Later on, those very people who had put Christ was put to death were addressed by the apostle Peter. He ended his words with:
Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. (Acts 2:36)*
They were “cut to the heart” (vs 37) and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Now that they had killed the Lord of glory, was it hopeless as far as they were concerned? Or is there anything they could do about it?
And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” (Acts 2:38)
This is when Jesus’ prayer to the Father for their forgiveness was answered.
The apostle Peter didn’t see it that way. When he said to the Jews who were cut to the heart and asked, “Brothers what shall we do?” Peter replied:
*“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness [or “forsaking”] of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” *
Who, do you suppose, were “all who are far off”? I suggest Peter refers to those who are far off in time—even to us in 2017! EVERYONE whom the Lord our God calls to Himself!
As far as the freedom in Christ is concerned, what greater freedom exists than to be delivered from sin, and have the spirit of God within you? Just trusting that Christ has covered up your sins, so that you are positionally righteous before Him and can escape God’s judgment, is self-deception.
That same Peter wrote:
Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. (1 Peter 2:16)*
Steve wrote:
So he got up and went to his Father. But while the son was a long way off his Father saw him and was filled with compassion . He ran , threw his arms around his neck and kissed him" Luke 15.20
In this Parable of the Prodigal Son , the son’s Father (God) saw his son heading home but before anything was said the Father ran to meet & greet the son and threw his arms around his neck and kissed him!
So i see this as forgiveness & before the son said a word so there was not yet any repentance the Father’s behavior indicated something happening on the part of the Father, what would you call his reaction?
I’d call it LOVE!
You’re right it is love, but does love work mixed with unforgiveness?
Steve, first let me affirm that the prodigal son repented. That is, he had a change of heart and mind concerning his way of life, and in consequence of that change, he returned to his father’s house. He didn’t have utter the words “I repent” to his father, since his act of returning in itself demonstrated his repentance.
Secondly, I agree that the father’s loving act was forgiveness. For the loving relationship between the father and the son was restored—and that’s what forgiveness is. Also, the son showed remorse as well as humility in uttering the following words:
Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. (Luke 15:21 ESV)
Steve, first let me affirm that the prodigal son repented.
Paidion everyone agrees that repentance is ideal and deserves forgiveness and restoration of relationship. The issue is about unconditional forgiveness and did the Father exhibit it before the son repented and did Stephen show it as he was being stoned?
Paidion thinks repentance is necessary for forgiveness. And he brings forth certain verses to his position. It is no different than any court room drama. The point is, are you going to believe the lawyer that says that we need to do something to gain acceptance to the God YAWAH, or is what HIS son has already done sufficient to undo the gulf between man and God, for the YAWAH love is so great that HE knew we would never be able to get where HE wanted us, thus HIS SON came on our behalf.
We could exchange proof texts all day. You may not agree. So be it.
It’s not only ideal, but necessary in order to forgive, that is, restore a relationship with the offender.
There’s no such thing. You can let go of any ill feelings you may have toward the offender. You can love the offender and treat him well, do good for him and pray for him. But you can never have the same relationship with him that you had before he offended unless he repents.
He didn’t exhibit forgiveness before the son repented; he exhibited great concern for his son. When the son asked him for his share of the inheritance, he freely gave it to him. But that isn’t forgiveness. He didn’t seek out his son and fellowship with him in the kind of life his son lived. There was no restoration of relationship until the son had a change of heart and mind, and returned home.
No. Stephen didn’t exhibit forgiveness while he was being stoned. His relationship with his killers was not restored. Rather Stephen exhibited love and concern and prayer for his killers (as Jesus asked us to do toward our enemies). He desired their repentance, and so he prayed to the Father to forgive them, which the Father did — later, after they repented.
*For He will render to everyone according to his works.
To those who by perseverance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, He will give eternal life, but for those who are self-seeking and are not persuaded by the truth, but are persuaded by unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
Affliction and anguish for every person who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honour and well-being for every one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek, for God shows no partiality. (Romans 2:6-10)*
God’s Son, through his magnificent sacrifice on our behalf, is certainly sufficient in having made available to us God’s enabling grace to deliver us from sin (Titus 2). We can appropriate that enablement through faith. So the gulf between man and God is spanned when man is delivered from sin by the enabling grace of God, made available through Christ. Now please don’t ask me whether I believe man can live a perfect life here on earth. He can certainly move in that direction. Salvation from sin, is a life-long process, and the completion of that process will some day take place. For what God starts, He will finish.
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)
I think a blanket statement that “true forgiveness is dependent on repentence” is an overreach.
Example… Jesus forgave them as He was crucified. The word He used was forgive. That is the biblical meaning of His request before the Father for those very unrepentant souls. He had forgiven them already. So forgiveness depends upon the giver of it and what if any terms He puts with it. Receiving that forgiveness may require repentence if one describes repentence as a change of view, a change of mind that would allow one to see that forgiveness.
So there are clearly two issues, 1)giving true forgiveness, which does not always require repentence. 2)receiving true forgiveness which often does require repentence, because that “change of mind” is necessary to see forgiveness in order to receive it, and see the offense for which one was forgiven.
There’s no such thing. You can let go of any ill feelings you may have toward the offender. You can love the offender and treat him well, do good for him and pray for him. But you can never have the same relationship with him that you had before he offended unless he repents.
Stephen asked the Lord Jesus to not hold their sin against them as they were stoning him, he then became a martyr and there was no restoration or creation of any relationship but he had forgiven his murderers.
You acknowledge you can let go of ill feelings and that you can love the offender but you think forgiveness/restoration are joined at the hip so this is where we disagree.
If you consider that Stephen’s asking Jesus not to hold the sin of his killers against them is “forgiveness”, then clearly Stephen forgave them.
And you correctly stated that there was no restoration of relationship with his murderers. Thus since I understand “forgiveness” as tantamount to “restoration of relationship,” it was impossible for Stephen to forgive them.
This whole discussion seems to be a matter of semantics.
This whole discussion seems to be a matter of semantics.
Paidion
Yes it is but sometimes semantics are important like in Mark 11.25 when Jesus says if we do not forgive then God will not forgive us. We can brush it off and think that Jesus really only meant repentant sinners or it’s not really literal or some other qualification but Jesus could have meant what the actual words convey.
To some extent it is semantical. I see reconciliation as mutual and including restoration of relationship. Everyone will be reconciled, and all will go through repentance to become reconciled.
I do not see forgiveness as being the same as restoration of relationship. Forgiveness is a gate opened which the forgiven one may or may not walk through, but when the gate is opened, the forgiveness is real and true on the part of the one who opens it. Just the fact that it is opened has an effect on those without(it draws/drags them to Christ crucified), but the full benefit of reconciliation is not afforded them until they walk through it.
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Rom 5:8 Forgiveness
21And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, 22yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach— 23**if indeed you continue **in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, Col 1 Reconciliation
Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them(forgiveness), and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 2 Cor 5
I see it as if we are declaring this universal forgiveness, and leading the forgiven(those who follow) through the gates into reconciliation
Thank you for making clear in the above statement, what you mean by “forgiveness.” If someone has done you harm and you don’t hold it against them, then you have forgiven them. Would that be something like, “You don’t demand restitution”?
I think your understanding of forgiveness is quite prevalent. And it applies to “forgiving a loan.” If someone has borrowed money from you and is unable to repay you, and you “forgive” the loan, you don’t require him to repay it.
Unfortunately, when you forgive in this sense, where there is no repentance, it sometimes sends the message to the offender that what he did was okay.
I think that is a narrow definition based on the example I gave- which is Christ on the cross, but I am not disputing that repentance is necessary for reconciliation and restoration. I am saying God’s forgiveness was wide and deep before the foundation of the world, manifest in the Logos, who is the Lamb slain, and already given before creation. Forgiveness clearly “does not count trespasses against” the transgressor, setting such a one free, once they avail themselves of it- not by “paying for it with repentance”, but by becoming aware of them selves before the greater love of a forgiving God, which causes a change within, a change in which repentance is only one element, along with faith and revelation.
It is ok that forgiveness is given before repentance. This is what disarms the principalities and powers, destroying the elementary principles of the world, and draws men to Christ crucified. Nothing by any means can “let anyone off” because the only way out is the revelation of the love of God in Jesus Christ(imo that is the fire of His presence, overwhelming perfect love).
“For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him might not perish”
The forgiveness was implicit in the sending and the sacrifice. The deliverance comes when one believes, which, imo, includes repentance.
It is the wisdom that none of the rulers of this world did not understand, or else they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
I dont see how anyone can minimize the intrinsic value in the words “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”, breathed out in the midst the greatest act in all of time and consciouness- as a manifestation of the heart of God, “For He is the radiance of the Father’s glory and the exact representaion of His nature”. Forgiveness given to the perpetrators in the midst of the act, before repentance, which will eventually come to all with the revelation of Christ crucified, so that all will be reconciled and restored.
If someone desires to emulate that forgiveness, and not “count transgressions” against someone, it does not mean they do not speak the truth in love to that person, or are just releasing them from a loan. It is love, if it is true and not just religiosity, and it will have power in that persons life- even if it is not presently received. The forgiveness itself IS the power that brings repentance, which is why(imo) Paul says, “I am determined to kno nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified” and also why Jesus said, “If I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all men unto me”.
When God’s agape love is made real to a person, it just seems to dissolve so many pre-existent ideas about retributive justice, fear, and self-righteousness. It can lay us low even more than a threat of punishment; not in fear, but with the un-raveling of a lifetime’s defenses and sins and false hope.Those things fall away, leaving us exposed.
Seeing ourselves as we are, and yet as unconditionally loved by the God who is Agape - even if we’d never heard the term ‘repent’, we do it anyway. With gladness
If it is a narrow definition of forgiveness, please provide a broader one. I read your last post above, and I still have been unable find from your words a clear definition of forgiveness as you understand it.
Dave, I agree with your post above. But how does it relate to the meaning of true forgiveness? Are you saying that unconditional love is tantamount to forgiveness?
