If He Repents

Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, I repent, you shall forgive him.  

Luke 17: 3-4 

What did Christ teach on the subject of forgiveness?  Our text is critical to our understanding of the subject. The parallel text to it, which lies in Matthew 18, is less detailed. That is a text upon which many have seized and use to pervert biblical forgiveness into an amnesty which places the responsibility for forgiveness upon the individual who was wronged without reference to the repentance of the one who has done the wrong. The real question is, does God forgive without repentance? The answer to that question is, no, He does not. He is always disposed to forgive. He is ready to forgive anyone who repents, as many times as they repent. Christ explains in our text how this translates into our own imitation of Him. If someone wrongs us 490 times in a day, and 490 times repents, we are to grant them forgiveness. This is that disposition to forgive that is most Christlike. What is not like Christ is to separate repentance from forgiveness and pervert it into an amnesty that denies the wronged individual the justice of the wrongdoer owning their wrong. If we are going to discuss forgiveness, we must discuss it in the terms of what Christ said and what the Scripture articulates upon the whole subject. 

Our Gracious God and our Father, 
we rejoice that You teach us Your ways. 
We praise You that in these last days, 
You have spoken to us by Your Son. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burner