THURSDAY JANUARY 20 2011

Read Luke 23

The Spirit of Forgiveness vs the Word of Forgiveness.

However, to avoid Biblical error on forgiveness it is helpful to distinguish between what we can call, ‘The Spirit of Forgiveness’ and the ‘Word of Forgiveness’.

The Spirit of Forgiveness.

The Spirit of forgiveness is the willingness and the offer of forgiveness to another even when that other person refuses to repent. Since the goal of forgiveness is a reconciled and mutual relationship, this full step can only be taken when the other party repents. By adopting a spirit of forgiveness we let go of the hurt, desire for revenge etc and we continue to work towards full reconciliation where and when possible. Such a technical separation allows us to distinguish between full forgiveness and reconciliation and the offer of forgiveness held out to an obstinate and unrepentant party.

When Jesus was being crucified He uttered these amazing words, ‘Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.’ (Luke 23:34). Several truths need to be stated about this incident (and Stephen’s parallel words in Acts 7:60) before we make a blanket application to all Christians:-

• Neither Jesus nor Stephen said ‘I forgive them.’ Both prayed that God would forgive them. It is a request rather than a statement.


• If the people crucifying Jesus or stoning Stephen were actually forgiven at that point, we have a blatant contradiction to the rest of Scripture. Such a blatant contradiction would render Scripture as fallible, errant and worthless to us. Assuming these sinners were forgiven, the contradiction runs thus. The rest of the Bible says that we must confess our sins and accept Jesus as Lord before we are forgiven and hence saved. We must believe in Him. We must repent and turn to Him. We must call on His name. None of the accusers and crucifiers did any of these (to our knowledge). If they were actually forgiven when Jesus or Stephen uttered these words then the Bible is contradictory! It cannot, in this scenario, be reliable to us.

We can over come these difficulties by noticing that both Jesus and Stephen had a Spirit of Forgiveness. They were ready and willing to forgive those who sinned against them. When you sinned against Jesus He had this spirit of forgiveness. When you repented and came to Him for forgiveness, He actually forgave you - the relationship was reconciled.

We can read the passages that call us to forgive in this light.

Matthew 6:14-15 and Mark 11:25.

• For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Note that even the Lord’s prayer is in the context of us asking for forgiveness.

• And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.

As we will study later, forgiveness among Christians is dependant upon repentance. The commands to forgive everyone who has sinned against us needs to be considered in light of this spirit of forgiveness. We offer forgiveness even if the other party remains unrepentant and the relationship unreconciled. When the other party does repent forgiveness is fulfilled.

When we do this we have no contradiction in Scripture to passages such as Luke 17:3-4, Deuteronomy 28-30, Hosea 14:1-4 etc. where forgiveness is dependant upon repentance.