Because I define repent as totally turning from darkness to light, I can accept Samuel Lamerson's conclusion that "The unforgiving person is the unforgiven person." My difficulty is with the conclusion that forgiveness comes after repentance.
Jesus taught:
Mark 11:25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
In such a situation, when one is praying in private (as Jesus taught), it is absolutely clear we would be forgiving without repentance from the "forgiven" person.
I believe that God's forgiveness is extended to us before repentance, and we should extend our forgiveness to others before repentance; but if they do not repent, then they have not changed, and thus remain unforgiven.
Peace
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Yes, that is very well expressed. The passages on forgiveness are very difficult, because first it is so difficult for us to forgive, and secondly many of them seem to contradict each other.
Certainly the passages about Church discipline and removing admitted sinners who refuse to repent, even when confronted by the whole Church are clear! They have not repented and to then forgive them, and have them remain in the Church, would lead to many people "doing what is right in their own eyes."
Each person would be their own judge before God, and the Church would, in effect, have no authority from God to judge. We know that this is not true, according to the Bible. The Church is allowed to judge, and the only penalty they are allowed to enforce is disfellowshipping a member, and then turning that person over to Satan for the destruction of their flesh. The hope is that it will cause that person to repent.
Equally clear is the command to forgive someone who asks you for their forgiveness, even 7x70.
Yet now we are also commanded to forgive someone while we are praying to God, if we have something against them.
So let us say that the married man next door is committing adultery with another man's wife. The husband of that wife is enraged and embittered. He now hates his neighbor and is extremely angry at his wife. He is thinking terrible things, and wants to commit violence against one, or both of them.
Now he goes to pray and he remembers the words of Jesus in Mark 11-25 and 26. He now must forgive them for breaking the 6th commandment, because it has caused him to sin, through hating, and bitterness, and violent intentions. Their sin has caused him to sin, because we are all have a sin nature.
If he does not forgive them of adultery, how can God forgive him and listen to his prayers while he has intense hatred, that could possibly lead to murder, in his heart, while he is praying.
The man will then receive wisdom from God as to how to rebuke and convict his wife and neighbor to lead them to repentance. Or in this instance he is free to put her out and divorce her, biblically. He is not allowed to sin and remain bitter towards his wife, all the rest of the days of his life, and pray to God with unforgiveness and hatred towards others in his heart. { And we wonder, why God does not answer our prayers, and things don't change}
I tried to pick the most difficult circumstance that I could think of so that we both would realize how difficult forgiveness is, and how it is different within a Church and for an individual in prayer.
To sum it up, here is my point. You must forgive someone who has sinned against you and then you sinned against them in return. Otherwise you will not be forgiven by the Father. In no instance does that mean that their sin is forgiven before God, unless and until they repent of it, and the goal of every believer should be to continue to admonish a sinner until they repent, and then they can be forgiven before God and man.
We believers will be held accountable and will suffer loss for every sin that we hold on to until our death....... yet we will be saved, as through fire.
That is the way that I understand these passages, and I admit that I could be wrong, about the more difficult ones. Whenever justice and mercy clash, it is truly an "art" to resolve them in love, the Love of God.
