The Conditionality of Forgiveness - Part 2

Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in a day, and turns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive him.
Luke 17:3-4

In this second post, allow me to return to my initial question, namely, "Is unforgiveness the same as bitterness?"

I do not think it is. In the above passage, Jesus seems to imply that one's forgiveness is contingent upon the offender's repentance. "If he repents, forgive him." If someone repents, and turns again and repents of his sin, you must forgive him. If, on the other hand, someone does not turn and repent, Jesus seems to say that we are right in witholding forgiveness. This leads us to a few questions.

First, can one withold forgiveness and not be bitter? Bitterness is repeatedly condemned as sinful in the Bible. "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander, along with all malice, be put away from you" (Ephesians 4:29). Never are we biblically justified to be bitter towards another individual, regardless of the wrong committed to us. To my question, I answer in the affirmative--it is possible to withold forgiveness and not be bitter, for if Jesus, in Luke 17, says that we should only forgive if the offender repents, this must mean that we are not sinning. Never would Jesus allow us to withold forgiveness if that was sin, and bitterness is ALWAYS a sin.

The next questions I will answer are as follows: "What about Jesus and Stephen?" "What should our attitudes be while we are witholding forgiveness?" "If unforgiveness and bitterness are not the same, yet if you are saying that we are never justified to be bitter, how is your framework different than what most Christians have today?"

I'll get to these as soon as I have time.

The Conditionality of Forgiveness - Part 1

Is unforgiveness the same as bitterness?

To most people, this question would seem silly. "Of course it is!" they'd quip. "When someone has withheld forgiveness from an offender, aren't they always consumed with bitterness?" they would reason. It seems like a legitimate plea, does it not?

Separating bitterness from unforgiveness seems unfair and unreasonable, but in these upcoming series of posts, allow me to make a case for how we are to biblically think about forgiveness.

Due to lack of time, this first post will be brief. Allow me to think about this topic more keenly by quoting this explicit and very relevant text from Luke 17, then on later days, I will expound what it means.


Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in a day, and turns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive him. Luke 17:3-4

Mull over Jesus' words, and stay tuned.

Merry Christmas

Ponder again the blessings and the wonderful grace God gave to mankind in sending his Son. Have a wonderful holiday season. May our hunger for him and his glory be made strengthened in the upcoming year!

Merry Christmas!

Indwelling Sin

Over my Christmas break, I have begun to dive headlong into my reading, finishing up about five books I started in the fall. While reading these books, I am once again reminded at the wealth of wisdom past saints still hold for us, and how lamentable it is that we are often so ignorant we are of these gems. In his magnificent book, The Reformed Pastor, the seventeenth century Puritan Richard Baxter writes the following helpful comment on how to mortify (kill) sin:

To be much in provoking others to repentance and heavenly-mindedness may do much to excite them in ourselves. To cry down the sin of others, and engage them against it, and direct them to overcome it, will do much to shame us out of our own; and conscience will scarcely suffer us to live in that which we make so much ado to draw others from.

I doubt Baxter would have Christians be hypocrites. To condemn sin, while still living in it and not having a desire to be rid of it is a damnable sin. What Baxter speaks of here is that in our struggle with sin, Pastors should express a hatred for sin by not only self-watch, but also by pleading for their parishioners to repent. Calling others to repent will sharpen your perception of sin, and it should lead to a weakening of it in your own life.

Baxter also suggests that idleness and excessive solitude are pits that become a breeding ground for sin. He continues:

Even our constant employment for God, and busying our minds and tongues against sin, and for Christ and holiness, will do much to overcome our fleshly inclinations, both by direct mortification, and by diversion, leaving our fancies no room nor time for their employment. All the austerities of monks and hermits, who addict themselves to unprofitable solitude, and who think to save themselves by neglecting to show compassion to others, will not do near so much in the true work of mortification, as this fruitful diligence for Christ.