Friday, 11 September 2009

• Forgiveness vs. Repentance: What Makes Us Holy And Pleasing To God?

  There are two mainstays in the Christian faith: forgiveness and repentance.

  Primarily we tend to focus on forgiveness. God forgives us, we forgive others(sometimes), others forgive us. It goes on and on, we are all familiar with the verses. Matthew 6:12.  Luke 6:37.  Luke 17:3,4

  With that comes the subject of repentance, which we mostly deal with using 1 John 1:9 mostly because it deals, once again, with God forgiving us. It seems to me however, that we are missing something. We say "We repent to God" but if we offend our brother we demand forgiveness with no repentance. We use the above verses to strongarm a placebo for our consciences. I submit we are missing a vital element here; repentance toward one another. there is no room for misinterpretation here. Scripture is very clear.

  Matthew 5:23-35  "23 Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. 24 First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. 25 Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. 26Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny." 

  I want to look at both parts of this. The first part is 23 and 24.

  23"Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.

  Do you catch that? Does it look familiar? Let's hit these questions separately.

  Do you catch that?

  God is placing the unity of believers AHEAD of worship. If we are going into worship, if we are giving our offerings and our hearts are not right with our brothers or sisters, we are to drop everything and get right, then, and only then are we to come back and resume our worship. Take special note here, it does NOT say, "if your brother owes you an apology." or "if you have something against your brother." the language is very clear, if YOU owe someone an apology, tend to that BEFORE you come to worship. "That's crazy talk" you say, "God's already forgiven me"(oooh we'll address this too) you say "no man can judge me or bar me from worship". Lets look at the second question.

  Does it look familiar?

  It should. God said something very similar hundreds of years before, something i believe ties directly in to this.

  Malachi 1:10 10 "Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you," says the LORD Almighty, "and I will accept no offering from your hands."

  The context of this verse is that people were offering crippled, lame, diseased, tainted offerings at the temple. Hear this: If our bodies are living sacrifices and if we come to offer our praises in spirit, then are we not offering crippled, diseased and tainted offerings when we do so under division amongst the brethren? According to God Himself, He would rather you not even bother, it's rather insulting(to Him) really.

  Let's go even further though, and look at the second part of that passage.

  25"Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. 26I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

  Jesus often used examples such as Judges/courts and prisons to represent God and judgement. In this example it seems clear that He is talking about two believers, therefore the judgement in question is not a matter of heaven or hell, but of reward. We know that believers will be judged and rewarded according to their works, and it seems here that none shall escape justice. That is to say the old argument "well, if I forgive them, they get away with it" rings false. It would seem here, that even if someone forgives me, if i do not make the effort of reconciliation, it is held to my account. While this may not end in damnation, it would most certainly end in diminished reward and position in the final Kingdom.(remember, some will be saved, but with nothing to show for it, as one escaping from a fire). How often do we allow our pride to cause us to pay this price because we feel the other person is "not worth it" or we can not humble ourselves enough to admit we are wrong, and ask forgiveness from the other person, and not only forgiveness, but a restoration of the relationship?

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