What Happens When Forgiveness Does Not Meet Repentance?
(avg. read time: 5–10 mins.)
So far, we have established what forgiveness, repentance and reconciliation are and why they are important, and we have looked at what it means to live in the reality of God’s reconciling action. You could think of reconciliation as what happens when the arms of forgiveness and repentance join in an embrace. If you are more analytical, you might think of it loosely as an equation so that forgiveness plus repentance equals reconciliation. It is simplistic to see it that way because forgiveness and repentance are not one-time actions, but require repetition to maintain reconciliation, and you also cannot precisely quantify the various factors. As long as you can remember those points, the illustrations work well enough as actions you do in a loving relationship and components of a process that you constantly need to work out. But I imagine at least some of you have posed a question along this line in your own minds: What happens when the equation breaks down? It broke down in that parable in Matt 18 in at least two ways. One, the unmerciful servant’s debtor was repentant, but he was not forgiving, so reconciliation could not happen. Two, because the unmerciful servant was not forgiving as his king was forgiving, he was not repentant, which meant the apparent reconciliation he could have had with his king collapsed. So what do we do when these occasions arise? What are our responsibilities?
Once again, we must start with what God does and a concise expression of it is in Ps 78. This whole psalm is one of a few that reviews the history of Israel and God’s actions in relation to her. Such psalms were efforts at keeping the story of Israel alive and to address one of her fundamental failings, which was that she did not remember what God had done for her and how that defines their covenantal relationship. The psalmist pauses in the middle of recounting the events surrounding the wilderness wandering and the exodus to provide a commentary on this history. It happened that after their sins piled up, God poured out his judgment on the people of Israel. They responded by remembering God and repenting before him, but that did not last because their subsequent actions proved they had only tried to flatter God with their mouths while their hearts were far from him. They did not accept the covenant as the agenda for their new way of life and returned to their old idolatrous habits. Again and again they forgot what God had done for them and how their very existence as people depended on God’s action. Nevertheless, God forgave them. Their unrepentant character meant that reconciliation could not be complete; nevertheless, God forgave them. Because they were God’s chosen people, the people who best knew who God was and what God had done, their sin was all the worse; nevertheless, God forgave them. Their defiance was absolute and they communicated to God that they did not need him and by every right God could have said, “your will be done,” and handed them over to the consequence of destruction; nevertheless, God forgave them.
Now we know from later on in this text, as well as from other texts, that God did indeed pour out his wrath on Israel after giving them centuries of opportunities to repent. But we also know that God still extended the offer of forgiveness and final restoration to the Israelites. This loving offer from God came to a climax as Jesus died for us even while we were still sinners. God’s gift of Jesus and his offer of resurrection life in and with Jesus further prove what the Old Testament showed from early on: God prefers mercy to condemnation. God has aimed to remove sin from the world whether by sanctification or by wrath, but he prefers the first option. Even though there are times when God lets people face the consequences of their actions, God continues to express a willingness to forgive, an offer of reconciliation if people will but turn and repent. God’s actions reveal to us that repentance is necessary for reconciliation, but it is not necessary for someone to extend a willingness to forgive.
Now that we have a sense of how God handles the breakdown of the equation, how should we act in similar situations where either forgiveness or repentance is missing? Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount shows us the way. Two of his teachings in particular highlight two different sides of this process. In Matt 5:21–26, Jesus expands the traditional righteousness of the Torah to include overweening anger. Jesus shows by his conduct elsewhere, particularly in his interactions with the Pharisees and the incident in the temple, that anger is appropriate to express in a given occasion. In fact, the point of Jesus’s teaching here is not about avoiding anger at all. In the Greek, there is no imperative in v. 22, only present-tense participles, which means that Jesus is not focusing on becoming angry, but the progress of being or staying angry. When you allow your sin against someone else or when you allow someone else’s sin against you to stew, to boil until it leads to grudges, resentment, bitterness, thirst for retribution, hatred, and malice, you are effectively murdering them in your heart, even if you do not physically murder them.
Jesus warns that this way lies condemnation, but he shows us the way out, the way of God’s grace in which we can participate. It requires taking the initiative to change the situation. If you remember that you have wronged someone else, drop everything and repent, take whatever steps you can to restore the relationship. Of course, this is only one side of the process and you cannot effect reconciliation all by yourself. In the context of dealing with a brother or sister in faith, Jesus works on the assumption that reconciliation will occur because of his other teachings on the blessing of being merciful, peacemaking, and the importance of being forgiving as God is forgiving. But that all rests at the level of assumption, he does not bring it to bear here. What he does emphasize is the personal responsibility of the offender to do whatever depends on him or her. Whatever our expectations of the person’s response may be, we are not in control of it. We are in control of what we can do, and as image-bearers of God, what we can do is embody God’s reconciling action by repenting when we have done something to rupture a relationship, seeking reconciliation rather than waiting for the other person to start it.
Jesus addresses this problem from another direction in 5:43–48. It can be difficult to mend a broken relationship between loved ones because of the sense of betrayal that accompanies that brokenness, but it is surely easier to advocate for doing that than it is to tell someone to forgive enemies. Of course, there can certainly be overlap in these categories: many enemies were once friends. And while we can be indoctrinated into making people our enemies, most often our enemies are people who have directly wronged us or a group to which we belong. But when we are in the position of the offended one, Jesus tells us to love our enemies and to pray for those who make us suffer. This teaching does not seem to make sense in everyday life and in the nitty-gritty of the real world where we are conditioned to expect that treating your enemies with a warm heart is a sure way to get you burned. After all, they are them; they are not like us.
Yet the kingdom of God does not operate that way. It works on the logic of love, without which there is nothing. God mercifully provides rain and sunshine, among many other things, on both his friends and his enemies. And lest we forget, no one is a friend of God that was not once an enemy of God. All sinned, but God sent Jesus to live, die, and rise again for all. That is our God, that is our Lord, and it is the Spirit of that God who dwells in us to shape us according to that image. But if we do not act any differently toward our enemies than even the worst people currently outside of the kingdom, what actual difference does it make for us to say that we are children of God, the body of Christ, people indwelt by the Holy Spirit? How are we not just saying empty words at that point? No, we are called to be like God. The Greek here does not so much mean “perfect” like “morally perfect without any blemish ever,” but “complete” as in, “loving completely without arbitrary boundaries.” Luke’s parallel to this teaching in Luke 6:36 shows as much. And just as God shows unimaginable mercy in extending forgiveness to everyone regardless of who they are or what they have done, so we must offer forgiveness to anyone and everyone, no matter what they have done to us.
Jesus knew that this teaching would be difficult; he was speaking it to a community that he knew would face suffering for their faith, who would be ostracized, ridiculed, humiliated, attacked, and occasionally even killed. Christians throughout history have learned this lesson the hard way. I am vividly reminded of Palm Sunday in 2017, when Egypt’s Christians were tested on this challenge yet again. Terrorists attacked two separate churches with bombs that killed almost four dozen people and wounded or injured dozens more. Naturally, they are mourning and have heightened concerns about safety. This is not the first time these Christians have been bombed or killed en masse. It may not be the last time, either. But in the midst of this crisis, the Christians there persevere as they have for nearly 2,000 years. One particular priest summarized this well when he gave a message that same day to those who kill his brothers and sisters: thank you, we love you, and we are praying for you. They can express such love because they have surrendered to God from whom all love comes. They have learned the lesson of John that we love because he first loved us, and we cannot cut off others from God’s love any more than God cut us off when we were still enemies. Our enemies are people who do not know the love of God. Why should we not show it to them?
To clarify, there are times when people will want to leave your life, whether because of something you have done or because of something another person has done. And it may happen that no matter how forgiving or repentant you are, they leave rather than reconcile. As God has shown especially in the history of Israel, if they want to leave, let them go. It takes two parties to reconcile and if one party is not willing, you are not going to make it happen. But like God, you should not be bitter, vindictive, or hateful; you should meet the parting of ways with love, prayer, and self-preparation in forgiveness or repentance. Just because someone has burned a bridge with you does not mean you should get rid of your building materials. You serve a God who wishes for reconciliation with all while knowing that some will ultimately reject his offers. You serve a God who has created you to bear his image, and that includes bearing the image of his reconciling action in how you interact with others. You serve a God who has reconciled with you and who can thus show you what it means to reconcile. God’s reconciling action looks like putting sin to death in Jesus and raising Jesus up as the first work of the new creation. It looks like making a kingdom of people who will embody that self-giving love always looking for the chance of deliverance from broken relationships. If that is what God’s love looks like, who are we to act differently?