Thinking to Believe

I saw a car the other day with a bumper sticker that read “celebrate every color.” On the one hand, this is a fine message since it attempts to treat all people equally. However, I find the concept of “celebrating color” to be troubling. Why should we celebrate the color of our skin? Why don’t we celebrate every eye color? What about every hair color? Why just skin?

There are all sorts of external differences between humans, but we don’t tend to form identity groups based on those. We come in a variety of hair colors and eye colors but we don’t group people by such things. We don’t identify with others because they have the same eye color as us. We don’t have government reports that distinguish the crime statistics of blondes versus brunettes.

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I have long been concerned by the modern, therapeutic view of forgiveness. On this view, forgiveness is primarily about ridding oneself of anger toward those who have hurt us, and this can be done completely independent of the sinner. He does not need to repent, and he does not need to know we have forgiven him.

In the paper linked at the end of this post, I argue that Biblical forgiveness is about restoring relationships that have been fractured by sin (Mt 5:24; 18:15; 2 Cor 5:19), not ridding ourselves of anger toward those who hurt us. Forgiveness is an act whereby we release the offender from his moral debt against us and choose to treat him as if he had never sinned. If we are no longer angry at our offender, but have not reconciled the relationship, then we have not forgiven. If we reconcile the relationship, however, treating our offender as we did prior to their sin, then true forgiveness has been achieved – even if we still feel anger toward them. Feelings typically follow actions, so our feelings of anger will typically subside as we begin to treat our offender in a loving way.

Forgiveness is not something that can be done from afar, privately affirming our forgiveness to God in prayer. Forgiveness is something we grant directly to our offender, letting him know that we agree to restore the relationship. Of course, this requires that the offender seek to restore the relationship through repentance for his sin. Biblical forgiveness is not automatic or unconditional. We can only forgive those who have repented of their sin (Matthew 18:15-35; Luke 17:3-4). If they do not repent, they cannot be forgiven. We may release our anger against them, choose to love them, and determine to live peaceably with them, but the relationship cannot be restored to its pre-sin state until they repent.

Forgiveness – The Misunderstood Virtue