“Love For The Unrepentant”

Thursday, July 12, 2012

     Why is it that the body is divided over whether or not one should forgive someone even if they don't repent?  I shared an article entitled "No Remorse", and a brother's response was that "Jesus never commanded us to forgive others who aren't willing to repent. Stop telling people they should. Stop making yourself better than God." I even showed him Romans 12:14-21 as well as Luke 6:27-36. His response was that:

 "Nothing in that passage is about forgiveness and does not negate what Jesus said in Luke.  That was your passage, remember, but now you don't like it so much, do you, because it contradicts what you are trying to prove.  But it still says, ‘if they repent’.  You are confused on several levels: repentance, forgiveness, vengeance, and doing good all are different concepts… and should not be confused with each other!"

Is there anything I'm missing?  Am I wrong?  Is this a possible "letter of the law" thought on his part?  Help!  I need understanding!

Sincerely,
Forgive or Forget

Dear Forgive Or Forget,

Your friend is correct (although perhaps a bit rough in his delivery), and there are a couple of concepts you are getting confused with each other.  Forgiveness means that you no longer hold someone accountable for what they have done – you cancel the debt.  God is willing to do that for anyone, but He only does it for those who repent and return to Him (Acts 8:22).  We must do the same.  The teaching of Lk 17:3 states that we must forgive when someone repents.

However, even if someone doesn’t repent, we must still do good to them, and we must still show them love.  The Bible specifically says that in the verses you mentioned.  This, too, is exactly like what God does here on Earth.  God causes the rain to fall on both the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt 5:45).  God gives rain to the crops of evil farmers, too!

Furthermore, God warns us that we are not allowed to take revenge for the times when people mistreat us (Rom 12:19).  Vengeance is God’s job, not ours.  Just because someone isn’t repentant, that doesn’t give us the right to seek to cause them harm or take justice into our own hands.

So, to sum up, when a Christian is confronted with an unrepentant person, we aren’t expected to cancel the debt, but we are expected to treat them with love and respect and not to seek revenge.

A great example of this can be found in 1 Cor 5:1.  The apostle Paul rebuked the church at Corinth because there was a member in that congregation that was committing fornication with his father’s wife – definitely a sin.  The man knew it was wrong, accepted that it was wrong, and still continued to live that lifestyle… he was unrepentant.  Paul said the church needed to rebuke him and withdraw from him (1 Cor 5:13).  However, Paul also said that church discipline should be out of love (2 Thess 3:15) and that it should be done out of a desire to help, not to harm.  The church at Corinth did exactly that, and eventually, the man came back and repented.  When he did that, Paul commanded them to embrace him and forgive (2 Cor 2:6-8).  Kindness, love, and a vengeance-free attitude were shown at all times, but forgiveness was only shown when repentance occurred.

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