In the next few blogs I will be giving consideration to Forgiveness, Confession, Repentance...and Penance? They are all interrelated to a great extent. This blog, in particular, I will be handling forgiveness. It is of course not an exhaustive treatment but is necessarily adumbrated.
Sacred Scripture makes plain that Christians are to maintain a deliberate posture of forgiveness. This is true because as believers, or the "elect of God," we are recipients of forgiveness. If a person knows of and holds to the forgiveness of Christ that person will be quick to extend it just as they have received it. In fact, the Apostle Paul makes it an injunction on these very grounds. He advances that, "as the elect of God," believers are to, "forgive one another...even as Christ forgave you...," (Col. 3:12-13). He then amplifies the gravity of this disposition by saying that it is, "a must do." This is an imperative that carries the weight of obligation and necessity. This language makes a forgiving posture unequivocal.
Commenting on this very text R.C Sproul posits, "we are God’s chosen ones — His holy people (Col. 3:12). Because He has made us holy, we can forgive even those who have sinned heinously against us. Believers have no option but to forgive others, especially other Christians (v. 13), and so there is no excuse for unforgiveness in the church."
Christ articulates this very dynamic of reciprocating forgiveness just after elaborating on the exercise of church discipline in Matthew 18. This parable of the "Unforgiving Servant" should be very harrowing for those who are beguiled by the sin of unforgiveness. According to the parable, the Master "forgave" a servant his debt. This very servant who was granted forgiveness perniciously refused to do the same to a "fellow servant." The Master's response to this is scathing,
"You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you? And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses," (Matt. 18:21-35).
The warp and woof of this disposition of forgiveness is grounded in the reality that we, the elect of God, have ourselves been forgiven. Suitably, we should be quick and ready to forgive those who have made confession out of their lifestyle of repentance and sanctification.
The latter of course should always precipitate the former. Forgiveness is not without the precursor of confession/repentance. Christ tells the disciples, "Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times a day returns to you, saying I repent, you shall forgive him," (Luke 17:1-4). This passage makes inarguably clear that upon articulation of repentance/confession (saying I repent) forgiveness is to be extended bar none. Even to the extent that the same "offender" does so "seven times in a day."
Elsewhere, Peter amorphously grasps this according to Matthew 18: 21-22. He will forgive a person up to seven times, more than the three times the rabbis prescribe in his day (v. 21). That Peter’s comprehension is incomplete is revealed in the Savior’s command to forgive “seventy times seven,” (v. 22). According to some Reformed New Testament scholars Jesus really says, “seventy-seven times,” but the precise number is unimportant. As R.C Sproul rightly adjudges, "Christ is actually teaching that forgiveness must be unlimited."
All too often man make forgiveness into an exhausting chore. In so doing, they evince that they are farther away from the New Testament corpus and the Gospel of Jesus Christ than they might like to admit. Whenever a confessing Christian sins and subsequently repents to the person sinned against there is no alternative to extending forgiveness. To do contrariwise is to have the Father withhold forgiveness from the one unwilling to extend it, (Matt. 6:14-15, Mark 11:25-26). Conversely, this tenably suggests that the "unforgiven" of God is not one of "the elect of God" (Col.3:12-13). Matthew Henry speaks to this in two places:
“Those who do not forgive their brother’s trespasses, did never truly repent of their own, and therefore that which is taken away is only what they seemed to have.”
"Believers, collectively as the church and individually, must always forgive penitent people. How can we possibly be Christians if we, whose unpayable debt has been erased, refuse to pardon those who have wronged us?"
When confessing Christians exert considerable effort to not relinquish a debt incurred or withhold forgiveness on the heels of articulated repentance/confession they violate scriptural precedent and perhaps reveal their inner quality. “I can never forgive him,” is commonly found on the lips of those who have been sinned against, especially when the violation is heinous. Some of us may feel like we can never pardon a particular individual even if we never admit it. However, if we have come to faith in Christ, we have been set apart as His holy people and can, with His help, forgive others. "To say that we cannot forgive is a cop-out at best and possible evidence of a heart of stone at worst," (R.C. Sproul).
Again Matthew Henry provides us with another salient principle for the Christian life, “God multiplies His pardons, and so should we. We should make it our constant practice to forgive injuries, and should accustom ourselves to it until it becomes habitual.”
Forgiveness, Confession, Repentance and Penance will be explored more in the next few blogs.
Credo ut Intelligam
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