, so even though they are fully forgiven, we may need to treat the incident as if it were greater than it is, just so they can understand the more serious consequences that would be involved in offending people if they were to continue behaving that way when they grow up).

If an adult commits a non-criminal offense against me and is unaware that they have done so, and I forgive that offense, then likewise the incident is finished. In some cases I may choose to inform them of what they've done, and in some cases I may not. In some cases I would expect a grown up to repent of their having inadvertently offended me, yet I'm sure that in some cases they will not. But these are just the kinds of choices that we as adults make while living in communities with each other. They aren't really about the forgiveness, they're more about the "rules of civility" and our own moral codes of behavior, and we don't all follow the same rules that way.

If someone commits a criminal offense against me, and I forgive them, they're still responsible for the consequences of their having committed a crime, because a criminal offense is not just an offense against me, but is an offense against the whole of society. I can forgive that part of the crime that was a direct offense against me, but it's not in my ability to forgive any more then that. And the criminal will still be held responsible for having committed the crime. Whether he repents of his crime or not will not be my concern. That's a concern for society as a whole to weigh. We remove criminals from amongst us because they have proven themselves to be anti-social. If a criminal then repents of that anti-social behavior, it's up to society to decide if that will mitigate his removal from society in some way, or not. But that society's business. It's not mine. I will have already forgiven him of that which he has done to me.

I also realize that forgiveness is easier for me to give when the offense is slight, and is far more difficult to give when the offense is great. But that will be my own personal issue, and I'll deal with it as best I can. And I believe this applies to other people, too. When I see the family of a victim on TV, all twisted up with the pain of the loss of their loved one, and clamoring for violent revenge, I know that they are wrong, and that they desperately need to forgive the offender to regain their own inner peace. But I also understand that it may take them many years to learn how to forgive such a heneous offense, and that they may never be able to do so. And if I were them, I may never learn to forgive such a thing, wither.

But I also know that their anger and hatred for the criminal is destroying them, no matter how justified that anger and hatred would seem to be.

So keeping all this in mind, I believe that Jesus intended that we forgive, always, as I believe he did the same. But that does not mean that there are no consequences for our or other people having committed an offense. And whether or not repentance will mitigate the consequences of our or someone else's offense is an issue between the offender and his society in this life, and between the offender and God in the next. Whether or not other people repent is not my business, and has nothing to do with my forgiving them of their offense against me.

Purex makes some excellent points, but is forgiveness the only path to being free from resentment? I'm not so sure.... Can't I not forgive someone, and at the same time not feel resentment?

I don't think so. I think that unless we learn to forgive, we will wallow in resentment. It may not always be conscious resentment, and it may not always remain directly attached to the original offense, but it will remain within us, and will poison us in time. I say this because this has been my own experience with resentments, and with the healing power of forgiveness.

 

[Truppenzwei]

It is because of the blood shed by Jesus that we can be forgiven, not that God forgave us and then sacrificed His Son. Forgiveness is "in Him", that is, in His life! NO ONE "repents" from sin for forgiveness; we repent of unbelief. We agree with God (confess) that we are sinners, but it is when we come to God by grace through faith in Christ that we receive the forgiveness.

No Sozo, it is because of the blood shed by Christ that we can be ransomed from the consequences of our sins. It is the forgiveness that is in God that enabled the ransom to be paid.

You say no one repents from sin for forgiveness, yet what else is unbelief but sin? It is when we come to God via the ransom paid by Christ that we are able to stand justifed by His Blood and free from the consequences of our sin.

The forgiveness of the offense is unconditionally given. What is conditional is the ransom - to be ransomed we must confess and believe in Christ and follow Him. If we do not do this then we are choosing to bear the consequences of our sin by ourselves. It does not change the fact that God forgave us the offence.

 

[Sozo]

No Sozo, it is because of the blood shed by Christ that we can be ransomed from the consequences of our sins. It is the forgiveness that is in God that enabled the ransom to be paid.

You say no one repents from sin for forgiveness, yet what else is unbelief but sin? It is when we come to God via the ransom paid by Christ that we are able to stand justifed by His Blood and free from the consequences of our sin.

The forgiveness of the offense is unconditionally given. What is conditional is the ransom - to be ransomed we must confess and believe in Christ and follow Him. If we do not do this then we are choosing to bear the consequences of our sin by ourselves. It does not change the fact that God forgave us the offence.

That is ridiculous!

Jesus had to pay the debt BEFORE we could be forgiven of it.

Where did you come up with your convoluted idea?

 

[Servo]

Forgiving someone who is unrepentant is like standing at the alter all by yourself and saying "I do".

 

[Lovejoy]

No Sozo, it is because of the blood shed by Christ that we can be ransomed from the consequences of our sins. It is the forgiveness that is in God that enabled the ransom to be paid.

You say no one repents from sin for forgiveness, yet what else is unbelief but sin? It is when we come to God via the ransom paid by Christ that we are able to stand justifed by His Blood and free from the consequences of our sin.

The forgiveness of the offense is unconditionally given. What is conditional is the ransom - to be ransomed we must confess and believe in Christ and follow Him. If we do not do this then we are choosing to bear the consequences of our sin by ourselves. It does not change the fact that God forgave us the offence.

You seem to be trying to make a case for an unconditionally forgiving God that was just hung up on the need for a sacrifice. And yet, Leviticus 4:26 places atonement squarely before any forgiveness. Even Hebrews 9:22 contradicts you, stating that there is no forgiveness without the Blood. It does not state that it releases some pent up forgiveness, or even imply it.