Unconditional forgiveness is canceling a debt to all those who intentionally offend us, whether or not they own up to what they have done. Offering forgiveness without repentance, however, does not follow the biblical model of forgiveness (Luke 17:3,4).
I yelled aloud when I first read this. Someone else *does* get it. God forgives us when we repent -- why would he set an example and then expect us to do something entirely different? The logical answer is (and, for all Christianity's detractors, I contend Christianity is ultimately logical), He doesn't. In the same way God doesn't willy-nilly forgive us our sins, we're not expected to do the same for those who wrong us.
I find this particularly important when considering narcissists. Because a narcissist is never truly sorry they wronged someone, only sorry they were caught, forgiveness doesn't enter the picture. This is why, too, forgiveness *is* conditional on repentance. Repentance doesn't simply mean one verbalizes (or writes) an apology, it means the person agrees that the action was wrong with no qualifications or excuses, decides to rectify whatever they can, and then doesn't do it again.
Once I received a letter from a narcissist that said, roughly, "I've forgiven you for what you've done. Let's see if you can do the same." Beyond the fact that I have no idea what I did, and therefore can't repent of it, the other person doesn't doesn't offer an apology, and in fact, uses the issue of forgiveness to manipulate. When I think I've been too hard on this person, I go back and reread this letter. The letter, a representative example of communications with this person, helps me remember.
Forgiveness is a good thing. Without it, life would be a pointless exercise in physics, chemistry and biology. Forgiveness is also a valuable thing, much too valuable to be thrown around as a freebie. My forgiveness cost Jesus his life. His sacrifice on my behalf should serve as a reminder of just how precious forgiveness is.
2 comments:
I discovered this amazing truth some time ago also when trying to come to terms with christians who abuse and then turn around and say 'you should just forgive me'.
I read a parable (can't remember the reference) about the two servants who owed money, one to the king, the other to the first servant. The first servant asks for repentance, and receives it, the second asks for repentance and gets thrown into jail. The first servant is brought before the king again, and the king says to him 'you wicked servant, I forgave you BECAUSE YOU BEGGED ME TO', and then had him thrown into prison because his repentance wasn't real.
This says it all really, the King himself says that he only forgives because we repent and he expected the first servant to do the same to the other servant. Then because the first one who was forgiven didn't forgive the other servant he was punished.
It's a great parable, and the principle of IF he repents, THEN forgive him is repeated throughout scripture. I can't believe it has taken me 32 years to find this truth for myself, when no preacher or pastor EVER spoke on this at a pulpit and it is SO important.
So glad you found this too.
Kind thoughts,
Meg
Oh wow, isn't it so gosh darn generous for narcissists to "forgive" us? Except the word actually means "now forgot all the shit I've done to you so that I can continue abusing you." To narcissists, to be forgiven means to have permission to repeat the abuse.
My mom recently said she had "forgiven" her son-in-law and her daughter for basically not being total doormats to her.
This reminds me of stories from policemen that if A and B were beating eachother up and A reports that B had attacked him, then there is a very good chance that A was the one who started the fight in the first place and in fact had attacked B while B was defending himself.
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