Forgiveness and repentance (part 6): The pastoral dimension (iv)

(Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.)

The time has come to conclude the pastoral dimension of the question of forgiveness being linked to repentance. The final issue is whether we are doing the wrong thing by forgiving someone because then we simply sweep the sin under the carpet and don’t challenge them, thereby removing the opportunity for them to repent. For those who have followed this discussion over the last three posts, you are probably in a position to see what my response is going to be. But we’ll briefly spell it out anyway.

I consider this a similar charge to the idea that if God justifies people apart from their works, it removes any motivation to do good works. The issue is not whether the act takes place, but what motivates it and a presumption that people will only do the right things for selfish reasons. Along with the Reformers (and the Bible), I claim that the person who does good works to get to heaven will find it difficult to be motivated by love for others as the reason for those good works. At the end of the day, such a person is motivated by the pursuit of their own salvation—their good, not their neighbour’s good. I would also suggest that self-love and love for others (whether God or my neighbour) are generally going to be in tension; it is almost impossible to seek one’s own interests at the same time as seeking someone else’s. No matter how good you are at multi-tasking, this is one of those instances where you have to choose to shoot at one target or the other. That’s why the Reformers argued that you can only truly do good works when you are not doing them for selfish reasons (e.g. not in order to earn your own salvation).

So let’s consider our problem. If I do not forgive you, then I am owed something: your repentance, which includes your recompense to me for the harm I suffered at your hands. That recompense may be nothing more than an apology, or it may involve financial recompense, putting my reputation right, paying for or offering yourself to give me the physical aid I need because you permanently crippled me, and so on. So if I seek your repentance under these circumstances, whose best interest am I seeking? Yours? Or do I have a vested interest in getting my recompense for the harm I suffered? (I really want that apology; I’ve certainly got it coming to me.) And do you seriously think that a sinner like me is not going to find it difficult (to say the least) to keep my obligation to be repaid (because I am not allowed to forgive until I have been repaid as a necessary part of your repentance) from corrupting my appeal to you to repent for your own soul’s sake?

Bluntly, I am surprised that this concern could even be raised. If I see someone sin, do I have to be harmed by their sin before I can confront them, rebuke them and encourage them to repent? If yes, then I really am not my brother’s keeper, and Cain was right (Gen 4:9). If no, then doesn’t forgiving the offender before they repent simply place me in the same situation as any other brother or sister who wasn’t harmed by the sin—seeking repentance from the wrongdoer purely for their own sake and not for what is coming to me if they repent?

So I would turn the concern on its head: if you truly want to help someone repent—if you love them and care about what will happen to them if they do not turn from their wicked way—you are best off if you have no personal stake in the outcome, but can honestly say to them that you are only seeking their best interests. Forgiving them before they repent will mean that when you challenge them, you are no longer interested in being compensated, but are motivated purely by love and concern for them. A challenge to repent coming from someone who has not forgiven is not an act of love, but has the flavour of a debt collector seeking repayment. Forgiveness before repentance actually helps to free you from the burden of needing to be repaid. Furthermore, that freedom enables you to seek purely what is in their best interests—to encourage whatever repentance is possible, however inadequate it might be in a strict judgement, simply because they need that repentance.

Trying to make our forgiveness match God’s too closely creates all sort of problems. Yes, God’s forgiveness effects reconciliation. But we’ll look at why that is in our next grouping of posts. For us, I want to suggest that while forgiveness seeks the goal of reconciliation (as does its bigger brother, love), to fuse them together so that they can only exist simultaneously and never apart from one another almost makes reconciliation the basis for forgiveness: once the person has propitiated us by their repentance so that they have repaid the debt and therefore have been reconciled for all intents and purposes, we then ‘forgive’ them. This amounts to a ‘forgiveness’ that is little more than a recognition that the debt has been paid.

We do what is right simply because it is right, irrespective of whether the other person meets their obligations or whether we can be sure that the end result is what it should be. Withholding forgiveness until repentance, or until there is a good chance of reconciliation, binds us too much to things outside our control. Forgive and then love the unrepentant sinner in a way that seeks their repentance and reconciliation. Do it for their sake, not yours, because, paradoxically, in doing so, you’ll benefit yourself far more than you benefit them. Next time around, we’ll pick up the question of whether God only forgives us when we repent.

(Read part 7.)

25 thoughts on “Forgiveness and repentance (part 6): The pastoral dimension (iv)

  1. Hi Mark,

    I am not posting with my full surname for business reasons, but I think most people in our circles know who I am!

    It has been exciting to read someone demonstrating that reconciliation processes can actually be an outworking of ‘law-based’, rather than ‘grace-based’ reconciliation.  In the human dimension, repentance, and apology can become ‘a work’. Recompense can also become a work through which we earn favor or trust again with the victim – either in terms of material compensation, voluntary demonstrated contrition and shame, or shaming as a form of punishment, (which I think is enacted in many indigenous justice systems, as well as in some of the restorative justice models in the western world).

    This of course is a distortion in two ways.

    Firstly, it is a debt owed under the law.  But we cannot actually pay it off through the law, except that Christ paid it on our behalf. Restitution and recompense is never fully possible on this earth – and there are a myriads of practical examples the demonstrate this. Most recompense can restore material losses but not the accompanying emotional harm that occurred with the event. Notably, the stumbling block to reconciliation, whereby someone is not seen to be emotionally ‘contrite enough’, (as discussed on previous posts), can be a form of penance for what they cannot materially pay back. I would argue that the combination of restorative justice (what compensation could be offered, or afforded in a situation) and retributive justice (punishment of the perpetrator) fail in their attempt to address the victim’s sense of unfairness because i) what is lost cannot be paid back because it is either lost forever, or cannot be afforded by the perpetrator, and ii) the perpetrator does not suffer, when the victim does.  These forms of justice, with all their elements, is what is encapsulated in the colloquial discourses of ‘payback’, hence this language of money, accounting (zero sums), and pay back or revenge is essentially the language of justice (revenge being a distorted form of this, but gaining its power from the quest for unmetered justice). I do not want to venture here into the arguments for how imperfect human courts and justice systems (restorative or retributive), as ordained by God, sit next to interpersonal accounting over wrongs done just now.
    Secondly, it is a distortion of truth because the victim becomes the law unto the perpetrator. You touched on this in your previous posts.  By law I mean, metering out the ‘payback’ required to ‘satisfy’ them for the harm done. They also become the victim’s judge. We all know that this is a distortion, but let me flesh this out briefly. Obviously, God is the only one who can justly judge in all truth an is the final arbiter of truth. This is our comfort.  It is also his ordained place.  The victim is unable to assess accurately the extent or nature of the harm done, and can sin against the other by making false accusations, or accusations which are only partly right.  In many situations, the harm done was in the context of a dynamic in which both are at fault (even if it is only a minor blemish on one side). The victim may ‘blow up’ or misattribute responsibility in the dynamic, when they are unaware of how their own sin which has contributed to the dynamic. They may hold the other to account in their own sin (blame), and become an unjust and hypocritical judge of the perpetrator. 

    If we are to hold onto our need for justice and fairness, law based reconciliation processes is the only option, that is, in the absence of God. The works and law-based framework is the one through which many reconciliation discourses operate in our secular world work.  In my view this fails. From the forgivers point of view, the problem is: we can never be fully paid back. There will only be compensation. There will always be an outstanding debt. Thus, if this is what we rely on to bring peace, it fails.  From the perpetrators viewpoint, this means they are eternally indebted or enslaved to the victim, who becomes both their judge and law giver. Even if they pay the compensation, the debt is never settled. Thus the conundrum with Aboriginal Australia. (Please note, some reconciliation traditions are able to let the need for justice go, for example, though discourses of ‘acceptance of the other’ or ‘frail humanity’.  Whilst this allows some peace, I do not believe this is completely healing).
    I have really appreciated your posts very much. On a number of the finer points, I thought that there was some room to tease out further how the various elements of the reconciliation processes – ie apology for harm done, recompense, forgiveness.., look different when incorporated into a grace based or a law based reconciliation process? I have posted some of my own thoughts in a separate comment.

  2. Hi Mark,
    Following on from the last comment, can I pose some questions which I think may bring some light to bear on some of the remaining disagreements, and that is of the relationship between forgiveness and justice? Those who struggle with un-forgiveness are struggling with the idea that forgiveness, or releasing someone from their debt, is ultimately unjust. It is unfair to cancel the debt, or what is owed to us in a restorative justice way.
    This of course is solved by handing all justice required over to God. I therefore think that how justice sits up against the forgiveness process and how the horizontal relationship with each other interacts with the vertical relationship with a God of justice is the key to it all.

    If it is God’s to avenge, the just requirements for full restitution can be left with God. When they don’t occur in this lifetime, then that is God’s problem to redress (Romans 12: 14-21).. This enables us to hold loosely to our rights for compensation and our desire that the perpetrator taste the suffering that we have experienced at their hands. It also enables us to leave space for the spirit to move in another’s life and not take it into our own hands the need to finish unfinished business.

    I believe that it is also God’s to heal. In a sense he is our cosmic insurance company. Once we put into God’s hands the responsibility to ensure that justice for the perpetrator occurs, we can also put into his hands our own need for justice and restitution as victim. This means we can accept what comes our way of restoration and healing – from His hands – either from the perpetrator or elsewhere, and let go of accounting with the perpetrator when this occurs.

    There have been two aspects of forgiveness talked about in this conversation. The first is that of cancelling the debt interpersonally. The other is heart based forgiveness – releasing the person from their absolute obligation to pay back. This is intrinsically tied up with the emotional side of forgiveness – anger, bitterness and a desire for revenge – ie the need to ensure they will pay back when they refuse to do it themselves. The need to see justice done, when distorted, is what I believe often underlies toxic anger and bitterness. (I am not talking here about righteous anger). I am wondering whether the ‘Greek’ for the word forgiveness also reflects these different aspects of the process and how the concepts are connected in scripture? This is merely by observations from personal experience.

    If we deal with the heart or emotional side of forgiveness (this second aspect of forgiveness) by handing the need for justice/ our rights to payment over to God, then we are ready to accept whatever re-payments for the debt that is owed from the perpetrator that come our way, even if they are not fully paid. This changes the way in which we approach negotiations over the transaction with the perpetrator. We do not need to demand that the person pay back in full before we actually reconciliation. In some ways it is simply an apology of the heart that is needed, and a demonstration of this sincerity by being able to pay back what they can. And how humbling for the perpetrator when you are not able to pay back in full! but accept love.

    Having said that, in most cases, both party’s are also at fault in a dynamic, even if there is only a minor blemish on one side. I have always found that when I am convicted of my sin in a dynamic, the other person’s sin seems to fade into the background.  If my sin needed Christ to pay the death penalty for me, how then should I behave to the other?

  3. Hi Mark, Thanks for your thoughtful (if long!) series of posts. I haven’t read any of the other comments, so I apologise if my query has already been covered. I also read your posts quite quickly so may have overlooked some stuff, but I think your argument was that a) our forgiveness should not mirror God’s in every respect (here you provided biblical evidence), and b) if we think that our forgiveness should mirror God’s when it comes to repentence then that leads to all sorts of unworkable outcomes (logically speaking).

    I don’t disagree, but I wonder if there might be more biblical fodder concerning how we are (positively) to act . . . When I blogged about this sort of thing, a friend pointed out that, while God requires intial repentence for forgiveness, he certainly doesn’t withhold forgiveness for future sins until such time as we repent of each one – and nor should we. [Of course our situation is different to God’s in that he forgives *all * our sins (past, present and future) at conversion, where we only have the option of forgiving sins as they come up. But I still think my conclusion holds.]

    What are your thoughts about this?

  4. Hello Anthony,

    Glad you found the post useful, thanks for letting me know.

    Hello Cath,

    Thank you for such thoughtful (and thought-provoking) comments.  Your first comment is loaded with observations that I think are just great, and so will just say ‘what Cath said’ to all except the two bits below that I quote and interact with a bit.

    It has been exciting to read someone demonstrating that reconciliation processes can actually be an outworking of ‘law-based’, rather than ‘grace-based’ reconciliation.  In the human dimension, repentance, and apology can become ‘a work’. Recompense can also become a work

    I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it.  Once again, at the risk of special pleading, I’ll say what I said to Sandy and Craig – I don’t think I’m trying to say that the other view (forgiveness conditional on repentance) is wanting to be ‘law-based’.  I think the other view wants to be ‘grace-based’ (very nice pair of categories btw, Cath, a great contribution to the discussion).

    I think repentance is, theologically speaking, a ‘work’.  Faith receives something that someone else has done for you.  Repentance is something that you do – it isn’t looking outside yourself to appropriate what someone else has done for you the way faith is.  It’s not that recompense “can also become a work” as you suggest, but that it simply is one, as an consitutive element of repentance.

    Once you see that, then the rest of my argument (hopefully) just falls into place.  If forgiveness can only be extended in the context of repentance, then it requires a work before it can be offered.  And if it requires a work, then, when you follow the rabbit-hole down, you find yourself caught up in a ‘law-based’ reconciliation process and having to work very, very hard to escape the implications of your own position. 

    I have really appreciated your posts very much. On a number of the finer points, I thought that there was some room to tease out further how the various elements of the reconciliation processes – ie apology for harm done, recompense, forgiveness.., look different when incorporated into a grace based or a law based reconciliation process? I have posted some of my own thoughts in a separate comment.

    Well yes, there’s lot of room tease out further a whole lot of elements.  Craig moved us over some very important elements in my conversation with him, and finds himself at the end of the conversation coming back to a fairly fundamental question – what is forgiveness in concrete terms, not just an abstract definition.  Your comments do the same in another direction.

    I was toying with trying to write “The Comprehensive and Exhaustive Explanation of Forgiveness” (tee hee!) But I figured it would take an awful lot of 3k word posts.  And then I’d miss out an ‘elegantly simple’ award from Anthony Douglas smile  .  So I didn’t.

      I tried to write enough so people like you and Craig and others who have commented could then say, ‘Yes, but what about this?’ or ‘And we could take that further this way.’  That’s a big part of what I like about blogging.

    I’ll turn to your second great comment next, the stuff there is great too, but I think we may have a bit more ‘creative disagreement’ at some points that’d be nice to tease out.

  5. Hi Cath,
    Turning to your second great set of observations.

    Those who struggle with un-forgiveness are struggling with the idea that forgiveness, or releasing someone from their debt, is ultimately unjust. It is unfair to cancel the debt, or what is owed to us in a restorative justice way.

    I’m not sure I agree with this, and I think it is fairly central to your whole argument in this post.  I’m sure some people are very noble and high-minded and think, “I’d really like to forgive this person but I don’t think it would be right – it just wouldn’t be just to cancel their debt against me.” 

    But I think most people think something more like, “I don’t care what you say, I’ll be damned before I forgive them for what they did!”  (And given Jesus’ teaching on how serious unforgiveness is, there’s a certain bleak irony in such sentiments.)

    When Jesus addresses the question of our need to forgive others, I don’t think he characteristically points us to how the justice problem can be solved.  I think he throws every motivation he can find at us, up to and including the kitchen sink. 

    It’s like Paul doing over Philemon regarding Onesimus.  Paul comes up with every possible motivation from high-minded and noble, to enlightened self-interest, to playing on affection and sympathy for Paul.  He throws everything he’s got into the ring because the decision matters so much, and almost anything could stop Philemon from making the wrong decision. 

    Jesus seems to do something quite similar in the Gospels concerning forgiveness.  It’s not one basic problem that stands behind all unforgiveness.  Mileage varies from person to person, and so the toolkit on display across the whole of Scripture to address the issue is actually quite comprehensive in my view.

    If it is God’s to avenge, the just requirements for full restitution can be left with God. When they don’t occur in this lifetime, then that is God’s problem to redress (Romans 12: 14-21).. This enables us to hold loosely to our rights for compensation and our desire that the perpetrator taste the suffering that we have experienced at their hands. It also enables us to leave space for the spirit to move in another’s life and not take it into our own hands the need to finish unfinished business.
    I believe that it is also God’s to heal. In a sense he is our cosmic insurance company. Once we put into God’s hands the responsibility to ensure that justice for the perpetrator occurs, we can also put into his hands our own need for justice and restitution as victim. This means we can accept what comes our way of restoration and healing – from His hands – either from the perpetrator or elsewhere, and let go of accounting with the perpetrator when this occurs.

    I think this is very helpful, and agree that as people internally appropriate it, it takes a lot of the sting out of things.  You basically give up altogether on trying to be the judge of just how much offense someone else caused you and leave that to God to work out. 

    As I’ve indicated to Craig, http://solapanel.org/article/forgiveness_and_repentance_part_4/#5156 I think forgiveness is easier for us sinners the smaller the debt we have to cancel is in our eyes.  So trusting God to judge rightly and getting out of the judging business oneself can only help keep the debt small in our estimation, and keeps us from acting as though we have rights to things, and thus makes forgiveness easier.

    To Be Concluded

  6. Concluding

    If we deal with the heart or emotional side of forgiveness (this second aspect of forgiveness) by handing the need for justice/ our rights to payment over to God, then we are ready to accept whatever re-payments for the debt that is owed from the perpetrator that come our way, even if they are not fully paid. This changes the way in which we approach negotiations over the transaction with the perpetrator. We do not need to demand that the person pay back in full before we actually reconciliation. In some ways it is simply an apology of the heart that is needed, and a demonstration of this sincerity by being able to pay back what they can. And how humbling for the perpetrator when you are not able to pay back in full! but accept love.

    I like where this going Cath, a lot.  I’d pretty well sign-off on it altogether as a quick sketch of what reconciliation looks like under this approach (but I suspect that advocates of the other view would want to speak up at this point and say that it describes what it looks like for them too).

    I think I’d want to say, perhaps a bit more strongly than I’ve ‘heard’ you say it in the confines of a quick comment, that forgiveness isn’t just handing the need for justice over to God and knowing that he’ll balance the books for us. 

    Forgiveness isn’t fundamentally about me and my getting justice (either directly from the offender, or ultimately from God).  It’s fundamentally about me showing mercy to someone else rather than justice.  It’s about them, not me. 

    Knowing that God’s got my back, and I will not, in any sense, end up the mug who has been taken for a ride, really, really helps me forgive others.  I really can afford to be generous with them about the debts they’ve incurred with me.  Knowing that my life is only possible because God gave me mercy rather than justice also helps – it shows me that my forgiveness of others is just basic to this new life I have. 

    These things help me forgive others.  But, in and of themselves, they aren’t forgiveness.  Forgiveness is freeing the other person from their debt to me.  It’s about what I do to them (even if it’s only inside my own head and heart).  It is about getting out of the issue of justice altogether, as far as that principle operates between them and me. 

    Having said that, in most cases, both party’s are also at fault in a dynamic, even if there is only a minor blemish on one side. I have always found that when I am convicted of my sin in a dynamic, the other person’s sin seems to fade into the background.  If my sin needed Christ to pay the death penalty for me, how then should I behave to the other?

    Here, I’m just not sure at all.  If I have a minor blemish and you have offended greatly, does it really help either of us to draw some kind of ‘moral equivalence’ between the two?  ‘My wife slept with the milkman, but then I’m not faultless, I snore sometimes.’  “My father abused me, but then I don’t always say ‘please’ and ‘thank-you’.”

    I think sometimes we overplay Mt 7:3-5 and that the move to ‘no-fault’ divorce has really warped our thinking.  It doesn’t take two to have a fight.  It only takes one.  Relationships (and marriages) don’t fail – either one person wrecked it, or both did.  And they didn’t do that by being run-of-the-mill sinners, they did it by breaking their marriage vows. 

    There may be blemishes on both sides, but often one side has genuinely caused offense and needs to repent.  The other side has genuinely been sinned against and needs to forgive.  Each has their own responsibility before God.  To level the playing field means that one doesn’t really have to repent and the other doesn’t really have to forgive. 

    Inasmuch as you’re saying, “Step back from the hurt and get it in proportion with what God has done for you” I firmly agree.  But I’d want to tweak some of the details a bit, at least inasmuch as they’ve been said here.

    Feel free to come back on any of these points, or anything else, Cath.  This was a really solid teasing out of the issues in a good direction.  Thank you.

  7. Hi Fiona,

    Thanks for your thoughtful (if long!) series of posts.

    Oi!  You can’t say that! Didn’t you see that Anthony Douglas has declared this to be ‘elegantly simple’?  Mind you, Mikey Lynch has also gone on record as saying, “[Mark] writes such stupidly long posts”, so maybe they cancel each other out… 

    Perhaps we could call the series “The Anglican Series on Forgiveness and Repentance: World Without End”  It’s About To….No.  It Still Hasn’t Ended.  Yet.  Try Again Next Week.  He Can’t Keep This Up Forever.”
    Anyway, you’re welcome for the series smile

    I haven’t read any of the other comments, so I apologise if my query has already been covered.

    It hasn’t, but it would fine if it had.  If you’re willing to read a long series of long posts and comment then I don’t think you need to apologise for selectivity or quick reading.  It’s not written with the intention that everyone will spend hours nailing every step of the argument.

    I also read your posts quite quickly so may have overlooked some stuff, but I think your argument was that a) our forgiveness should not mirror God’s in every respect (here you provided biblical evidence), and b) if we think that our forgiveness should mirror God’s when it comes to repentence then that leads to all sorts of unworkable outcomes (logically speaking).

    Yes, a pretty good summary of the basic strategy I’ve employed.  Although I’d probably want to claim that there was less Bible in a) than you think, and more in b).  In both stages I’ve tried to get us to stop and just think about the issue.  But I haven’t tried to pursue a logic apart from the Bible. 

    In a) we didn’t do lots of grammar and the like – we just reflected on what ‘forgive as God in Christ forgave you’ can and can’t mean in light of what God’s forgiveness is.  There’s a fair bit of ‘logic’ there. 

    In b) I haven’t made a big song and dance about it, but I’ve been working with what I take to be common ground with most Sola  readers – Biblically based convictions about the nature of love, faith, and forgiveness, and have sought to remind people of things that we normally say we believe about repentance when addressing almost any othe issue than forgiveness – that it is a work. 

    It’s mostly hidden, but I’d argue that there’s a lot of ‘Bible’ there.  The arguments I’m making only work given certain pre-existing convictions about key terms that we’ve all gotten from Scripture.

    I’m essentially asking us to just stop and think for a bit about what we say we believe and apply it to some examples that I raise.  It’s a deliberately counter-cultural method because I think we’re often poor at doing this – we try and find proof-texts when sometimes what is really needed is that we stop and try and inwardly digest what we’ve been told by the word of God by hammering it out against some ‘real world’ scenarios and issues and being prepared to be worked over by it.  Not more gathering of biblical data, but better hearing and digesting the data we’ve already affirmed is sometimes the way ahead. 

    This series was a bit of an exercise in that (but I didn’t make that explicit, as I figured that would seem even more like hard work than the series already seemed smile .)

    I don’t disagree, but I wonder if there might be more biblical fodder concerning how we are (positively) to act . . . When I blogged about this sort of thing, a friend pointed out that, while God requires intial repentence for forgiveness, he certainly doesn’t withhold forgiveness for future sins until such time as we repent of each one – and nor should we. [Of course our situation is different to God’s in that he forgives *all * our sins (past, present and future) at conversion, where we only have the option of forgiving sins as they come up. But I still think my conclusion holds.]

    This looks really promising.  I think I found what you are referring to: http://chapterthe1st.blogspot.com/2010/04/forgiving-and-letting-go.html .  I think I’ve addressed this question in my next post in the series – Does God only forgive us when we repent?  So I’m not sure if there’s something more than what I’ve said there that you want me to interact with in what you’ve written.  I’ll pick a few things off in the next comment and ‘mull them over out loud’ and hopefully something I say will hit close to what you wanted.

  8. I wonder if there might be more biblical fodder concerning how we are (positively) to act


    Yes, huge amounts more.  I’ve tried throughout the series to take the time in each post to point to the positive difference I think what I’m saying should make to how we treat each other and not just say, “The other guys are wrong.”  “Oh look, they’re wrong again.”  “They’re Wrong, They’re Oh So Wrong (Part 12, Subsection 7)” and the like.  But it’s nothing like comprehensive – it’s an indication of the kind of path it should take us in.  If you wanted to wade into something more detailed then the discussion with Craig Schwartze (currently at 32 comments) covers a fair bit of ground as Craig tries to earth the theory and flesh out its cash value.

    Or you could raise a couple of things you’d like to bat back and forth and we can see where we think the word of God directs us.

    while God requires intial repentence for forgiveness

    Just for the record, I really disagree with this.  It’ll be the subject of the final post in the series (either Wednesday or Friday this week) .  But here’s a version of my response that I gave to Craig in the other discussion when it came up:

    http://solapanel.org/article/forgiveness_and_repentance_part_4/#5107

    That should hopefully indicate why I’m reacting fairly strongly to this whole idea.

    Of course our situation is different to God’s in that he forgives *all * our sins (past, present and future) at conversion, where we only have the option of forgiving sins as they come up.

    Yes, but it’s not only different that way.  In what I think is your other blog http://anothergoodreflection.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html you make the point when critiquing Tim Keller’s analogy for God’s forgiveness that God’s forgiveness doesn’t cost him anything, the cost is tied up on the cross when Christ is punished for our sins, and that can’t be just collapsed into the pardon God extends to us.  Fantastic point – and yet another clear indicator about how different God’s forgiveness is from ours at key points.

    I’d also say that when it comes to our relationships with each other we don’t enter into a relationship by being forgiven.  But there is a sense in which our relationship with God begins with forgiveness.  For our horizontal relationships forgiveness happens after the relationship has been established.  But as we are born with original sin, there is never a moment when I am in relationship with God in innocence – the relationship is grounded on his forgiveness of me, I enter into a relationship with God through forgiveness.  That’s another huge difference between us and God that I think we often pass over in trying to say ‘God requires repentance therefore we need to’.  Even if you think God requires repentance to start the relationship, once you are in the relationship does God only forgive you of those sins you specifically repent of? 

    Anyway, there’s a few thoughts, hope something is in the right ballpark.

  9. Hi Mark,

    Thanks for engaging. I just lost a whole big comment, so here I go again! a shorter version. Can I just comment on the issues of moral equivalence. As it happens, your illustration of moral equivalence and divorce reflects my life journey. See – http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/news/insight/i_know_about_divorce/

    Whilst I did not chose my divorce,and took many years to heal, the power to forgive my exhusband came from knowing that I had been forgiven for everyday sins. I dont think the difference between sins re covenant breaking and other sins hold, when it comes to being humbled in this regard.

    To play with your image – rather than ‘My wife slept with the milkman, but then I’m not faultless, I snore sometimes.’
     
    It is more often like ‘My wife slept with the milkman, but I have impure thoughts at times and have hurt her terribly with my ugly temper. Whilst I am not responsible for her choice to have an affair, the lack of intimacy in our marriage, resulting from my refusal to apologise for my temper over the last few years, created a situation in which she was tempted to have the affair.  I am sad that I did this to her. Even if she were to break up her affair, would she be able to heal in her ability to emotionally trust me?’

    When two sinners come together in a marriage, it is complex!

    Without exception, we all sin in our marriages, and Christ died in our place to fix that sin – even if it as common place as selfishness in negotiating the household chores. Experientially, when we are convicted by the holy spirit about a sin (even a common place sin) and truly see it through God’s eyes of purity, we are burdened by how infinitely big the sin is – until Jesus comes and takes that burden from us and places it on the cross. It is then we see that all sins are equal before at the foot of the cross. They all deserve the death penalty.

    Let me share a quote about what I wrote about my own experience of moral equivalence from SOuthern Cross;

    See I heard requests for an explanation about who was ‘at fault’ in my marriage breakdown as a demand to defend my ‘respectability’ – to demonstrate my innocence. This was unhelpful because it encouraged in me a spirit of self-justification rather than dependence on grace.

    It was in knowing my own need for forgiveness that I was humbled and enabled to forgive.
    We have all sinned and fall short of our marriage vows to love well. Both partners in a marriage depend on each other for forgiveness. Neither is innocent.

    I thank God for this experience. I now realise that I was tempted to put my confidence in the ‘flesh’, rather than trusting fully in Christ’s righteousness in which I stand (see Philippians 3:4-10).

    I now know clearly that I am free from condemnation, and with joy drink more deeply from the wells of salvation.

  10. Hi Mark,

    Can I make another couple of comments on the idea of moral equivalence?
    I have argued above that we are morally equality before the cross,  I am not sure now on reflection, whether this moral equality is about our status before God as sinners who cannot live outside him, or about any one sin/ deed for which we deserve ‘the death penalty’.  I think it is the former.  Even our minor blemishes of behavior stem from our heart or sinful state, and usually point to a bigger malaise/ attitude. The experience of conviction is usually about this internal state, our sense of conviction and shame tends to focus on the impurities of thought and attitudes that underlie the action.  This is of course is where the bible focuses, it is much more concerned about the heart, from which words and actions flow, rather than the behavior. Therefore, I would argue that behavior cannot be assessed apart from the heart which contaminates the behavior. So to weigh up two actions on sins as being ‘weighted differently’ in God’s eyes perhaps is a nonsense.
    This is however, different, from weighing up the impact of sinful behaviors on the victim in the human realm.
    I note that the two examples you gave equate the minor blemish with a irritating behavior, rather than a sin. – ‘My wife slept with the milkman, but then I’m not faultless, I snore sometimes.’  “My father abused me, but then I don’t always say ‘please’ and ‘thank-you’.” When I speak of a minor blemish, I am speaking about behavior that has been contaminated by the sinful heart – but which may not necessarily lead to grievous harm.  In terms of human cost, there is a difference between a wife’s adultery which engenders a sense of betrayal and violates a husband’s manhood, and a husband’s selfishness and thoughtlessness around the house.  Please note that the cost to a victim is not consistently or proportionately reflect the ‘size of a sin’. For example, a thoughtless moment whilst driving, which stems from a attitude of carelessness about the impact of my driving on other drivers, may result in an accident causing lost of life, or have no consequence at all.  An explosion of (sinful) retaliatory angry can bounce off one friend, but leave a survivor of abuse with impaired emotional boundaries feeling traumatized for a week.
    Whilst the two sins may have the same eternal significance in God’s eyes (because this is about the heart), but the impact of each behavior on victim in the human realm must be seen to carry different ‘costs’.  Therefore, the victim forgiveness processes for cancelling these debts would look different.  They are not the same or equivalent.

    You said – If I have a minor blemish and you have offended greatly, does it really help either of us to draw some kind of ‘moral equivalence’ between the two? … There may be blemishes on both sides, but often one side has genuinely caused offense and needs to repent.  The other side has genuinely been sinned against and needs to forgive.  Each has their own responsibility before God.  To level the playing field means that one doesn’t really have to repent and the other doesn’t really have to forgive.  Each has their own responsibility before God.  To level the playing field means that one doesn’t really have to repent and the other doesn’t really have to forgive.

    Can I say that I agree that the two sets of sin in a relationship need to be kept separate before God. They are not joined. The false power in the moral equivalence argument derives from the assumption that the two sinners are joined, and that the DEBTS OF THE TWO SINS CANCEL EACH OTHER OUT. Hence, if I harm you, but you are in the red with me with regards to the cost of your continuing behavior on me (as I account for this), then I have forgiveness rights. ‘’It is unfair that you do not forgive me’’. This is a law based approach to reconciliation between two people.  It also reduces forgiveness to a right, rather than a gift.  I think this is what you were talking about. This type of moral equivalence is a distorted level playing field and can be resolved when the two processes of forgiveness are separated and distinct. Hence I forgive you your debt before God, and you independently forgive me my debt (even if it be far smaller debt).

    to be continued

  11. Finishing the comment..A separation of the two forgiveness processes leads to a type of moral equalization between two people who sin against each other, which I think is biblical. If I am convicted of a sin against you, even if the size of this wrongdoing is relatively small in a human sense, the experience of being convicted of a sin leads to a realization that there is nothing I can do to claim your ongoing friendship.  I am ‘dependent’ on you to forgive me if the relationship is to continue. I cannot claim your forgiveness as a right.  Even if I have forgiven you what is a large debt humanly speaking, these are two matters are entirely separate.
    This of course equalizes out a marriage in trouble.  To use the illustration we are playing with, a husband who is deeply convicted of his temper and lack of apology to his wife will find himself dependent on his wife, who sexually betrayed him, for forgiveness – a forgiveness he cannot claim as a right. It is her gift. Their interdependence as a couple for mutual forgiveness will be manifestly evident and the power relationship between ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ demolished.  As someone reeling in the emotional wake of betrayal, this is a very humbling position to be put into – and easy to resist by claiming the self righteous position of victim.  However, it is a true place.
    Whilst God demands that we forgive, I do not think that as human beings we can demand it of each other. God can do this because of all he has done for us.

    There is also another aspect of the forgiveness process I think we have to acknowledge here at an emotional level. Victims can have a holistic emotional response to an injury which recognizes the evil or sin underlying the deed. Hence, on one moment a victim may view the sin to be infinitely large. In the next moment, they may flip into a mode of objectifying and normalizing the sin by assessing it in terms of the actual behavior or harm done. We may even flip flop between the two perspectives. The victim may end up viewing the perpetrator as evil: and the psychology of the evil other and processes of stigmatization emerge.
    Can I suggest that something spiritually real is happening here: as the victim, we are tasting the evil behind the deed for which Christ himself died.  The response is not necessarily out of proportion or unbalanced (unless we are saying we are exempt from the same analysis), but true.  I believed that this experience gives rise to an innate sense of the justice of retributive justice (if we are honest with ourselves).  However, if the person is in Christ, Christ’s death can satisfy us in this regard and we can continue to love them as a brother and sister in Christ.

  12. Gosh, thanks for putting so much time and thought into your response (including tracking down old posts of mine – the ultimate courtesy). And thanks for explaining your method – fair enough I say wink.

    Thanks too (!) for letting me know your thoughts about God *not* requiring repentence before giving forgiveness. I’m pretty sure we’re on the same page here – my language was imprecise because it wasn’t my main point (and because I think there’s biblical warrant to speak this way). I just meant that repentence precedes forgiveness – but I believe both are entirely from God. Not that I really understand how this works, but that’s probably better left for another time.

    Gosh you’re right there are lots of differences between God’s forgiveness and ours. Yet I think you ended by suggesting what I was also keen to suggest – that *even God* doesn’t require ongoing repentence for forgiveness and so, at the very least, neither should we (well with my original caveats). Yes? For me, that pretty much wraps up the discussion, but maybe I’m being simplistic . . .

    – apologies for the long comment – a hypocrite, I! –

  13. Having now read part 7 (and its 7 comments to date), I realise I have been defining “repentence” differently to you. When I said above that I think “repentence precedes forgiveness” I meant repentence in the sense of throwing yourself on God’s mercy and saying “I’m sorry” (which involves both a turning away from sin and a turning to God, and which, I hasten to add, is all of God).

    However I think you are using it to mean an ongoing turning to God, evidenced by an obedient life. Have I understood your ‘position’ correctly? I wonder what you say to mine?

  14. Hi Cath,

    Sorry this has been so long in replying – I needed a bit of a break from the pace of interacting with comments.

    Can I just comment on the issues of moral equivalence. As it happens, your illustration of moral equivalence and divorce reflects my life journey.

    You have my great sympathies Cath.  If I’d known that, I would have picked a less emotive phrase, and a less personal example.  While I haven’t experienced divorce, my parents’ marriage, and that of wife’s parents, is over so I have some empathy for it, albeit one step removed.  I appreciate you’re being willing to speak publicly about things so close to home.  I’ll try not to trample all over your sensitivities as I interact with your thoughts here.

    I have argued above that we are morally equality before the cross,  I am not sure now on reflection, whether this moral equality is about our status before God as sinners who cannot live outside him, or about any one sin/ deed for which we deserve ‘the death penalty’.  I think it is the former.  Even our minor blemishes of behavior stem from our heart or sinful state, and usually point to a bigger malaise/ attitude. The experience of conviction is usually about this internal state, our sense of conviction and shame tends to focus on the impurities of thought and attitudes that underlie the action.  This is of course is where the bible focuses, it is much more concerned about the heart, from which words and actions flow, rather than the behavior. Therefore, I would argue that behavior cannot be assessed apart from the heart which contaminates the behavior. So to weigh up two actions on sins as being ‘weighted differently’ in God’s eyes perhaps is a nonsense.

    If I’ve read you correctly here, I think we’re half in agreement and half not.  I agree that as sinners we’re all under the sentence of death, and cannot live outside of Christ.  I do not think that means that God sees all sins as equivalent to each other.

    If a non-Christian walks down the road, sees a little old lady wanting to cross the road, and helps them cross, that is sin from God’s point of view.  It’s done in rebellion against God and is an expression of a sinful heart.  Nothing about the action pleases God.  But to say that God doesn’t see any difference between that and coming up to the old lady, torturing her and then pushing her under an oncoming truck is just odd.

    You’re not alone in suggesting that because God sees both actions as sin he sees them as equal – that there’s no such thing as a worse sin or a greater sin.
    Students used to argue this with me all the time when I taught at Moore.  I seem to be in a definite minority on this one. 

    Nonetheless, it seems to fly in the face of explicit statements the Bible makes about greater and lesser condemnation on the day of judgement – a classic example of theology overruling Scriptural testimony.  It also seems to make God’s judgement of sin almost nonsensical.  God cannot see a moral difference between an unbelieving doctor who spent their life looking after the poor and sick in a third-world country and a serial killer who spent their life torturing and murdering people.

    God doesn’t just judge people for their heart attitude towards him.  He also judges them for the specific actions they take.  Yes, Jesus says that if you are angry with your brother then you are guilty of murder.  That the attitude is treated as the act.  But if we take that as an absolute statement, then I am better off killing someone who regularly makes me mad.  I’m already up for murder before God anyway, and as long as the person lives I’ll keep being culpable of murder.  But that’s just ridiculous.  Surely God sees a moral difference between someone who is angry and exercises self-control and someone who is angry and does not exercise self-control and so commits murder.

    At least part of the point of Jesus’ statement isn’t that anger and murder are the same but that if God treats anger as murder you don’t want to know what he treats murder as.  God treats sin so much more radically than we do.

    So, I’m coming from a definite position that God doesn’t treat all sins as equal.  All sin deserves death, but not all sin is the same.

    to be concluded…

  15. concluding

    I note that the two examples you gave equate the minor blemish with a irritating behavior, rather than a sin.

    Well, one was irritating behaviour, the other (IMO) was a very, very minor sin – lack of expressing gratitude.  Either way it was an argument ad absurdum, taking things to an extreme.  And would arguably count as irritating behaviour in and of itself.

    I happily concede that your examples are more appropriate.  My point in picking such daft examples was that your solution can’t be the only solution.  It worked for you, and I’m glad that it did.  I have no doubt that it might be helpful for others.

    But it won’t work for some people – they’ll go, “okay my behaviour created room for temptation, and I’m sorry I did that.  But he/she promised ‘in sickness and in health, for better and for worse’ and the fact that I was an agent of temptation doesn’t help me forgive him/her for giving in to that temptation.  They promised ‘for better or for worse’ .”

    It won’t work for still others because the scale of the difference in sin is too great and/or the sin is basically one-sided. The child didn’t lead their parent into temptation to abuse them.  It would be positively harmful to say to the child (even once they were an adult) – look at your own attitudes and see how you helped create the environment in which your parent was encouraged to abuse you.

    I’m not saying you’re method has no validity – although I suspect I was clumsy in my wording and it looked that way.  I’m saying it can only be a method, not the method.  My opposition was to the way you seemed to be saying that this was the solution to unforgiveness for everybody.

    I think different people will struggle at different points, and once we move from the basic Scriptural fundamentals that are explicitly in the Bible we have to be flexible in addressing what is blocking forgiveness in a specific case.

    This of course equalizes out a marriage in trouble.  To use the illustration we are playing with, a husband who is deeply convicted of his temper and lack of apology to his wife will find himself dependent on his wife, who sexually betrayed him, for forgiveness – a forgiveness he cannot claim as a right. It is her gift. Their interdependence as a couple for mutual forgiveness will be manifestly evident and the power relationship between ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ demolished.  As someone reeling in the emotional wake of betrayal, this is a very humbling position to be put into – and easy to resist by claiming the self righteous position of victim.  However, it is a true place.
    Whilst God demands that we forgive, I do not think that as human beings we can demand it of each other. God can do this because of all he has done for us.

    I think I’m happy with this as a stance taken by the person who was more the innocent party (although I acknowledge saying it that way undercuts what is a key point you’re making – that there is no innocent party).

    I wouldn’t be happy if this was the stance taken by the more guilty party.  I think it’s a great sign of grace when the victim says ‘there’s no victim or perpetrator here, just two people covenanted together and we’re going to move forward’.  I think it’s something else entirely when the perpetrator (or primary perpetrator) says the same words.

    I think we’re closer on this than it looks.  I think there’s a nuance of difference between us because I think some sins are worse than other sins, and so I think that, even between two sinners, one can be in the right compared to the other in that specific situation.  You can be blameless as far as the matter goes, and I can be entirely at fault.  You can be truly the victim and I the perpetrator.

    Now, to just drop the issue of justice between you and me and focus on the fact that you are a debtor to grace can certainly help forgiveness.  And I think it’s a true expression of being changed by grace when it occurs.  So I’m all in favour of it being in the mix.

    I’m not sure that it would help the repentance of the guilty party, however, to adopt this stance, hence I’m a bit cautious about treating what you’re saying here as a universal rule or strategy.

  16. Hi Fiona,

    Gosh, thanks for putting so much time and thought into your response (including tracking down old posts of mine – the ultimate courtesy). And thanks for explaining your method – fair enough I say smile.

    You’re welcome, figured that was appropriate given the work it would take you to get to the point of being able to comment on my posts.

    – apologies for the long comment – a hypocrite, I! –

    Heh.  While I’m happy to defend my length of posts and comments, I think the universe might implode if I ever criticised anyone else for anything to do with length.  So I think you’re safe smile.

    Thanks too (!) for letting me know your thoughts about God *not* requiring repentence before giving forgiveness. I’m pretty sure we’re on the same page here – my language was imprecise because it wasn’t my main point (and because I think there’s biblical warrant to speak this way). I just meant that repentence precedes forgiveness – but I believe both are entirely from God. Not that I really understand how this works, but that’s probably better left for another time.

    Okay, I’m still not sure that we are on the same page – I think repentance comes after forgiveness, it doesn’t precede it.

    I think you ended by suggesting what I was also keen to suggest – that *even God* doesn’t require ongoing repentence for forgiveness and so, at the very least, neither should we (well with my original caveats). Yes?

    I agree that God doesn’t require ongoing repentance for forgiveness and so we shouldn’t either. 

    But I think God doesn’t require initial repentance for forgiveness either.  I don’t think we’re able to repent in that way until we’ve been regenerated by the Holy Spirit and united to Christ – things that occur more or less simultaneously with forgiveness.  I think our repentance is an outworking of being joined to Christ and renewed by the Holy Spirit, and so follows after forgiveness.

    Having now read part 7 (and its 7 comments to date), I realise I have been defining “repentence” differently to you. When I said above that I think “repentence precedes forgiveness” I meant repentence in the sense of throwing yourself on God’s mercy and saying “I’m sorry” (which involves both a turning away from sin and a turning to God, and which, I hasten to add, is all of God).
    However I think you are using it to mean an ongoing turning to God, evidenced by an obedient life. Have I understood your ‘position’ correctly? I wonder what you say to mine?

    I think you’ve basically got my position on repentance.  My view of yours should (hopefully) be able to be seen in the last post and the first comment following it. 

    I think part of your view of repentance – throwing yourself on God’s mercy and saying ‘I’m sorry’ – is basically faith, not repentance.  Certainly I find it hard to see how throwing yourself on God’s mercy can be anything other than faith – surely such a thing happens when we hear God’s promises in the gospel and that he is gracious towards us?  Believing those promises, trusting God in Christ – that’s faith, not repentance.

    Saying ‘I’m sorry’ – well, we could argue the toss there I suppose.  That’s either a recognition of our need for grace – in which case it is connected to faith, because we only embrace Christ as our Saviour when we see we need saving.  Or it’s a sorrow over the kind of person we are and the things we’ve done, in which case it is more likely repentance – because it’s good to be sorrowful when we realise that we are wicked and do evil.  Sorrowing over our sin is connected to repentance, not so much faith.

    Turning away from sin and turning to God – that’s surely repentance on my view as well as yours.  I think that’s a pretty good shorthand for the Bible’s view of what repentance is.  And my basic point is – doing that is a good thing, it pleases God. 

    When a sinner turns away from sin and turns to God they cease to be ungodly and are now godly.  So if we say that turning from sin and turning to God precedes God’s forgiveness then we are saying that God justifies the godly (or at least, those who have stepped out on the path of godliness and taken the first step) not the ungodly. 

    And that’s more in keeping with a Catholic view of salvation than the biblical idea that God justifies the ungodly apart from works – see my response to Alex Greaves a bit further down in the comments on post 7.

  17. Hi Mark,
    Thanks for your dialoguing about this issue with me which is close to my heart. Thanks also for the gift to this series of posts for us. I must say that I have been amazed at your capacity to keep up with all these comments in this discussion.

    I am going to keep pushing back on this issue, as I think there are a few points we have missed each other on and a few points of disagreement.  Meanwhile, there is a deadline I have to meet so I cant do this straight away! I will come back to you in a few days.

    I was touched by your expression of sympathy over my divorce – it was 13 years ago now so the wounds are by no means raw, although I acknowledge they are still there. Plse dont worry about dialoguing with me over this issue!

    Shalom,
    Cath

  18. Hi Cath,

    Thanks for your dialoguing about this issue with me which is close to my heart.

    You’re welcome.  Thanks for talking about something that matters so much to you.

    I must say that I have been amazed at your capacity to keep up with all these comments in this discussion.

    Heh, I think someone on Simone Richardson’s blog recently called me ‘relentless’.  That and your comment are probably the two sides of that coin.  smile  I tend to do this kind of thing in bursts. 

    Hopefully it’ll be a couple of weeks before anything else from me appears on Sola again.  I can’t keep this kind of pace up indefinitely.  And I doubt any reader except the most interested/most wanting something expansive can either.

    I am going to keep pushing back on this issue, as I think there are a few points we have missed each other on and a few points of disagreement.

    Sounds good, when you can, put my feet over the fire again.

    I was touched by your expression of sympathy over my divorce – it was 13 years ago now so the wounds are by no means raw, although I acknowledge they are still there. Plse dont worry about dialoguing with me over this issue!

    Heh, I don’t think I need to handle you with kid’s gloves.  You seem more than capable of defending your corner.  I was simply indicating an intention to not make divorce the subject of some of my more flamboyant rhetorical flourishes.  Things that matter personally to someone shouldn’t be the fodder for rhetoric is my general rule.

    grace be with you,
    Mark

  19. Ok thank you Mark, I think I may have it clear in my head now. This is how I think it goes: Those things that appear to precede* forgiveness (repentence/faith) are the means by which we access forgiveness, but they do not in any way provide the grounds for forgiveness. (This is, I think, the chief difference when compared with the Roman Catholic view.)  The grounds are only ever what Christ has done. In a similar way, even the means themselves (repentence/faith) are given by Christ.

    I linked repentence and forgiveness because I can’t see how a person can throw themselves on God’s mercy (which you have – convincingly – defined as “faith”) without at the same time turning from sin and to God (our shared definition of “repentence”). Plus there’s also the experience of sorrow over past sin. So I think your argument is less about repentence per se and more about means/grounds for forgiveness.

    *I put “appear to precede” because the order of the whole conversion experience is sometimes not mentioned or presented as happening almost simultaneously.

  20. Hi Fiona,

    This is how I think it goes: Those things that appear to precede* forgiveness (repentence/faith) are the means by which we access forgiveness, but they do not in any way provide the grounds for forgiveness. (This is, I think, the chief difference when compared with the Roman Catholic view.)  The grounds are only ever what Christ has done. In a similar way, even the means themselves (repentence/faith) are given by Christ.

    Nicely argued.  However I think a lot of Catholics would probably agree with it. 

    For Catholic teaching, at the end of the process, God’s final declaration of justification must be based upon a true judgement of qualities that are truly ours.

    However, in this life, grace is the engine room of the Christian life.  God gives grace through the sacraments and when that is not resisted, it infuses the traits into us and becomes the condition for further grace.  So the traits aren’t really the ‘basis’ for grace, merely the condition.

    Except….Protestants have generally looked at that and gone ‘pull the other one!’  If something that is truly ‘mine’ and that pleases God is an instrument of grace, then it is also grounds for grace as well.

    And repentance is something that is genuinely ours, and that is praiseworthy.  To be sorrowful for our sin, to desire reconciliation, to turn to God and love him, and to turn away from sin – that is a godly response to sin, it pleases God.  Theologically speaking, it’s a ‘good work’. 

    That’s why (if I’ve got this right) Toplady wrote the third stanza of “Rock of Ages”:

    Not the labor of my hands,
    Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
    Could my zeal no respite know,
    Could my tears forever flow,
    All for sin could not atone;
    Thou must save and Thou alone.

    He was rejecting the arminian view of the Wesley brothers that remorse and repentance must be the instrument of grace and forgiveness.  He saw, and I think this goes back to the Reformers, that to say ‘repentance is an instrument’ is very different from saying ‘faith is an instrument’ because repentance is something we do while faith is receiving something that Christ did. 

    And so, in the generous way that characterised 18th century debates, his popular song charges armininian views of repentance as an instrument of really making it the grounds.  Luther and Calvin would approve, but it’d get up people’s noses if a stunt like that was pulled today.

    I linked repentence and forgiveness because I can’t see how a person can throw themselves on God’s mercy (which you have – convincingly – defined as “faith”) without at the same time turning from sin and to God (our shared definition of “repentence”). Plus there’s also the experience of sorrow over past sin. So I think your argument is less about repentence per se and more about means/grounds for forgiveness.

    Can they theoretically do that?  I think so.  I can ask for mercy from my judge without seeking reconciliation or desiring to change my life.  As Calvin says, the two have to be kept distinct in our heads.

    Can I throw myself on the mercy of the living God in reality and not be transformed in the process? Of course not.  So I will repent if I have faith – faith produces repentance. 

    But I think it does make a huge difference if I see it as: turning to God which includes faith and repentance. 

    Or: faith in Christ which then produces repentance.

    I think the Reformers did too.  When they said, “justification by grace through faith apart from works”, they were rejecting both Catholic and Anabaptist approaches of making repentance co-ordinate with faith and not a fruit of faith.

  21. Thank you so much for explaining this so thoroughly! It is, as you say, of utter importance. I think I finally understand, and agree with your good self (and, y’know, the Bible). Somehow in reading all you’d said I managed to miss the point that “repentance is something we do while faith is receiving something that Christ did”. Your last section was also very helpful.

    Anyway I’ll mull it over for a bit and make sure I’ve got it straight. You’ll be hearing from me again if I haven’t. Silence and all is well wink.

  22. Hi Mark,
    I think the kernel of our disagreement about moral equivalence between two poeple is that I am not focusing on the relative magnitude of the sin (and I do agree that one person can be ‘more at fault’ in a situation than another person in human terms). I am focusing on the equalising experience of ‘being in debt’ to the other person that I have injured. It does not matter what the size of what you owe, if you are helpless to pay it. Inability to pay or fix up a situation creates a relational dependancy on other for grace and forgivess – this is something I am powerless to claim as a right. Forgiveness is always a gift.

    This is the equaliser I was talking about – that of mutual interdependance in a relationship for grace. If you give me the forgiveness and grace I cannot claim or deserve in our relationship and I am truly humbled, how can I refuse to give you something you do not deserve – but ask you to pay me back. The basis of the relationship is no longer rights, but covenant love.

    But ultimately, I think it it is our experience of having being forgiven our own great sins by God from which we draw the strength to forgive great sins against us!

  23. Hi Cath,

    I think we’re probably in agreement on this point then.  As you said originally, what you’re saying here is an important ‘fleshing out’ of some of the concrete implications of the original series. 

    Thanks for keeping going until your key point was both made and heard.

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