Must I Forgive Those Who Do Not Repent?

Introduction

Must I forgive those who do not repent? That is an interesting question. It’s an important question. Because it has a lot to do with our relationship with God, whether we forgive others. And to what degree we forgive others. This question was recently asked to me by one of the members here. And so I’ve been studying it, and I decided to present a lesson on the topic. It’s a perplexing question to me. I wish that it was more cut and dry. I wish that it was more black and white, the answer that I would give, but it’s a bit complicated. And I want us to draw our own conclusions, so I’m going to be presenting both sides of the matter. But as we go, I think we will see there are many practical applications we can draw from this study.

We know that we are, of course, commanded many times to forgive. Jesus taught to pray, forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors. And by the way, there really is no difference between the forgiving of a debt and the forgiving of a debtor. Or the forgiving of a transgression and the forgiving of a transgressor. We see all through the Bible, both of those two concepts are really combined and parallel. In verses 14 and 15 of Matthew 6, Jesus commenting on that portion of the model prayer said, For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. We’re very familiar with that. In Luke 6 and verse 37, do not judge and you will not be judged, and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.

Pardon, and you will be pardoned. Paul said in Ephesians 4 and verse 32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you. So we are to, in effect, be conduits of the grace and mercy of God. We are to extend that same forgiveness toward others that God extends to us and to emulate the forgiveness that God in Christ Jesus has given to us. That’s a high calling. No doubt about it. Peter asked the Lord, how many times shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him up to seven times? He thought he was being very generous with that number. And the Lord said, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven.

Which just means you keep forgiving.

He meant you just keep forgiving. As many times as the sin might happen, you forgive. But in none of these passages that I’ve just shown you is it clarified whether there’s a condition on their part of repentance, of asking for forgiveness, or something like that. And so the question still stands are we obligated to forgive people unconditionally? Automatically. Without their having any, you know, feelings of remorse, without any demonstration of repentance or any confession of wrongdoing towards us. Are we obligated to forgive those who do not repent? A lot of people would say yes. In fact, I would imagine that an overwhelming majority of people who claim the name of Christ would say, yes, we are obligated to forgive those who do not repent. In 1995, Timothy McVay killed 168 Americans in the Oklahoma City bombings.

Felt no remorse for what he had done, felt totally justified, would have done it again. In a sermon by Pastor John Miller at Martha’s Vineyard. He preached that Christians should forgive Timothy McVeigh because that’s what Christ has commanded. But we are expected, according to that preacher, and according to the belief of a lot of people to forgive someone, even someone in cold blood who has no remorse whatsoever and has committed a heinous crime. Another example of this is 1997. Michael Carneal, a student at the West Paducah High School, murdered three fellow students, these girls.

1. Arguments for Answering Yes

Now, of course, that gives us warm and fuzzy feelings. And I really do admire the compassion of heart of a person who can have that kind of grace towards somebody that has done something so heinous. But is this what we’re obligated to do? And would we be wrong to not offer such immediate forgiveness to someone who has no remorse and does not seek to change at all. So, what I’m going to do is first look at arguments for answering yes. And then we’ll look at the other side of the issue. One of the first arguments that could be made on this side of it is listen, our forgiveness from God depends on whether we forgive others, as we saw in Matthew 6, 14 and 15. And so the attitude is sort of now, I don’t want to stand before God on the day of judgment.

And for the one thing that might be keeping me from entering into heaven to be that I was a bit stingy with my forgiveness toward others. And so I’d rather forgive too much than to forgive too little. I can understand that line of thinking.

Someone that would rather err on the side of caution in this whole matter of forgiving others. I can definitely see that.

While these people in cold blood with envy and hatred and bitterness in their hearts are torturing and brutally murdering the only begotten Son of God, the only man who never sinned, as he is hanging there on the cross, he had the compassion of heart to say, Father, forgive them. For they do not know what they’re doing. And so it would be said, well, see, obviously, the people crucifying him had not repented. And Jesus was forgiving them. It’s a powerful argument. If you really think about some things here, though, notice what he was actually doing was praying that God would forgive them. And I’ve heard it said that that prayer was answered on Pentecost 50 days later. When Peter preached and told them, You have crucified the Christ, and told them, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and 3,000 souls were baptized that day and added to the Lord, added to the body.

And so the prayer of Jesus being fulfilled. Not immediately when he said this from the cross, but when they responded in repentance. That’s something to think about in this whole situation. But look at the compassion of our Lord. And we see a similar compassion by Stephen in Acts chapter 7. You remember there that Stephen preached this sermon to the Jews that they didn’t like. He was telling them, You are no different from your ancestors who persecuted righteous people, and you have killed the righteous one. And of course, they brought him outside the city and began stoning him. And in verse 60, then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice. This is in Acts 7, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.

Having said this, he fell asleep. You imagine stoning someone and then praying that as you’re killing them. That is tremendous that he had the compassion of heart. So that example is used as another line of argument that yes, we need to forgive those, even who do not repent. A fourth argumentation is an emotional argument. Which really connects with people internally. Whenever you do not forgive someone, and you are harboring feelings of anger, bitterness, maybe even of hatred, then you are trapped in a downward cycle of depression. And the only way to break out of that is you’ve got to forgive that person. This is the argument that’s made. And so do yourself a favor, people will say. Do it for yourself. Free yourself by turning the matter over to God.

2. Arguments for Answering No

I certainly think there’s a lot of truth to that in some ways. And there’s a lot of power to that. But the problem is when we apply any of these things just flatly across the board. Things aren’t always quite so easy as that. Now, let’s look at the other side of the issue. Arguments for answering no. Must I forgive those who do not repent? No, not always. This would be some arguments for that. First of all, God doesn’t forgive unconditionally. And we are told to forgive like God forgives. What does God demand? Repentance. Jesus said in Luke 13 and verse 3, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. He said the same thing in verse 5, and he told the apostles and the Great Commission that repentance and remission of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Luke 24, 47. So repentance, among other things, is demanded by God in order for God to forgive us. And so the argument would be, you know, would God place a higher burden upon us than he places upon himself and expect us to forgive those who do not repent when even he himself doesn’t. It’s a powerful argument. Powerful argument. Perhaps the strongest passage to support this side, this view of we do not have to forgive those who don’t repent, would be Luke 17, verses 3 and 4. Where Jesus said, Be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. Now Jesus did not say, if your brother sins, forgive him. What did Jesus say in that passage? If your brother sins, rebuke him.

And if he repents, which is conditional, forgive him. We have to remember that if we want to know what God says on a subject, we have to take all the passages dealing with that subject and put them all together. And we have to have a balanced view, a 360 degree view. And Jesus goes on in verse 4 saying, and if your brother sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day, returns to you, saying, I repent. Forgive him. So again, that conditional clause in verse 4. That’s a powerful passage. You see, if we are expected by God to rebuke someone, and instead of rebuking them and dealing with the sin, we just dust our hands off and say, I’m free of this matter, I’m not going to deal with it.

I just, I’m going to ignore the sin and I forgive you. You see where that could be wrong. Ignoring sin can be wrong. Consider church discipline. Jesus taught in Matthew 18 that if your brother sins, you go to him in private. He didn’t say ignore the sin. You go to him, you deal with it. If he doesn’t listen to you, you bring two or three more with you. If he doesn’t listen to them, bring it before the whole church. If it doesn’t listen to the church, then regard him as a tax collector and a heathen. That means to withdraw from him. And Paul dealt with withdrawal in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. We’re all very well aware of this, where there is a man who had slept with his father’s wife.

And in verse 2, you have become arrogant, Paul says, and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. So it was wrong for them to do nothing about the sin. It was wrong for them to just embrace this man as if there were no problem. And in fact, in verse 6, your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? So if there is a brother or a sister who is living in sin, we have the obligation to help them. To help them. And that’s what church discipline is for. If we don’t deal with it and we ignore it, then we are enabling that individual to become a leavening influence in the whole congregation.

3. How We Define and Understand Forgiveness

Is that pleasing to the Lord? Absolutely not. So you see where you have to be very careful not to just go on one end of the spectrum and say, well, we just we forgive anybody all the time. That can lead you to things like this. Now that we’ve looked at both sides, at least briefly, let me give you what I think is a balanced approach, considering this information. Part of the answer, and part of the problem of must I forgive those who do not repent, lies in how we define and understand what forgiveness is. You know, there’s a lot of definitions for forgiveness. If you look the word forgive up in the dictionary, the New American Oxford Dictionary, the first definition will be something like this to stop feeling bitter and angry about an offense or a flaw or a wrong done to you.

That’s not a direct quote from what the dictionary says, but that’s something like that. So just to stop feeling bitter, don’t be angry anymore, don’t hate the person anymore, and if I do that, I’ve forgiven them. I would like to suggest to you that is not a full definition of the Bible idea, the biblical idea of forgiveness. But let’s say you were giving the idea of forgiveness that definition. Then, according to that definition, to stop feeling bitter, then I think we would all have to agree that we would need to forgive anybody, even if they didn’t repent. Because we are never permitted to harbor bitterness in our heart, even for our enemies. And we’ll talk more about that later. So a lot of this discussion is really over semantics.

If, however, we define forgive in the fullest sense of the word. Which. In the Old Testament, there are several Hebrew words translated forgive. In the New Testament, there are two, I believe, two words that are translated forgive. They’re all defined somewhat differently. But if you look at all of those in all of their various contexts, it seems to me that perhaps a fuller definition for forgiveness would be something like this. To regard the offender as if the sin never happened. To receive the offender back in good standing. I’ve heard one preacher define forgiveness as the attitude of heart that restores the offender to the former state and affections of the offended one. Now, you know, just think, for example, of the prodigal son. I mean, here he has taken all of his inheritance and wasted it all, and finally, when he’s desperate, he comes crawling back to his father, and what does his father say?

I forgive you, but go back and work, you know, feeding those pigs a little while longer. You can come by and visit. He said, I’m not going to receive you back just as a slave. I’m going to receive you back as my son. And he received him back fully. I think there is a good example of where we how we can understand and define what forgiveness really entails. Now that can get into some questions. I don’t believe that that means that we cannot demand justice in certain situations. I’m not saying take your brethren to court. But didn’t Paul demand justice? Yes. I’m not saying that that doesn’t mean that you cannot hold somebody accountable. If your spouse commits adultery, you can forgive them, but there might be some consequences.

4. We Must Always Be Ready to Forgive

You might even divorce them and still forgive them. Okay? So it can still be a complicated matter here. But in general, I think this definition is the biblical idea to regard the offender as if the sin never happened. If we define forgiveness that way, I don’t think any of us could honestly say that, yes, we must forgive people who do not repent every time. Because if you’ve got somebody that’s a Christian that’s living openly in sin, are we supposed to receive them in full fellowship? As if nothing happened? When they’ve made no repentance? No. We already saw that that would be amoral. So let me say this. We must always be ready to forgive. I don’t know how many of y’all like country music. I’m from North Alabama and I hate it.

But there’s a song that came out some years ago. I just want to be angry. I just want to be angry for a while. Sometimes that’s our attitude. That right now I’m just upset. I don’t want to hear an apology. I’m not ready to forgive. We’ve got to be careful, don’t we? And we need to always be ready to forgive. There’s another song, not a country song. Too late to apologize. It’s never too late for them to apologize. We must never get to the point where, well, you know, I would have, but now it’s just, it’s too late, and you’ve passed that point. Too little too late. I’m sorry. That is not a Christ-like attitude. And so we must always be ready to forgive. We must always desire for that person to turn to God and gain the forgiveness from God, which is ultimately what matters for him or her.

5. When the Repentance Occurs, Forgive Freely

And when the repentance occurs, now I’m referring to the person coming to you and saying, I’m sorry of what I’ve done to you. We must forgive freely. Look in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 for a moment, please. Beginning in verse 6, I believe without a doubt that Paul is here dealing with the same situation involving that man from 1 Corinthians 5, who has let with his father’s wife. And they had dealt with that. They had obeyed his command to withdraw from this man. And apparently the man had repented and they did not forgive. So he says in verse 6, sufficient for such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the majority. So that on the contrary you should rather forgive and comfort him. Otherwise, such a one might be overwhelmed with excessive sorrow.

Wherefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. Apply that to other situations. A brother or a sister coming down the aisle who has done something terrible. The congregation knows about it. Maybe it’s the second or third time it’s happened. With tears rolling down his or her eyes, and they sit up here on the front pew at the end of the sermon, and the preacher talks to her and tells the congregation about this matter, and some of the brethren sitting there are thinking, yeah, right. I’ve seen this before. I’ll believe it when I see a change. That is a sin. It is a sin. It is not our place to judge someone’s heart. That is God’s place. Remember that Jesus said in Luke 17, 4, if your brother sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you saying, I repent.

Forgive him. Don’t you think that’d start to get hard after the second or third time? You know? We have the saying, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I’m not going to let that happen to me. Imagine it happening seven times. They’ve lied to you. I think after the seventh time, you’d be pretty well convinced, perhaps. Hey, they don’t really mean it. That’s not our place. That’s not our place. By the way, how many times sometimes do you go to God for forgiveness in a day? Whose forgiveness are we to emulate and imitate? God’s.

6. Four Things We Must Not Do

When we just want to throw the words, I’m sorry, I repent. Well, we’ve got to be sorry enough to quit. And to really make that diligent effort. I’m not saying that we just need to throw those words around. But God can judge your heart. You can’t judge this person’s heart. When they say, I repent. What is our obligation every time? Even seven times in a day. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. That’s our obligation. Forgive freely. And no matter what. Whether you know believe that we should forgive someone that doesn’t repent or not. No matter what, whether the person repents or not, there are four things that we must not do. Number one, we must never remain bitter and angry. Be angry and sin not. Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

And do not give the devil an opportunity. Ephesians 4, 26 and 27. Anger is dangerous. Anger can lead you to sin. It isn’t always in itself sinful. People say anger is always a sin. Well, Jesus was angry when he drove out people from the temple. Twice. And this verse says, be angry and sin not. So it’s possible to be angry and not sin, but it’s not easy. And that’s why it says, do not let the sun go down on your anger. Don’t harbor it. Don’t keep it. Some people hold anger for years. And they live in bitterness. We must not do that. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, Ephesians 4 and verse 31.

Secondly, we must not take vengeance. In Romans chapter 12, Romans chapter 12 and verse 14. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. My understanding of bless is that you wish you wish good upon them. We should never be in a state of mind where we’re wishing something bad to happen. We should wish good upon them. Ultimately that they come to the Lord and gain forgiveness. Verse 17, starting, never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you. Be at peace with all men. Sometimes you do everything you can, and you still can’t be at peace with somebody. Think about Paul. I mean, think about in the Old Testament Saul as he was chasing David and how David was treating Saul.

We do everything we can sometimes, and that’s all that we can do. Verse 19, never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. It is not our place to take vengeance. Now again, I don’t believe this means we cannot seek justice. But vengeance is another matter. Vengeance is, I want to give him a taste of his own medicine. Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. You lie to me, I’ll lie to you.

You steal from me, I’ll steal from you. You slander my name, I’ll slander your name. Or worse, you commit adultery against me, I’ll commit adultery against you. That’s the attitude of vengeance. That must never be our attitude. Leave that to God. Thirdly, we must never hate our enemies. Jesus taught, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for them that spitefully use you and persecute you. That is not easy. Because the reality is we have enemies. You may not have any that you know about in your immediate life right now, in your immediate circle, but there are people out there that if they had the chance, they would kill you right here, right now.

They would blow us all up. You know what they are? They’re our enemies. And it’s not easy to say, what we’re supposed to do is love those people. But I have to be honest with what Jesus said, and what we have to do is we have to love those people and ultimately hope that they come to Christ and that they gain the forgiveness of their sins. Don’t hate your enemies. Fourth, we must never regard an erring brother as an enemy. And Paul dealt with the matter of brethren who are not following the tradition of the apostles, that were not living right, that needed to be withdrawn from.

Conclusion

15, yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. Apply that broadly for a moment. Whatever a brother or a sister in the Lord might have done to you to hurt you personally, or have done in their lives to hurt the cause of the kingdom. Maybe they’re living in that life. They’re erring, but you know they’re still your brother. And it doesn’t mean we need to tolerate their wickedness or enable it, but it does mean that we need to love them and pray for them and be ready to accept them and to do anything we can do to help. That’s the tender heart that Paul was referring to in Ephesians 4 32. So, how do we answer the question? Must I forgive those who do not repent?

I want you to draw your own conclusions. I don’t want you to have an opinion on this because that’s what the preacher said. It’s a complicated question. But I do believe that quite clearly, there are cases where ignoring someone’s sin can actually be a sin in itself. That does not mean, however, that we are ever allowed to harbor hatred or bitterness in our heart. Would you bow your head with me in a word of prayer? Our Father, our God, we love you. We trust you, and we thank you for forgiveness. That we can stand before you now, being viewed as pure as a baby, being viewed as having absolutely no sin. We pray, Father, that we may imitate your forgiveness toward others. And through your Son we pray.

Amen. We will now be dismissed to our Bible classes and we’ll reconvene at 10:55 for another period of worship.