TUESDAY JANUARY 25, 2011

Read Acts 7:1-60

However, it is feasible and believable that some would be brought to repentance by your doing good deeds to non Christians.

When they come to the Lord and are forgiven by Him, you are called to offer your forgiveness and to be reconciled to them. See Acts 9:26-27 when Saul (i.e. Paul) was converted.

But we must study those verses that might appear to mandate forgiveness to non Christians.

Luke 23:34

• Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.

Acts 7:60

Then he [Stephen] fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he fell asleep.

From the context of the two verses it is clear that both Stephen and Jesus are talking about non Christians.

However, as discussed earlier this is not a mandate to forgive all non Christians who hurt us or sin against us. It is, rather, a mandate, to have what we have called a ‘Spirit of Forgiveness’ towards these non Christians. We need to be ready and willing to forgive in the full sense of the word as soon as they repent.

The Psalms:

There are many Psalms where God’s people (who are deemed wise, holy, righteous etc) specifically tell us that they HATE evil doers, their sin and they actively and constantly pray for their destruction.

Nowhere are these desires or prayers chided or rebuked by the Lord. The people who pray these things (eg David) are used by God to judge and condemn those they pray against, often through Holy War. In other places, these men and women who prayed thus are considered to be righteous, holy men and women close to God (Acts 13:22), eg, Psalm 140, Psalm 94, Psalm 79, Psalm 70, Psalm 69, Psalm 59, Psalm 52, Psalm 35, Psalm 31, Psalm 28 etc.

We must remember what is being reflected in these Psalms. It is God’s own anger and hatred and wrath for the ungodly, the sinners, the unrepentant! This Psalmody is taken up elsewhere in the Scriptures through Holy War. God takes up the battle against His enemies and destroys them. In the New Testament, this Holy Warfare culminates when God will send all His enemies (the unrepentant) to hell for all eternity.

Other Holy Men and Women:

There are literally dozens of examples of other Holy Men and women who hated the enemies of the Lord and cried out for their destruction. The same point as made above still holds.

¨ Moses hated the Egyptians and their practices.

¨ The judges of Israel hated the enemy and were called to destroy them through holy war.

¨ Nehemiah and Ezra hated those who worked against God’s plans and actively sought to stop them. Again no mention of forgiveness is made. Reconciliation is openly avoided as shown in Nehemiah’s ousting of Tobiah from the Temple of the Lord. Nehemiah 13:7-8.

¨ The prophets often denounced and decried those who continued to sin, be they kings of God’s people or the enemy nations.

In neither these people, nor in the Psalms is there any hint of forgiveness being offered to those who sinned and refused to repent.

Yet, look at how gracious God really is. For the foreigner who comes to God and humbly accepts His ways we read these gracious words.

Leviticus 19:34

• The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

Exodus 12:49

• The same law applies to the native-born and to the alien living among you.

The picture is getting clearer. Those who repented and came to God for forgiveness were forgiven and were treated as God’s people. All nine points of page 3 were applied to these people. If we are called to forgive as the Lord forgave us, then we are to apply these nine points to others when they repent and seek our forgiveness!

What about the Prophet Hosea?

Hosea was called to show love towards, and to even marry, a prostitute (1:2-3). Do we see here an example of how we are to unconditionally love and forgive and be reconciled to an unrepentant sinner?

Several reasons tell us no.

• The introduction of Hosea makes it clear that this is a command to Hosea a prophet through which God shows His people a living parable. Isaiah was called (Isa 20:3) to walk around barefoot and naked for 3 years. No one argues that we should  follow suite.


• Hosea’s wife Gomer is specifically called to repent in 3:3.


• Gomer represents Israel in the living parable and Israel is called to repentance (or face judgement!!) in chapter 14.