Forgiveness and Acceptance Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
We are required to forgive. That is a truism that Christians are taught early on, seventy times seven. But further study revealed that forgiveness does not necessarily imply acceptance (Part 1) and forgiveness of an unrepentant person is very different from forgiveness of a repentant person (Part 2) and what Biblical forgiveness really looks like. I have spent years depending on the fact that I can forgive someone – specifically, family members – and yet have no further contact with them. I relied on the concept that it counts as forgiveness, I’ve fulfilled my obligation as a Christian, and nothing more needs to be done. On Saturday (Part 1) I learned that David forgave Absalom but did not permit him back in his life – and study revealed that was the correct decision, because Absalom was not really repentant, as his behavior proved. Ah, vindication… yet in Part 2 on Monday morning I found that forgiving repentant and unrepentant people are two entirely different functions. Worrisome. And then we returned from our church’s fall festival that night and discovered a phone message from a relative we have not spoken to in years. God, in his graciousness, had prepared me for this in Part 2, with John Piper’s sixth point – “6. seeking reconciliation so far as it depends on you,” and I knew I could not protest my husband making a return phone call. I don’t know how it will all turn out, but I’ll do my part and I’m trusting God to do His.
Today I studied the second sermon in John Piper’s series on forgiveness, Forgive Just As God in Christ Also Has Forgiven You. He focuses on
Ephesians 4:32-5:2
And be kind to one another, tender- hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
How did God in Christ forgive us? With a self-sacrificing, undeserved, covenant love. Using Thomas Watson’s forgiveness definition of:
1. resisting revenge,
2. not returning evil for evil,
3. wishing them well,
4. grieving at their calamities,
5. praying for their welfare,
6. seeking reconciliation so far as it depends on you,
7. and coming to their aid in distress.
Piper says “This week I’m asking, how can we do that? What gives us the freedom and the ability and the incentive and the power to forgive those who sin against us? Some of you have been wronged so deeply and hurt so badly that forgiving would be as great a miracle as flying.” He finds the answers in Ephesians 4:32-5:2. In order to really pursue holiness, we need to rely on God’s power, to imitate him, and to remember that to whom much is given, much is expected.
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for possession, so that you might speak of the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; (1 Peter 2:9 MKJV)
Could anyone be given more than we have? And with that in mind, can we decide to seek reconciliation, remembering that we are required forgive all, but only to seek to reconcile with those who are repentant, not those who are unrepentant. For the unrepentant, we need only wait and respond to their genuine repentance if and when it comes. I should have known God would not require more of me than he would equip me to do. 
