Is forgiveness unilateral? Must we – can we, even – forgive those who refuse to repent?
Our gut reaction – especially in a day when ‘unconditional love’ is such a popular notion – is probably that it is, we must, and we can (forgive the unrepentant, that is).
But God doesn’t do that. If we we imagine that we can be reconclied with God, regardless of repentance, then we have landed ourselves right in the middle of the heresy of universalism.…
A precis of this article by Michael Bird.
Here in the West, we live in a ‘diverse, secular, and pagan world’ which has a thin overlay of its past Christianity.
In such a world, ‘religious’ words, such as sin, repentance, faith, and redemption, convey meanings that are very different from those intended by Christians.
This is especially so with respect to the word ‘sin’:
A precis of chapter 10
A teenager likes loud music. Supposing he steals records, and is severely punished by his father; that would be judicial punishment. But supposing his penchant for loud music causes hearing loss; that would be organic punishment.
Divine punishment for sin is usually construed, in Scripture, as organic. The destructive consequences of sin are built into the sin itself.
Except where it depicts God as violent, the Bible always describes punishment of sin in terms of divine abandonment. …
I find that, in evangelical circles, sin is often mentioned, but rarely defined.
We are willing to ‘acknowledge that we are sinners’, and the affirm that ‘Jesus died for our sins’, but want quickly to move on to something that feels more positive, more upbeat. Is it that we don’t want to offend (ourselves or others)? Or perhaps that we don’t really feel the ‘exceeding sinfulness of sin’?
Randall Pelton notes a common definition of ‘sin’:
Sin is any lack of conformity to the character of God, whether by act, disposition, or state.…
In contrast to the modern tendency to glorify the self, Scripture urges us to beware of the many self-sins to which we are prone.
These include:
1. Self-righteousness or self-trust; as the great hindrance to the acceptance of God’s saviour and salvation (Rom 10:1-3).
2. Self-dependence or self-help. Even after conversion there is a constant tendency to rely upon our own efforts (Gal 2:20; Zech 4:6; Jn 15:4-6).
3. Self-seeking (Jer 45:5; 1 Cor 10:33).…
The Orthodox view is expressed in this note in The Orthodox Study Bible:
1. The guilt of sin. This is justification, ‘the very hinge and pillar of Christianity’, (Thomas Watson).
John Stott has said, ‘Nobody understands Christianity who does not understand…the word “justified”.’
Spurgeon tells the story of a man who was so constantly in debt and continually being arrested by the police, that once, when going by a fence, having caught his sleeve on one of the rails, he turned around and said, “I don’t owe you anything sir.”…
Various interpretations have been put forward:-
1. That the difference is between intentional and unintentional sins. …
Mt 12:31f “People will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 12:32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”
Mk 3:29 “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, but is guilty of an eternal sin”
Lk 12:10 “The person who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”…
On June 8, 1963, the Illustrated London News ran the following story about an exhibition at the Great Apes House at The Bronx Zoo in New York City. The exhibit told visitors:
“You are looking at the most dangerous animal in the world. It alone of all the animals that ever lived can exterminate (and has) entire species of animals. Now it has the power to wipe out all life on earth.”
As the visitors peered into the cage they realised that they were, in fact, looking into a mirror.…
