Biblical survey of repentance and forgiveness

Following on from my earlier posts about repentance and forgiveness (why I chose to write about it and a historical tour of the relationship). This is a survey of the Bible's teaching on the relationship between human repentance and God's forgiveness:

Near the beginning of Scripture, God’s self-revelation seems to contain a contradiction. On the one hand, God introduces himself to Moses as one who is ‘merciful and gracious… forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin’ (Exodus 34:6-7) - fundamental truths about his character that are re-iterated throughout the Old Testament. On the other hand, God ‘by no means clear[s] the guilty’ (Exodus 34:7; cf Numbers 14:18; Nahum 1:3). The Law that God gave to Moses shows God's strong concern for holiness (Leviticus 11:44-45, 19:2, 20:26), another characteristic upheld in the later parts of the Old Testament (e.g. Psalm 71:22; Psalm 99; Isaiah 6).

This leads to a tension between repentance and forgiveness that is not resolved under the old covenant. The Law assumed that sinful acts would occur and provided for atonement – most fully on the annual Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16). The Law clearly established the necessity of human repentance in order to receive God's forgiveness. On an individual level, forgiveness required a very full repentance - including sacrifice (Leviticus 5:10, 13, 18), restitution (Leviticus 6:5; Numbers 5:7-8) and public confession (Leviticus 5:5; Numbers 5:6). On a national level, only the repentance demonstrated by full covenant obedience would lead to forgiveness (Deuteronomy 30:1-3) – a near impossible task for a rebellious people!

The same promise of national forgiveness in return for fully obedient repentance was confirmed after Solomon’s Temple dedication prayer (2 Chronicles 7:12-14). The prophets often reinforced the message, although they shifted the focus to include returned hearts as much as obedience to the Law and practices of the Temple (e.g. Ezekiel 18:21-23). They anticipated a new covenant when God would resolve the tension between his mercy and holiness – when he would give his people new hearts that were capable of fully turning from sin to him (Jeremiah 31:31-33; Ezekiel 36:26-32) and when he would fully forgive and restore his people (Jeremiah 31:34; Ezekiel 36:33).

With the coming of Jesus and the new covenant, this promise was fulfilled. The Spirit enabled people’s hearts to be renewed and for them to walk in obedience (2 Corinthians 4:16; Colossians 3:10). Jesus' life and death provided the full obedience that Israel had never managed (Luke 4:1-13; Hebrews 5:8-10). (Indeed, it turns out that God only forgave in the Old Testament in anticipation of Jesus’ sacrifice, Romans 3:25). 

The coming of Christ and the Spirit ushered in a new age: ‘a transformed understanding of the relationship between forgiveness and repentance – a repentance contextualized within the announcement of God’s inbreaking Kingdom.’ God no longer waited for people to turn to him in full repentance, but sought out broken and dismayed sinners to offer divine forgiveness and invite them to a life of repentance. 

This message of repentance and forgiveness was to be preached in Jesus’ name to all nations (Luke 24:47), the beginnings of which are charted in the bulk of the New Testament (Acts 5:31, 26:18). 

The promise is not completely fulfilled, however. The New Testament finishes with a vision of a coming day, after which people's repentance and forgiveness, or lack of them, will be fixed: when those who have not repented or accepted the offered forgiveness will face God’s wrath (Revelation 9:20-21, 16:8, 22:15) and his cleansed people will be forever with him in perfect, restored relationship (Revelation 7:14-17, 22:14).

Historical tour of repentance and forgiveness

This is a - very brief! - historical tour (Historical Theology) of the relationship between repentance and forgiveness, and follows on from my previous post on my essay about the relationship between repentance and forgiveness. I've confined it to Christian thought here, although later I'll consider the perspectives of some other religions a bit.

Early church
At the heart of the early church debate about the relationship between repentance and forgiveness are 'the lapsed.' These were believers who had denied Jesus under persecution. The early church understood that baptism was an act of repentance that cleansed an individual of all their sins up to that point, but didn't know how to deal with any sin committed after that. The lapsed presented a real problem - here were Christians who had already been baptised and cleansed, and had then 'lapsed'. The discussion was focused around whether the lapsed should be allowed to participate in communion (the Lord's supper) again - which would be a visible symbol of their forgiveness and restoration to the fellowship of the community. There was a wide range of responses:

• People who said the lapsed should never be restored to communion, no matter how repentance they were, because it could not be a genuine repentance;
• Those who admitted the lapsed to communion on their deathbeds or if they proved themselves faithful under another persecution - although this was tricky because you needed to know when someone was about to die, or needed another persecution to come along;
• Those who restored the lapsed to communion after strong signs of emotional and public repentance (including lots of tears, hand-wringing, etc), when they were accompanied by 'intercessors' (Christians who had proved themselves faithful);
• Those who re-admitted the lapsed with no requirement of repentance.

This problem of how to deal with the lapsed caused deep division within the early church, with different factions and regions adopting different approaches.

Middle ages and Reformation
Throughout the middle ages, the acts of repentance that a believer needed to demonstrate before being offered forgiveness developed into an intricate system of sacraments - confession to a priest, heartfelt contrition and satisfaction (‘penances’). These practices were upheld by the Council of Trent in the counter Reformation.

The Reformation moved away from this visible acts to demonstrate repentance, and re-defined repentance as a ‘change of mind.’ They said 'penance' wasn't a sacrament and that believers didn't need to confess to a priest to be forgiven - Jesus is our great high priest and we can approach him directly.

Luther’s ‘justification by grace alone through faith’ assured forgiveness for those who demonstrated this new understanding of repentance. The implications of this doctrine were developed by Calvin, who saw faith as the key framework for relating to God, by which ‘both [repentance and remission of sin] are obtained’. Calvin taught that repentance does not earn forgiveness, but is a gift with an end in itself.

Recent centuries
Much theology - natural theology, liberalism, parts of the emerging church, to name a few - have moved away from questions of sin and repentance. This makes forgiveness also a redundant topic.

However, forgiveness has become significant in other fields such as social science, politics, philosophy and literature. Research in their fields has been a response to the Jewish holocaust, apartheid in South Africa and the genocide in Rwanda. Questions of how to reconcile vast relational gulfs have produced many explorations of human-human forgiveness - and many have focused on whether forgiveness should be offered to perpetrators who do not repent. Secular writers have tended to exclude the vertical relationship between God and humans. This leaves a strong tension between justice and grace, which is difficult to resolve at a human level.

Repentance and forgiveness

Last year, I wrote a theology essay on the relationship between repentance and forgiveness, and particularly our human repentance and God's forgiveness. I chose the topic for a number of reasons:

• Repentance and forgiveness are deeply significant for any relationship that includes an imperfect person, which is almost every relationship. The relationship between repentance and forgiveness determines how offenses are dealt with and how reconciliation is achieved. This is important for any relationship, and especially a relationship as important as the one between us and God.
• I've wanted to look more deeply at the topic of repentance for years, because I'm not convinced we use the language the way the Bible does.
• I'm often uncomfortable with our attitude in church to confession - both my own attitude (feeling like I need to dredge up sins to confess) and the perspective conveyed from the front - this topic has big implications for how we view confession.
• Lots of work on the relationship between repentance and forgiveness looks only at human-human relationships (e.g. Jewish and Christian responses to WW2, forgiveness in Rwanda, in South Africa after apartheid), but not nearly as much covers the dynamic between God and humans (surprisingly!).
• I wanted to think about how saying sorry and reconciliation work in my own family, because sometimes I wonder where the line between grace and justice is - how much do you insist that sorry is said after something wrong is done, how sincere does 'sorry' have to be, how do you measure sincerity anyway, when do we overlook an offense, etc.
• The topic has implications for urban culture, and especially urbanites who want to start following Jesus. Given the huge unpopularity of 'repentance' and even language about 'sin' in urban culture, it's not very attractive to call people to repent.

I really enjoyed the essay, and it's impacted my thinking a lot since. I thought I'd re-live the essay by blogging through it. I'll post the entire thing at the end, if you prefer reading a more academic version (with footnotes) or all in one hit.