The breviary texts for today did not inspire any great need for comment in me, so I will rather elect for today to talk about something I learned in Bible study after attending the Divine Service today.
It is commonly taught, and I have said in the past, both publicly and in private counsel, that forgiveness is not dependent upon the other person’s penitence. I recall times that I have I have knelt down before God at the end of the day, speaking to Him my forgiveness of those who have wronged me, whether they be penitent or not. Usually, they are not. People don’t acknowledge their errors; they don’t apologize for things they’ve done. I think that is the reason why it’s so easy to hold a grudge, and, conversely, why it’s so easy to fall into a really antinomian understanding of forgiveness. The main reason I adopted this view is an overreaction to the Lord’s teaching in Matthew 6: “If you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”1 My continuing tendency is to take this passage very literally, as I am so instructed by the parable of the unforgiving servant. In a somewhat scrupulous sense, I came to be concerned that if I failed to forgive even one person, I was necessarily outside of the faith; therefore I offered a blank check of forgiveness to everyone, and taught others to do the same.
This misunderstands how forgiveness works. Lutherans faithfully confess that “attrition,” that is, coming to God with an expression of, “well, I wish I was sorry because I am afraid of Hell,” profits nothing. Why? Well, because attrition is not really contrition, not really penitence. The Lord delights in a contrite heart, not an attrite one. The Lord gives His forgiveness to the penitent, those who truly repent from the heart for their sins. The Church, also, expresses this model of forgiveness, through sacramental Absolution. One may not tell the pastor, “ahh, well, Reverend, to be honest, I don’t really regret it, and I want to do it again,” and expect to receive forgiveness. Nay, rather, as the Small Catechism teaches, one of the responsibilities of the Office of the Keys is “to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.”2 The one who does not repent is admonished again and again, and ultimately is cast out of the congregation, recognized as an unbeliever.
Why, then, should we be any different? Why should we forgive those who wrong us but are not penitent, and there has been no reconciliation? Here’s a more poignant question: can we, even? That forgiveness can only be received by the penitent is tautological. Jesus prayed, forgive them Father, for they know not what they do: but not in such a manner that these men should be forgiven without repentance. St. Stephan prayed, Lord, do not hold this sin against them, but not in such a way that they should escape their rightful judgement for sins. This is the right mindset. When we pray for others, we pray, Lord, grant them repentance. Do I have so much love in my heart that I hope an unrepentant person enters Heaven? Of course not. It is important to never pretend to be more loving or forgiving than God. God is utterly unwilling to accept the unrepentant, utterly unwilling to admit even a single impenitent sinner into Heaven. All who reject Him, He will surely reject.
What, then, does that leave us with? Holding grudges? God forbid. There is no place for a grudge, or for a desire for vengeance, in Christian ethics. What, then, can we do, to those who wrong us, and are unwilling to reconcile? Firstly, we are to always be ready to forgive them. We are to constantly offer forgiveness, just as God constantly offers forgiveness to all of those outside the Church, albeit conditionally. Secondly, we are to let go of the anger, grudge, and desire for personal vindication we might have. This does not mean that those who do wrong should not be punished, even if that wrong is against you. If you refuse to report a man who assaults you to the police, you are failing to love your neighbor by helping a dangerous man be removed from the public. It does mean that where there is wrong, you do not desire that the person who wronged you goes to Hell, but rather, like God, earnestly desire their salvation. You should desire reconciliation, rather than revenge. You should be soberly aware of how they have incurred the Father’s wrath by their misdeeds against one of His children, one of His chosen race. Allow God’s promise to take vengeance upon them, should they refuse to repent, to cool the fires of your own wrath, and then, like St. Stephen, earnestly desire and pray better for them.
Excursus: Commentary on Holy Saturday: The Differences between the Protestant and Radical Religions; regarding forgiveness.
the essence of Christian forgiveness is to effectually loose judgement for the offending party, which cannot be done without Faith. Whenever a person sins against another, there are (at least) two offended parties: the victim, and God. God promises to take revenge on all evildoers, and to reward all according to their Works, and also to vindicate all victims of injustice. When a Christian forgives, they do so in the mode of Stephen the Martyr, who in his dying breaths cried out “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” It is a letting go of any desire for satisfaction—not to the end that God should not do justice (for God remains sorely offended at the sin, as He was offended at the murder of Stephen the Martyr, and will take vengeance on His own account for that sin), but to the end that the judgement of the wicked should not be made worse on account of the one who forgives.
This is not altogether wrong, although I had a wrong understanding of forgiveness at the time of my writing this. The error is that I assumed that St. Stephen’s forgiveness of his murderers was effectual for them even without their repentance. That is, I argued under the premise that when forgiving a person, you lessen their punishment in Hell, should they end up there. I still believe this, but only with respect to those who have repented, at least to the misdeed for which they were forgiven. If one of those who martyred St. Stephen later came to repent of his part in the murder, but ultimately died estranged from God, God would still judge him as a sinner insofar as he had offended God by the act, but God would not judge him for the particular aspect of the sin whereby he offended St. Stephen and was forgiven by St. Stephen. This is only just; should not those who are unrepentant for all of their misdeeds in life suffer worse torments than those who are genuinely penitent for some, or even many, of them, even if they be unbelievers?
It is like when the victim of a crime appears before the court and publicly forgives the criminal, not that he may go free (for such would be unjust), but that his internal torment and guilt may be lessened. This is the meaning of what the Lord Jesus Christ said, “if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
From the above, it should be evident that this is only effectual if the criminal is genuinely sorry for his sin against the victim. Though, of course, the mere offer of forgiveness to the criminal may be sufficient to induce contrition in him, as God induces contrition in us by offering us forgiveness. It’s so hard to admit when I’ve screwed up when the person I’ve wronged treats me like an enemy. To be treated with love, like a friend, in spite of my wrong, induces in me guilt.
Lest anyone believe that the false, antinomian doctrine on this matter is harmless, allow me to show my ass and display how I have harmed others with only the best of intentions. Bad doctrine leads to evil counsel. When I was something of a new Christian, I once told a Christian friend of mine that she should be willing to forgive a man who abused and violated her sister, and was utterly unrepentant in all of it. You can criticize me with whatever term of abuse you’d like for this counsel, it was really dumb, insensitive, short-sighted, etc. etc.. all of that is true. My reasoning was simply that we should forgive everyone, no matter what, because if we fail to do so, we are not really Christians, and not really forgiven ourselves. With wonderful Christian counsel like this, it is a small wonder that my friend would later leave the faith, and only grow more flagrant in her apostasy as the years progressed. We no longer speak. Prideful and arrogant fool that I am, I had, until today, reckoned that she was already apart from God on that day, since she refused to forgive the man. Until today I had maintained my righteousness on that issue, believing that that was good advice and she rejected it because of a hardened heart. Lord have mercy.
Matthew 6:15