A Mirror of God’s Forgiveness

A Muddied Reflection

The question “Can we forgive the neighbor if he does not repent?” is of lively interest in the church today. Can we forgive the neighbor freely when he sins against us? Or must we not forgive the neighbor until he repents? The answer of scripture and the confessions is that we forgive our neighbor unconditionally, without his repentance. And while we ought to learn the truth about forgiving the neighbor and seeking out the repentance of an impenitent sinner, note that this question reeks of the quagmire of the Protestant Reformed Churches. The question attempts to merge two issues into one question: First, how do we forgive the neighbor, and second, what if my neighbor does not repent?

At least three Protestant Reformed professors teach that we cannot forgive the neighbor until he repents. These professors recognize the connection between God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of the neighbor. It is clear that the professors understand that the way we treat others is the way that God treats us, and vice versa. It is also clear that these professors have corrupted the doctrine of justification by faith alone. This issue then touches on the heart of the gospel. Corrupt the truth of the forgiveness of God toward us, and you corrupt the truth of our forgiveness of the neighbor. Corrupt the doctrine of the forgiveness of the neighbor, and necessarily implied is a rejection of the gospel itself.

In a public letter in which he taught his doctrine of the relationship of the sinner’s repentance and God’s forgiveness—which is that the repentance of the sinner precedes God’s forgiveness of the sinner—Prof. David Engelsma also taught his view of the forgiveness of the neighbor:

I call on AL [Rev. Andy Lanning] to acknowledge his fault of accusing me of not knowing what I am talking about when I propose that repentance precedes remission, that is, of being a theological ignoramus.

More seriously, I call on him to repent of his sin of charging me with the heresy of conditional salvation. If he repents, I will gladly forgive him. Not until. “If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him: and if he repent, forgive him” (Luke 17:3). Such is my Lord’s order of repentance and forgiveness.¹

Prof. Barry Gritters taught the same in his confusing lecture about forgiveness:

God’s forgiveness of us: declaration, after repentance, aims at reconciliation, and maybe with leftover consequences. Our forgiveness is declaration that comes after confession and not before. That is very easy now to understand. The child of God declares forgiveness only to those who are sorry and confess their sins. It’s wrong to forgive someone who isn’t sorry. Just as with God’s ways, so with ours: repentance precedes forgiveness. That’s what Jesus said in Luke 17:3: “If your brother trespass against thee, rebuke him: and if he repent, forgive him.” There it’s clear the connection between God’s and ours.²

Also with respect to Luke 17:3, Prof. Ron Cammenga asked the question, “Why are we called to forgive our repentant brother?” His answer: “Because this is God’s way with us: when we repent, He forgives us.”³

Contending against Cammenga, Rev. Nathan Langerak explained,

Cammenga’s application is that God tells us to forgive the brother if he repents. So that must mean that God forgives us if we repent. Then the opposite also holds: if the brother does not repent, he remains unforgiven; and if we do not repent, we remain unforgiven of God.

Insightfully, Reverend Langerak added,

I find in this the excuse for the conditional love of the members of the Protestant Reformed Churches. Their practice follows their doctrine. And they treat each other with brutality, because after all, the brother did not repent.⁴

The Protestant Reformed doctrine of God’s conditional forgiveness follows all the way through to the denomination’s doctrine of the forgiveness of the neighbor. God forgives your sins in the way of repentance. You forgive your neighbor when he repents. In the meantime if you do not confess your sins, then God will not forgive you. So likewise, if a man does not repent, you do not forgive him. The Protestant Reformed Churches have soiled the beautiful picture of forgiveness that God has given us in his word. The doctrine of the Protestant Reformed Churches remains unforgiven. The doctrine of forgiveness in the Protestant Reformed Churches is take-the-neighbor-by-the-throat theology.

Matthew 18:21–22 is a parallel account of Luke 17:3–4. After Jesus answered Peter’s question of how often to forgive a brother who sinned against him—seventy times seven, or endlessly—Jesus immediately set forth the well-known parable of the unmerciful servant. In the parable a certain king took account of his servants, and one who had an immense debt was brought before the king. This servant’s debt was unpayable, thus the servant along with his wife, children, and all his belongings were to be sold in order to make payment for the debt. When the servant fell down in worship of the king and begged for time to pay his debt, the king had compassion on the servant and forgave the debt. Immediately the servant went out to his fellow servant who owed him a small debt—a pittance in comparison to what the first servant had owed to the king—and laid hands on his fellow servant and took him by the throat, demanding payment. The fellow servant also begged for patience, but the unmerciful servant took no heed and threw his fellow into prison. When the king heard about what had happened, he was very angry and said, “O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?” (Matt. 18:32–33). That is the theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches. Grab your neighbor by the throat and extract from him repentance in order that you may forgive him. And until he repents, he is unforgiven.

Standing at the root of the Protestant Reformed doctrine of forgiveness is damning pride. There is no evidence of the grace of God in the hearts of those who hold to this doctrine that God has forgiven them in the cross of Jesus Christ while they were yet sinners! The man who will not forgive the neighbor unless or until the neighbor repents is a mercenary, and all his relationships will be conditional. Does that man not know the words of Jesus that we forgive seventy times seven? Does the man think that means you forgive the neighbor seventy times seven only if he repents? That man does not know that he is the chief of sinners, and he is something in his own eyes, like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.

The Reformed Protestant doctrine of the forgiveness of the neighbor must be fitting to the majesty, glory, and grace of God in the salvation of sinners. Whatever our life together in the body is, it must be a clear reflection and mirror of our God. The position of the undersigned is the petition of the Lord’s prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matt. 6:12, emphasis added). God freely forgives our sins, and we freely forgive our neighbor who sins against us. Forgiveness of the neighbor is love for the neighbor, and because we love him and forgive him, we seek out his eternal good and desire his repentance. At the end of it, the question “Can we forgive our neighbor if he does not repent?” falls entirely out of view. The neighbor’s sin and his repentance do not have anything to do with my puny, insignificant forgiveness but have everything to do with God and his glory. And if there is a sinner who will not confess that he is a sinner, the word to him is “repent,” not because I need to be able to forgive him, but because his sin is an affront to the most high majesty of God.

God’s Forgiveness of Us

All our theology must be decretal, God-first theology. All things are of God, through God, and to God. The truth of the forgiveness of the neighbor cannot be sought by beginning in man. And so we must begin with the truth about God.

The fifth petition of the Lord’s prayer implores, “Forgive us our debts.” This is a petition for justification. Justification is the act of the triune God to impute to the ungodly sinner the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, acquitting the sinner of all guilt and punishment on the ground of Christ’s merits and giving the sinner the right to eternal life. God justifies the ungodly sinner (Rom. 4:5). God does not forgive the repentant sinner. God does not forgive the good or obedient person. God justifies the ungodly. To be forgiven means that God does not hold our sins against us. To be forgiven means that God does not impute to us poor sinners our transgressions. God forgives our sins because he loves us.

7. Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

8. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

9. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

10. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. (1 John 4:7–11)

God’s attitude toward us eternally has been one of undeserved favor and love. God forgave our sins in eternity in the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world (1 Pet. 1:19–20; Rev. 13:8). God forgave our sins at the cross of Jesus Christ (Heb. 10:12). Forgiveness of sins is by faith alone (Lord’s Day 7, Belgic Confession 23). Remission of sins becomes ours “when we believe in him,” that is, when the Holy Spirit works in us true faith by the preaching of the gospel (Belgic Confession 23, in Confessions and Church Order, 51). The preaching of the gospel is God’s coming to tell his elect child what is real in his eternal decree: “I really forgave you at the cross of Jesus Christ. I really see no sin in you because you are in Christ.”

We must have the knowledge and confidence of faith in our hearts and lives that our sins are forgiven if we are ever to approach God in prayer or to live boldly by faith. Faith is not partially assured but fully assured of the forgiveness of sins. For the forgiveness of sins, there are no prerequisites or conditions. There is no repentance necessary in order to obtain God’s forgiveness subjectively in our experience. This does not deny the truth that when we confess our sins, God “is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:9). The elect sinner, walking in God’s light, confesses that he is a sinner. With God there is always forgiveness when we ask in true faith (Lord’s Day 45). There always has been forgiveness, and there always will be forgiveness.

An outstanding passage on the free forgiveness of sins is the parable of the prodigal son, found in Luke 15:11–32. The son took his portion of his father’s wealth and pilfered it in riotous living. After the son had spent all his father’s money, a famine came, and the son found himself in the gutter, where the pigs had better food than him. We read in verses 18 and 19 that he said in his heart, “I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee.” And as he went to see his father, his father saw his son afar off. The believer could almost weep at the beauty of this stirring scene. “But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him” (v. 20). The father had already forgiven his son before his son uttered one syllable of repentance. The father never held that sin against his son. The father did not impute that sin to his son. He loved his son and desired his salvation.

As elect children of God, we are the prodigal son. We have spent all our Father’s wealth. We did that in Adam and by all our actual sins. And God forgave them. Before we ever uttered one syllable of repentance to him, God forgave our sins. The glorious gospel of the parable is the free forgiveness of sins without repentance. To be sure, in the following verses, the son confessed his sins to his father. The son confessed his nothingness and emptiness. “I am not worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired servants.” But instead the father set his son up high. The father gave the best robe to his son, put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. The father killed the fatted calf, and there was music and gladness and merriment. Such is the grand picture of our salvation in a parable of the kingdom.

A Reflection of God’s Forgiveness

Since we are dealing with forgiving the neighbor, we ought to establish what scripture and the Heidelberg Catechism mean when they say “neighbor.” Who is the neighbor? The neighbor is not the man or woman living in a third world country. The neighbor is not the homeless man on the streets of the city. The neighbor is one with whom I come into contact and who takes of my time and energy. She is the woman in the grocery aisle who is rude and inconsiderate. He is the man driving on the road who cuts me off. My neighbor is the Protestant Reformed man or woman who ridicules and persecutes me. My neighbor might be one who despitefully uses me and speaks ill of me and wishes my destruction. My neighbor might be my worst enemy for the gospel’s sake. My neighbor includes my children, my spouse, and all of my earthly relationships. Certainly then too my neighbor is the brother with whom I live in the church.

The calling of the child of God toward the neighbor is to love the neighbor for God’s sake. This is the summary of the law that Jesus gave in Matthew 22:37–39: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind…Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” We must love our neighbor. And the tenth commandment, always putting its finger on our hearts, shows us how much murder and hatred is in our hearts toward the neighbor. We do not love the neighbor as ourselves. The problem is our murderous, pride-filled, God-hating, and neighbor-hating flesh. We desire to kill our neighbor, curse his name, steal his goods, lie, defile our bodies with him or her, and covet his earthly estate. Thus we have the need for a savior who loved God and the neighbor in our stead and kept the law perfectly, whose obedience is counted as ours. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us by faith alone without repentance, and as a spontaneous twin benefit, God gives us a new life of repentance and love toward God and the neighbor. We have the delight of the law written on our hearts. Out of our new hearts, we love the neighbor for God’s sake. We love God and the neighbor as the manifestation and evidence of the forgiveness of our sins.

The main point of the account of Simon and the adulteress woman in Luke 7:36–50 is to demonstrate that the forgiveness of our sins by God manifests itself in our love for him and for the neighbor. What Jesus Christ established in this passage is that forgiveness and love are intimately connected.

There was Simon, a Pharisee, who had invited Jesus to his banquet only to expose to his friends that Jesus was a fraud. Simon treated Jesus with disdain as his guest: Simon did not give water to Jesus for his feet; Simon did not greet Jesus with a kiss; Simon did not anoint Jesus’ head with oil.

Simon is contrasted with an adulteress woman who appeared on the scene, who, weeping at Jesus’ feet in sorrow for her sins, washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiped his feet with her hair, and anointed his feet with ointment. Watching this, Simon thought in contempt that if Jesus were a prophet, he would have known what kind of sinful and disgusting woman was touching him. So Jesus told Simon a parable about a creditor who had two debtors: One owed five hundred pence, the other fifty. When neither could pay, the creditor simply forgave them both. 

In his own eyes Simon had only a little debt. He kept the law, and his sins were minor and insignificant. He loved little, and that was seen by his treatment of Jesus.

Contrasted with this was the adulteress woman whose debt was massive. She was troubled by all her sins and saw them as they really were before the sight of God. She had fallen down and began to weep uncontrollably and wash and kiss Jesus’ feet. And Jesus made the point that to whom much is forgiven, the same loves much, and to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little. That we have been forgiven is manifested in love for God and love for the neighbor. Someone who will not forgive has little love.⁵

Belonging to the love of the neighbor is forgiving him as he sins against you. You must love him, and loving him means forgiving his sins freely without his prerequisite repentance. To forgive the neighbor who sins against you means that you do not impute that sin to him. It means that you do not hold that sin against him.

In the next part of the petition we pray to be forgiven, “as we forgive our debtors”; that is, as we spare and pardon all by whom we are in any way offended, either in deed by unjust, or in word by contumelious treatment. Not that we can forgive the guilt of a fault or offense; this belongs to God only; but we can forgive to this extent: we can voluntarily divest our minds of wrath, hatred, and revenge, and efface the remembrance of injuries by a voluntary oblivion.⁶

You do not account or reckon that sin to the neighbor. You do not bear a grudge against him. You do not desire revenge, which is accounted by the law as murder. If you do not forgive the neighbor, that means that you impute the neighbor’s sin to him. You hold his sin against him. You take what belongs only to God and take matters into your own hands. “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Rom. 12:19). Ultimately, to not forgive the neighbor—the neighbor whom you are called to love and whose salvation you desire—means that you hate him and desire his damnation. You are going to take vengeance upon him in wrath. That is what it means not to forgive someone. The struggle for us as Christians is that it is our nature to take vengeance. One’s nature is to hate that the neighbor sinned against me.

In our dealings with the neighbor, our forgiveness of the neighbor ought to be a mirror and reflection of God’s forgiveness of us. Such is the importance of the word “as” in the fifth petition. We do not forgive our neighbor in order to be forgiven of God or in order to experience God’s forgiveness of sins. God does not forgive our sins in the way of our forgiving the neighbor. But the “as” points us to God. When we pray the fifth petition, we are very really asking God to deal with us in the same way that we deal with the neighbor. Calvin wrote,

Wherefore, we are not to ask the forgiveness of our sins from God, unless we forgive the offenses of all who are or have been injurious to us. If we retain any hatred in our minds, if we meditate revenge, and devise the means of hurting; no, if we do not return to a good understanding with our enemies, perform every kind of friendly office, and endeavor to effect a reconciliation with them, we by this petition beseech God not to grant us forgiveness. For we ask him to do to us as we do to others. This is the same as asking him not to do unless we do also.⁷

Since God has forgiven our debts freely, so we, having this evidence of God’s grace in our hearts, have a “firm resolution from the heart to forgive our neighbor” (Lord’s Day 51, in Confessions and Church Order, 139). Do not take that “firm resolution” as “ready to” forgive my neighbor when he repents. Then forgiveness is made to be just a possibility and not a reality.

In the Protestant Reformed Churches, the appeal is made to Psalm 86:5, that God is “ready to forgive,” but you must repent first. But Psalm 86:5 teaches the truth that God is good and forgiving. That is who he is as the only good God and the overflowing fountain of all good.

The firm resolution that Lord’s Day 51 speaks of is an ongoing reality in the life of the child of God. I have in my heart the attitude and conviction that whenever the neighbor inevitably sins against me, I will forgive him. The attitude of the child of God is not that when a man sins against me, I am going to hold that sin against him until he repents. My attitude is that I am willing and ready with a firm resolution to forgive my neighbor anytime he sins against me. And any sins that have been committed against me, I have already forgiven. The firm resolution is always there. The firm resolution is constant. I live every day as a forgiven sinner. I live every day as the chief of sinners. I live every day as a sinner who has had his massive debt forgiven by God. Shall I then go and shake down my neighbor for his sin against me?

So, can you forgive the neighbor if he does not repent? If we answer in the negative and rephrase the question as a statement, it becomes this: I am not going to forgive my neighbor if he does not repent. I am not going to forgive my neighbor until he repents. Then my relationship with my neighbor—yes, even my closest neighbors, my spouse and my children—becomes conditional, brutal, and mercenary-like. In essence you impute to your neighbor his sin and call God’s damnation upon him. You hold his sin against him and hold a grudge against him. With this theology the neighbor is unforgiven in your eyes, and only when he confesses is he forgiven.

Practically, there are many faults and sins between members of the body of Christ that go unconfessed. If the child of God is honest, how many times does a neighbor actually come and repent of his sin that he has committed? We may not make a distinction here between big sins and little sins, between grievous sins and so-called routine sins. Many of them are not repented of to one another. Repentance and forgiveness are not a one-for-one exchange. It is not one repentance for one forgiveness. It cannot be because that is not forgiveness in God! When God converts me, my whole life is characterized by repentance. Daily I turn from my sins. But how many of my sins go unconfessed with God? When is my repentance good enough to have forgiveness? If I deal with my neighbor on a one-repentance-for-one-forgiveness basis, I am saying that is how God deals with me. The force of the “as” in the Lord’s prayer is nothing less than that. You had better not pray that petition if you do not forgive the neighbor until he repents.

The Christian’s forgiving the neighbor is otherworldly in the sense that the Christian does not hold those sins against the neighbor, regardless of whether he repents or not. When the unbelieving man’s name, reputation, and honor are sullied, he does not forget what his neighbor did to him. He does not forgive, and he cannot forgive because he himself does not know the grace of God’s free forgiveness. When an unbelieving man is harmed by the neighbor, he holds that sin against the neighbor and bears a grudge against him. He never lets him forget it. Even if the neighbor says sorry, the man always is ready to bring that sin back up again. The world’s forgiveness is always selfish and self-serving. The world and the false church are transactional in their forgiveness and do not see the reflection of the gospel in the forgiving of the neighbor. But the man who has tasted the grace of God’s forgiveness has a firm resolution from the heart to forgive the neighbor.

Calvin succinctly commented,

If a man shall do me an injury, and I, laying aside the desire of revenge, do not cease to love him, but even repay kindness in place of injury, though I entertain an unfavourable opinion of him, as he deserves, still I am said to forgive him. For when God commands us to wish well to our enemies, He does not therefore demand that we approve in them what He condemns, but only desires that our minds shall be purified from all hatred. In this kind of pardon, so far are we from having any right to wait till he who has offended shall return of his own accord to be reconciled to us, that we ought to love those who deliberately provoke us, who spurn reconciliation, and add to the load of former offences.⁸

Freely forgive the neighbor of his sins against you. That is how God deals with his people. This should not even be a question. It is tiring to tromp through the Protestant Reformed mud and weeds of man. My forgiveness of the neighbor is puny and insignificant. My forgiveness of the neighbor does not really have anything to do with the neighbor himself. My forgiveness of the neighbor has to do with my thankful obedience to God for his forgiving me of all my sins. What matters is God and God’s glory. And if my neighbor continues in sin, out of love for God and his glory and out of love for the neighbor, as I have opportunity and certainly if he is a brother, I seek out the neighbor that he might repent and not continue in his sin.

Seeking Out the Neighbor

The very fact that we have already forgiven the neighbor demands that we seek out the neighbor’s repentance. Is that not how God saves us? God’s eternal will is that his people be declared righteous. When he took you and joined you to the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, you were declared righteous. God wills that our sins are forgiven, and God wills that we do not continue in our sins. For God to even seek us out, our sins must already be forgiven. That he forgave our sins in love is the foundation and ground of his seeking us out. God seeks us out and converts us and gives us a hatred for sin and love for himself. That conversion is the daily life of repentance. The lives of believers are characterized by repentance. As such, they do not remain impenitent in their sins. Yet God’s forgiveness of us does not wait until we have repented. He seeks us out by the gospel. He does that by the very living voice of Jesus Christ. We must know that we are ungodly sinners who have sinned against the most high majesty of God. And God comes to us in the gospel to tell us that we are sinners and that we are sinners saved wholly by grace.

If a brother sins against us, we do not sit back with a spirit of pride, but in the spirit of humility and love out of the regenerated heart, we go and seek him out to bring him to repentance. Only out of the regenerated heart, the principle of the new life of Christ, can we truly seek the brother’s repentance, eternal good, and salvation. We have already forgiven the brother in our hearts before we go to him. As God forgives us freely and God seeks us out, so we mirror that with the sinning brother.

And when you go to seek out the brother’s repentance, it is not to extract a confession in order that you may forgive him. The whole idea of first this and then that is a distinctly Protestant Reformed idea. This idea has already been sufficiently beaten back on the pages of Sword and Shield.

Now, in that way you forgive too [freely, without repentance, as God forgives]. You seek the sinner’s repentance not so that you can forgive him. It is not about you. Seeking a sinner’s repentance is about the sinner. He will not admit that he is a sinner, and in that he shows that he is deceived and under the power of the lie. You seek to show him that he is a sinner. In a sense you have already forgiven him. When you seek his repentance, it is because you know that God already has forgiven all his people’s sins and that he justified the ungodly. If this man is a child of God, his sin has been blotted out. But he will not admit that he is a sinner. And as a sinner yourself, you seek to show him that he is a sinner.

And it is precisely this gospel that you bring to the sinner when you forgive him. It is not your forgiveness that matters. It is God’s forgiveness that matters.⁹

That is how the believer deals with his brother who has sinned. As far as I am concerned, I have forgiven that sin as it is against me. But who cares about me, what I think, my feelings, my reputation, and my honor? Who cares about me! I am going to tell you about God. It is not about my hurt but God’s honor and glory. There is a sinner who will not confess that he is a sinner. He is in a bad way, and because I love him and have not imputed his sin to him but desire his salvation, I go and seek him out. The goal and purpose of confronting an impenitent sinner is not to extract a confession from the sinner so that you can forgive him. The goal and purpose is that a sinner needs to confess before God that he is a sinner, which he presently will not do.

Having said that, when a neighbor is walking in sin, we do not wink at that sin. We are not going to pretend that he did not commit that sin. We must not ignore that sin or connive at that sin.

17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him.

18. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord. (Lev. 19:17–18)

We rebuke that neighbor. We do not suffer his sin. If a brute husband is beating his wife, he may not tell his wife that because she ought to forgive him seventy times seven, that he may beat her and then say sorry and then beat her again. Neither may a consistory demand that a wife return to a husband who continues to murder her because she is supposed to forgive him. The church may not tell that wife that because she is called to love and forgive her husband as her neighbor that the sin does not need to be dealt with. Free forgiveness may not be wielded as a cudgel in order to silence that abused wife. The problem is not with the doctrine of free forgiveness, but the problem is with the profane man who abuses the doctrine, much like the antinomian who trumpets grace and lives like the devil.

Fruit of Faith

While I do not hold my brother’s sin against him, I desire to see the fruit and manifestation of God’s forgiveness in him. Repentance is necessary to that end. Repentance must stay in its proper place as a fruit of true faith. The evidence of God’s forgiveness of a sinner would be that he confesses his sin. I desire to see that in my brother, but now I only see him hardened in his sin and unbelief. I forgive him, but I cannot and may not pronounce upon him the forgiveness of God. The believer is a judge and judges all things. He judges that this man is sinning according to the law of God. The sinner is walking after the flesh and not after the Spirit. There is no evidence of the grace of forgiveness in his heart.

When that brother repents and you see that evidence of God’s grace, you bring him the comfort of the gospel. In 2 Corinthians 2:7, evidently the man in Corinth who had been having sex with his father’s wife did repent. The man was absolutely broken by his sin. It was clear that he knew that he had sinned against God; God by his grace had worked repentance in that man’s heart. A sinner confessing that he is a sinner before the face of God is so glorious a sight that the angels rejoice in heaven! And Paul’s charge to the congregation at Corinth was this: “Don’t let the man be swallowed up in his sorrow. Comfort him!” Seeing the evidence of God’s grace in his heart, comfort the sinner with the only comfort there is, the glorious gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ. Tell him of God’s work of grace and the cross. Not “Brother, I forgive you,” but “God forgives you. God already forgave you. He forgave you in eternity. He forgave you in the cross of his only begotten Son.” The issue is with God, not with me. I want the sinner to know that God forgives him.

This doctrine of forgiveness is absolutely liberating. It flows directly out of the reformation that God has worked in the Reformed Protestant Churches. God forgives my sins freely and unconditionally and without prerequisite repentance, and I reflect that forgiveness in my forgiveness of the neighbor. Because I love and forgive the neighbor, if he continues in sin, I seek out his repentance as God gives me opportunity. I desire to see the evidence of God’s grace in his life. Understanding all this, the question “Can I forgive my neighbor if he does not repent?” really falls away. It is a bad question. It is a question that carries with it one hundred years of Protestant Reformed baggage. In the end forgiveness and repentance are not about me at all; they are about God and his glory.

Due to space and time constraints, I conclude here for now. I intend to write more on this topic next time, the Lord willing.