Jesus said, If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Luke 17:3
I remember reading about a missionary family two of whose members were horribly killed by anti-Christian extremists. Within days of this atrocity they declared, “We have forgiven the people who did this.”
And I remember being both massively impressed and deeply humbled - what a glowing, Christlike act! Thinking about how I might have reacted to such a horror, it made me wonder if I was a real Christian at all.
But I found that along with this profound admiration, I somehow also felt uneasy deep down - “There’s something not quite right here...” It was a long time before I put my finger on what lay behind that feeling, perhaps because it seemed wrong to question in any way such a beautiful attitude. But my sense of unease refused to fade away.
And then I realised, very simply really, that the witness of those Christians, for all its wonderfulness, had failed to take account of a vital biblical theme: the link between forgiveness and repentance.
Forgiveness is, of course, at the very heart of the Bible, both Old and New Testament. God is a loving and forgiving God, and you can quote passage after passage to demonstrate that supreme truth. But you don’t have to probe very deeply in order to see that that forgiveness is dependent on repentance - on us being truly sorry, and determined to turn around and re-boot our lives.
To put it bluntly, if we are not willing to repent, even God himself cannot forgive us.
Does that seem a shocking thing to say? Isn’t God “almighty”? Can’t he do anything? If that’s how we react, it shows that we have never really grasped the nature of the God revealed in the Bible. The point isn’t that he is unwilling to do so - certainly not! - he longs to forgive. No: it’s because to do so would go against his own holy nature, and even God cannot contradict himself. It would be like saying, “Sin doesn’t really matter that much, so I’m happy to turn a blind eye.”
The German writer Heinrich Heine is supposed to have said, “Dieu me pardonnera - c'est son metier” - “God will forgive me - it’s what he does”, which sums up perfectly a cynical, shallow and casual response to a deadly serious problem: “Forgiveness? Oh, don’t worry about that - that’s God’s job”.
Jesus makes the truth very clear. In the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:12) he teaches us to pray for forgiveness: “Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us”. And immediately afterwards he adds a note of warning: “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins”. Could that be plainer?
That’s not God being grumpy or vindictive; it’s him saying, “Sin is a serious thing, and it needs to be dealt with, not ignored - even I can’t just brush it under the carpet”.
And in Luke 17:3, we shouldn’t miss those vital words “if they repent...”: “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them”. Implying, “But if they don’t repent...” (you don’t need me to spell it out).
Does this mean that that missionary family were entitled to nurse anger, or harbour a grudge, against the people who killed their loved ones? No, not at all. If someone has wronged us, the willingness to forgive - indeed, a desire to forgive - must always be there. But by stating so boldly “We have forgiven the people who did this”, however well-meaning that was, they were in fact cheapening the whole idea of forgiveness. They were conveying to the killers that, in essence, right and wrong just don’t really matter that much.
It seems wrong to imply criticism of such a well-motivated desire to be like Jesus. But the fact is that we can be well-meaning to the nth degree - but still mistaken. Our need for forgiveness was bought at a great price - Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. It is not for us to cheapen that sacrifice.
Let’s imagine that that family had issued a different statement...
“In spite of our grief and distress at what has been done to us, we would like to reach out a hand of love and reconciliation to those who have hurt us so deeply. Our prayer is that they will recognise the wrong they have done, take hold of our hand, and enter into an experience of the loving forgiveness of God, purchased by his son Jesus on the cross.”
That wouldn’t have been easy - no easier than “We have forgiven these people”. But it would have reflected more accurately the totality of what God is like: deeply loving the sinner, but remorselessly hating the sin.
And perhaps it would have gone like an arrow to the hearts of those killers.
Heavenly Father, please give me your loving and forgiving heart - never to harbour grudges or nurse bitterness against those who have wronged me. Help me also to love and pray even for those who refuse to repent. Amen.
I remember reading about a missionary family two of whose members were horribly killed by anti-Christian extremists. Within days of this atrocity they declared, “We have forgiven the people who did this.”
And I remember being both massively impressed and deeply humbled - what a glowing, Christlike act! Thinking about how I might have reacted to such a horror, it made me wonder if I was a real Christian at all.
But I found that along with this profound admiration, I somehow also felt uneasy deep down - “There’s something not quite right here...” It was a long time before I put my finger on what lay behind that feeling, perhaps because it seemed wrong to question in any way such a beautiful attitude. But my sense of unease refused to fade away.
And then I realised, very simply really, that the witness of those Christians, for all its wonderfulness, had failed to take account of a vital biblical theme: the link between forgiveness and repentance.
Forgiveness is, of course, at the very heart of the Bible, both Old and New Testament. God is a loving and forgiving God, and you can quote passage after passage to demonstrate that supreme truth. But you don’t have to probe very deeply in order to see that that forgiveness is dependent on repentance - on us being truly sorry, and determined to turn around and re-boot our lives.
To put it bluntly, if we are not willing to repent, even God himself cannot forgive us.
Does that seem a shocking thing to say? Isn’t God “almighty”? Can’t he do anything? If that’s how we react, it shows that we have never really grasped the nature of the God revealed in the Bible. The point isn’t that he is unwilling to do so - certainly not! - he longs to forgive. No: it’s because to do so would go against his own holy nature, and even God cannot contradict himself. It would be like saying, “Sin doesn’t really matter that much, so I’m happy to turn a blind eye.”
The German writer Heinrich Heine is supposed to have said, “Dieu me pardonnera - c'est son metier” - “God will forgive me - it’s what he does”, which sums up perfectly a cynical, shallow and casual response to a deadly serious problem: “Forgiveness? Oh, don’t worry about that - that’s God’s job”.
Jesus makes the truth very clear. In the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:12) he teaches us to pray for forgiveness: “Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us”. And immediately afterwards he adds a note of warning: “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins”. Could that be plainer?
That’s not God being grumpy or vindictive; it’s him saying, “Sin is a serious thing, and it needs to be dealt with, not ignored - even I can’t just brush it under the carpet”.
And in Luke 17:3, we shouldn’t miss those vital words “if they repent...”: “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them”. Implying, “But if they don’t repent...” (you don’t need me to spell it out).
Does this mean that that missionary family were entitled to nurse anger, or harbour a grudge, against the people who killed their loved ones? No, not at all. If someone has wronged us, the willingness to forgive - indeed, a desire to forgive - must always be there. But by stating so boldly “We have forgiven the people who did this”, however well-meaning that was, they were in fact cheapening the whole idea of forgiveness. They were conveying to the killers that, in essence, right and wrong just don’t really matter that much.
It seems wrong to imply criticism of such a well-motivated desire to be like Jesus. But the fact is that we can be well-meaning to the nth degree - but still mistaken. Our need for forgiveness was bought at a great price - Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. It is not for us to cheapen that sacrifice.
Let’s imagine that that family had issued a different statement...
“In spite of our grief and distress at what has been done to us, we would like to reach out a hand of love and reconciliation to those who have hurt us so deeply. Our prayer is that they will recognise the wrong they have done, take hold of our hand, and enter into an experience of the loving forgiveness of God, purchased by his son Jesus on the cross.”
That wouldn’t have been easy - no easier than “We have forgiven these people”. But it would have reflected more accurately the totality of what God is like: deeply loving the sinner, but remorselessly hating the sin.
And perhaps it would have gone like an arrow to the hearts of those killers.
Heavenly Father, please give me your loving and forgiving heart - never to harbour grudges or nurse bitterness against those who have wronged me. Help me also to love and pray even for those who refuse to repent. Amen.
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