Transcript

ANNOUNCER: In John 20:23, Jesus tells His disciples that they should either forgive the sins of others or retain the sins of others. What is Jesus talking about here? Well, let’s discuss that today here on Grace in Focus, so glad you are joining us. Grace in Focus is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Find us at faithalone.org. And I want to tell you today about our magazine. It is also called Grace in Focus. It is a wonderful publication that comes out six times per year. Full-size magazine, full-color, great articles. It is free. The only thing you’ll need to pay if you live outside of the 48 contiguous United States is the postage. Otherwise, we want you to have it. Sign up for it today at faithalone.org. 

And now, with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Ken Yates and Kathryn Wright. 

KEN: Kathryn, we just did a podcast from Charlie, on John 20, verse 23, where it talks about, well, we’ll go ahead and read it again. 

KATHRYN: It says, if so, this is the Lord speaking and he’s speaking to the disciples and he says, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 

KEN: And our basic position was that the Lord is talking to the disciples. This is what we, as believers call, experiential forgiveness. In other words, if we want to remain in fellowship with the Lord, we need our sins forgiven. And the Church, it’s not only the Church’s message, but also the practice that when someone confesses, we forgive them of their sins. And when they don’t, this is why we, we thought we needed part two here on Charlie’s great question, we don’t forgive. 

KATHRYN: That’s right, we withhold forgiveness. 

KEN: We would say this is a controversial thing because there are, I don’t know if we would say many, but I think probably so, many Christians say, well, we just need to forgive.

KATHRYN: No matter what.

KEN: No matter what.

KATHRYN: Unconditionally. 

KEN: And we ended that previous podcast was saying, no, the Lord says, and there are some sins that we retain, we do not forgive. And of course, we can think, for example, in Matthew 18, when Jesus is talking to the disciples and he says, if your brother sins against you, you go to him. And if he does not listen, then you take two or three more witnesses. And he still doesn’t listen. And then he goes before the church. And he still doesn’t listen. Then you treat him as a Gentile, as a heathen. 

And obviously he’s talking about experientially, the fellowship with that believer’s broken. So there is no forgiveness there. And even though this is controversial, I don’t understand why it is. 

KATHRYN: I guess just the church in the West, you know, if somebody doesn’t like their church, they can just go walk down to the one next door. But yeah, we don’t. I don’t know, in my experience, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody excommunicated from a church. Or they were told they had to. 

KEN: Right. I mean, I’ve heard stories of it. And I have been involved where we confronted people with sin and they just left. and you—

KATHRYN: Right, they just go down to the church [unintelligible].

KEN: And so that happens. But Kathryn and I thought we would talk a little bit about this idea of withholding forgiveness and you have a contemporary example of something we’re talking about. 

KATHRYN: Well, I feel like we should say too, this has been an ongoing discussion within GES, but you know, between us and some friends for probably a couple of years now that forgiveness is really an area I think that deserves some, some further study. And it’s a hard topic. There was recently as we’re having this conversation earlier in the month, there was a stabbing that happened at a high school out in Texas and a 17 year old died from from the stabbing and he was stabbed by another student. But the father of the victim came out the day of and had a press conference and he said, publicly, I’ve already forgiven the murderer. 

KEN: And didn’t he mention his faith or? 

KATHRYN: Yes, he did. He said, I’m a Christian and I just know God will take care of this and I’ve already forgiven him. And he even said the forgiveness is for me, you know, for my, my peace of mind and something along those lines and I’m paraphrasing obviously. But yeah, so he he related it to his faith, he was a Christian and or he is a Christian and felt compelled to say that he had already forgiven the murderer. And this was literally just hours after the son. Yeah. 

And then a little after that, there was a press conference that was for the family of the murderer. 

KEN: By the way, the guy admitted it. 

KATHRYN: Yes, the murderer confessed. So he already had been arrested and charged with first degree murder and is now waiting for trial. But he, yeah, he confessed. And so the family had his family, the murderer’s family had a press conference in which the victim’s father tried to come. He came to it and he said he wanted to come to pray with them and just for solidarity. He wanted to have him—

KEN: That was his word, solidarity. 

KATHRYN: Right. And unity with them and he, he specifically said he wanted to pray with them and they did not respond favorably. They spoke very poorly of the father—

KEN: and said he was causing problems.

KATHRYN: Yes, that it was disrespectful for him to show up. 

KEN: And they kicked him out. 

KATHRYN: They had the police come and they escorted him out. They kicked him out.

KEN: And they also said that basically the reason the murder took place was the school’s fault or racism or whatever the case may be, right? There were all kinds of excuses. That basically the murderer shouldn’t be charged. 

KATHRYN: Oh, yeah. The spokesman at this press conference was quote unquote a minister of justice and he was very much defending the murderer. 

ANNOUNCER: We will rejoin in just a moment. But years ago, Zane Hodges wrote the Gospel Under Siege. Sadly, this is still true. And GES president Bob Wilkin has recently written its sequel. Bob’s new book, The Gospel is Still Under Siege, is a book about theological clarity on the Biblical teaching about eternal salvation. It is available now. Secure yours today at the Grace Evangelical Society’s bookstore. Find it at faithalone.org/store. That’s faithalone.org/store. Now back to today’s content.

KEN: And so the question here is, I think there would be some people who would look at the father of the dead boy and say, oh, that’s what he should be doing. Now, obviously we can question are these believers, you know, what is a minister of justice doing defending a murderer? I’m sure that both families would say they’re believers, obviously the victim’s father is saying I’m a believer. I’m assuming the other family does as well, but I don’t know that, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that is, should the father have done that? If we define forgiveness as fellowship, what kind of fellowship does he have with this family—

KATHRYN: Well, and he was obviously seeking it. He was seeking some type of solidarity, you know, he uses word solidarity, which is just—

KEN: But they don’t even have a relationship and this is, we know this is controversial but we don’t really think it should be. If forgiveness is indeed restoration of fellowship, how can there be forgiveness when no fellowship exists? 

KATHRYN: Well, more and also to our point here in John 20:23 that there are legitimate times when forgiveness is not called for. 

KEN: And in Matthew 18, right, if you’re talking about going to the church and he does not listen, it sounds to me like the murderer in this case, I’m not listening to you. I get out of here. 

KATHRYN: Yes, exactly. I mean, just the mistreatment of the victim’s father in this story is just appalling. And I do. My heart goes out to him because I think that he genuinely was trying to have solidarity with him. And I think that he, you know, his faith is like, is telling, you know, he thinks I have to do this because Christ told him that.

KEN: And he says, I forgive him. 

KATHRYN: Right. And so, yeah, I just have a lot of sympathy for the father in that he thinks that he has to do that rather than saying no, he’s a murderer. And at this point is making excuses for his actions rather than facing the consequences and that it is legitimate to say then, he needs to suffer those consequences and I’m not seeking solidarity with someone like that. 

KEN: And again, I would say, and I know this sounds awful hard, I would say that when a relationship does not exist in any way already, I mean, he didn’t even know this family.

KATHRYN: Right. And now he’s trying to reach out. 

KEN: Forgiveness is not the right word. The right word would be, look, I don’t want vengeance. I want what’s best for him. 

KATHRYN: I don’t want to be bitter. 

KEN: Yeah. If he’s not a believer, I hope he becomes a believer through this. But forgiveness is not the biblical word to use here. I forgive him. 

KATHRYN: I do want to mention too in this discussion, sometimes what you’ll hear is that, well, as Christians, we are to forgive as Christ forgave us. You know, that’s what we’re told, Ephesians. But that’s an interesting comment to make because the way that that is applied is again almost this universal forgiveness. Okay, I’m just supposed to forgive and forget no matter what. But it says we are to forgive as Christ forgave us. Well, does Christ forgive that way? Does the Lord just forgive unconditionally, just all the time, universally, no matter what? Or does the Lord refrain from forgiveness when unrepentant people are continuing in their ways? 

KEN: Yeah. He does withholds forgiveness. 

KATHRYN: All the time he withholds forgiveness. 

KEN: Right. We’re out of fellowship with Him when we sin. He just doesn’t say, okay, well, it doesn’t matter. You know, it doesn’t matter. So just, you know, I forgive you. We’re in fellowship. You know, I’m having an adulterous affair. Well, nope, I don’t have to. I’m still in fellowship with. No, I’m walking in the flesh and I’m out of fellowship. If he doesn’t forgive me and I’m supposed to forgive the way he forgives, then if the person does not ask for forgiveness, which is what we see in Matthew 18, and it’s also what we see in John 20. If you retain sins, if you don’t forgive them, they’re not forgiven. So it’s just a strange thing. And so we thought it deserved two podcasts and we hope that this is something that causes all of our listeners to think, maybe. 

KATHRYN: Can I add, because I know people are, there’s going to be some people listening or like, gosh these sounds like some ungracious people. And I just want to say that when I think about that case and that murderer, I think that justice is also a form of love, you know, we’re told that the Lord rebukes the Pharisees for their, for their legalism and that they have forgotten justice and love in their legalism and in their self-righteousness. And so when I think about that murderer, what is the most loving thing for him? 

KEN: That he would face the consequences of his actions, which he’s not doing. Or for us to say, well, I just forgive you. That’s hateful towards him. 

KATHRYN: Right. To just release him and then what he potentially goes and murdesr someone else and he continues to—

KEN: And he didn’t have a value for the life that he took. 

KATHRYN: And then he just keeps reaping this literal death in his life. That’s not loving, that part of the Matthew 18 principle is that hopefully by casting you out and making your life uncomfortable, you will come to your senses, like the prodigal son, and come back into an abiding relationship. But that can’t happen if we just excuse it and—

KEN: And acts as if it never happened.

KATHRYN: Right. So that is loving. 

KEN: Well, we hope this was beneficial and even if you disagree with us, we hope that you think about it and until we meet again—keep grace in focus. 

ANNOUNCER: We invite you to check out our Monday, Wednesday, and Friday five minute YouTube videos at YouTube Grace Evangelical Society. You will love the content and learn a lot. Maybe you’ve got a question or comment or feedback. If so, please send us a message. Here’s our email address: it’s radio@faithalone.org, that’s radio@faithalone.org. Please make sure your question is as succinct and clear as possible, that would be a great big help.

On our next episode: salvation without cost and Isaiah. What salvation was he talking about? Please join us and in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.