Atonement Wars and Forgiveness

According to Atonement Wars and Forgiveness « A Brick in the Valley:

In the Bible, forgiveness is defined as,

Forgiveness – a commitment by the offended to graciously pardon the repentant from moral obligation or liability.

Really?

Let us consider the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-14).

⁹ "This, then, is how you should pray:
       " 'Our Father in heaven,
       hallowed be your name,

    ¹⁰ your kingdom come,
       your will be done,
       on earth as it is in heaven.

    ¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.

    ¹² And forgive us our debts,
       as we also have forgiven our debtors.

    ¹³ And lead us not into temptation,
       but deliver us from the evil one.'

    ¹⁴ For if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

Jesus does not say anything here about only forgiving the repentant. Or consider Luke 6:37

"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

We forgive in order to be forgiven. It has to be an act of will not a response to repentance.

Paul, also taught that we forgive without requiring repentance, not only taught it but did it. See 2 Corinthians 2:5-11

If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

Not even waiting to be sure there was something to forgive.

I suspect that the role of repentance in forgiveness is getting confused here. My forgiving someone (if you like the offer of forgiveness) does not depend on their repentance. After all Jesus died so that I could be forgiven before I even offended, not just before I repented. However, the reception  of that forgiveness by the offender does depend on their repentance. There is a timing mismatch. The offer of forgiveness (ie the act of will by the offended) is not connected in time to the repentance of the offender.

In relation to God, thanks to Jesus, the offer of forgiveness is always there before repentance. Repentance is what allows the offer to be accepted. In human relationships the two things are far less connected. I should offer forgiveness, even though there may never be repentance, so that I can be right with God. I should repent of my offences, even though the person whom I offended may never offer me forgiveness, so that I can receive God's forgiveness.

Now I entirely agree that the act of forgiveness is not centred on feelings. However, I do experience that making the act of will to forgive someone does result in feelings. Quite simply when I forgive someone else it is good for me. Should this be a surprise? That when I actually do what Jesus has commanded me to do that I feel better. Whoa dangerous stuff this feelings. Come on wake up, smell the roses.

I suggest going and reading some stories from Corrie ten Boom or other Christians from the past who have learnt the hard way that forgiveness as an act of will (an act only possible through Christ at work in us) does not depend on repentance and does change us (why should that be a surprise as Jesus makes clear our own forgiveness depends on forgiving others).

Now to get back to the article in question by Chris which he starts with:

The current atonement debate has implications far beyond the doctrine of salvation.  We are beginning to see how a departure from the Reformation understanding of the atonement will trickle down into areas of practical theology such as forgiveness.

What we actually see is an association. When you take a view of atonement that stridently makes exclusive claims for a single theory (Penal Substitution), that calls down curses on Christians who reject this exclusivity, that focuses on the wrath of God in a way that Jesus never did, that ignores much of the teaching of Jesus (on love, on not condemning others ...) THEN it may be associated with other problems such as re-defining forgiveness so that it no longer relates to the teaching of Christ.

As has been said before a danger facing these strong supporters of PSA is that they are teaching salvation by correct belief, a form of salvation by works, when they should be teaching salvation by faith.  Get that wrong and so much else will go wrong. You may even find yourself using Scripture to curse those who disagree with you (and huge swathes of the Christians through the centuries at the same time).

Comments

[cdbrauns]

You said,

"In relation to God, thanks to Jesus, the offer of forgiveness is always there before repentance. Repentance is what allows the offer to be accepted. In human relationships the two things are far less connected. I should offer forgiveness, even though there may never be repentance, so that I can be right with God. I should repent of my offences, even though the person whom I offended may never offer me forgiveness, so that I can receive God's forgiveness"

Hmm. I am trying to sort out this paragraph.

(1) Should Christians unconditionally forgive or offer forgiveness? I am sure we agree that those two are not the same thing.

(2)How do you defend that in human relationships the two are far less connected?

I certainly agree with your point about the role feelings play.

Would you say that Paul forgave Alexander the Coppersmith (2 Timothy 4:14)?

[Chris Brauns]

Would you not agree:

The basic principle of the Lord's Prayer, and indeed the NT, is that our forgiveness should follow the pattern of God's - - which is conditional.

Granted, there are times when love covers a multitude of sins . . . But, the basic pattern is that Christians graciously wrap the package and offer it freely to all but forgiveness, which is by definition between parties, takes place when the gift is accepted.

In the words of John Murray, "Forgiveness is a definite act performed by us on the fulfillment of certain conditions. . . .Forgiveness is something actively administered on the repentance of the person who is to be forgiven. We greatly impoverish ourselves and impair the relations that we should sustain to our brethren when we fail to appreciate what is involved in forgiveness."

[Charity]

So how do you understand Luke 17:3-4?

"If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him."

[Dave Warnock]

Chris,

I think the key distinction is between the offer of forgiveness and the being forgiven. Maybe I was unclear here and a bit more thought can clarify things.

Jesus died so that we can be forgiven ie to make the offer. But to actually be forgiven we need to accept the offer ie repent.

In the same way I read scripture to say that we need to offer forgiveness to those who harm us. That puts us right with God (as in the Lords Prayer and the other texts I quoted). That person is actually only forgiven when they choose to accept it ie repent - but that depends on them not on us.

This view is consistent with both the readings I gave and the ones you responded with us.

So our task is to offer forgiveness without waiting for repentance, in this we emulate Christ who died for us while we were still far from him.

To pick up the other misc bits.

1. Yes we have to make the offer of forgiveness, actual forgiveness depends on a response. But seriously in order to make the offer we have to get our minds around to really meaning it, at which point how do you distinguish in your mind between your sincere offer and forgiveness itself. In many cases we cannot know about the repentance (eg don't meet the person again).

2. They are less connected due to our lack of knowledge compared to that of God. We cannot see into the heart to judge repentance in the way he can. We cannot see that person no matter where they are. So we need to offer forgiveness but unlike God we may not know if there is a response.

re 2 tim 4:16 (I won't go into the authorship debate about this epistle although we should not ignore it).

a) Are you saying Paul was perfect? He didn't claim that.

b) Where does it say Paul did not offer forgiveness to Alexander?

Jesus does not say that by loving our enemies that they will all suddenly stop being our enemies. As Luke 17:3-4 indicates our forgiving does not always result in changed behaviour. It does not mean we don't forgive.

I hope you don't read into this that I see forgiveness as cheap or weak, quite the opposite, it is incredibly powerful and world changing. It's power comes precisely from an offer that is not deserved but that is meant.

How many had repented when Jesus was dying on the cross? Yet he said Father forgive them. Wow, what power, what a challenge to us.

[PamBG]

Prevenient grace - something that even Calvinists purport to believe in! - means that God forgives us first and we respond in consequence of that forgiveness.

I liked Kim Fabricius' paraphrase of the gospel: "God forgives you, therefore you are free to repent."

How do you explain "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?" if God refuses forgiveness until we repent?

Romans 5:7-8 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

[Chris Brauns]

Dave,

I agree with you. Well said. I may end up using your wording (with proper credit, of course!) In fact, I am about to add my first Warnock entry into my citation software.

Thanks for the interaction.

Chris.

[Chris Brauns]

See my blog for a couple of relevant posts. . .

Pam, I don't know any Calvinists who believe that God forgives apart from repentance - - "irresistable" and all of that.

Chris.

[PamBG]

Pam, I don't know any Calvinists who believe that God forgives apart from repentance.

Well, all I can say is too bad for Calvinists, then. I think I do probably think we have different gospels.

[Peter Kirk]

Dave, I think you may be agreeing with Chris a bit too quickly. I agreed with your original doubts about Chris' definition. I don't accept that what God offers to sinners, and what we should offer to those who wrong us, is not actual forgiveness but only a conditional offer of forgiveness. There are scriptures which Chris has not quoted which clearly support my position. See my comment on one of Chris' latest posts, and my own post in preparation.

[Peter Kirk]

I have now posted my own post on this subject.

[StCasserole]

Interesting post. Interesting comments.

[Dave Warnock]

Pam,

I hope that in my bumbling way I have not moved from prevenient grace, I certainly do not intend to. Like you I think that "God forgives you, therefore you are free to repent." is a wonderful way of putting it. Much better than I managed.

I guess that what I am trying to say is that we should be aiming for the same response to other people eg

"God forgives you and therefore so do I, therefore you are free to repent."

Dave

[Dave Warnock]

Peter,

I did not intend to move as far as it seems that I may have done (h'mm clear English is still a goal to be sought).

I go with your thinking and analysis on your blog post. When I am talking about the offer of forgiveness by God I am certainly agreeing with the idea of the present that won't be taken back and just needs unwrapping. Is it true to say that I am forgiven before I unwrap the present?

God has done everything needed for us to be forgiven before we open the present, he has done so without forcing us to accept the gift and he has done so unconditionally. But we do need to say yes, open the gift (or for those who prefer the language: repent).

As your powerful testimony shows Jesus teaches us that we should be doing the same.

Full stop.

[Peter Kirk]

Agreed!

Of course Calvinists aren't going to agree because they don't accept that the present can be left unwrapped, either God doesn't offer the chance of forgiveness or we are predestined to accept it. So they are logically forced either to limited atonement or to universalism. The former is clearly unbiblical and the latter appears to be. So perhaps their problem is with their premise that we cannot refuse forgiveness when it is offered to us.

[PamBG]

I guess that what I am trying to say is that we should be aiming for the same response to other people eg

"God forgives you and therefore so do I, therefore you are free to repent."

Dave, I totally agree with you and I didn't think we were disagreeing before!

So perhaps their problem is with their premise that we cannot refuse forgiveness when it is offered to us.

I do think that this is a central problem with Calvinism.