An excerpt:

Forgiveness of an unrepentant person doesn’t look the same as forgiveness of a repentant person.

In fact I am not sure that in the Bible the term forgiveness is ever applied to an unrepentant person. Jesus said in Luke 17:3-4, … even when a person does not repent (cf. Matthew 18:17), we are commanded to love our enemy and pray for those who persecute us and do good to those who hate us (Luke 6:27).

The difference is that when a person who wronged us does not repent with contrition and confession and conversion (turning from sin to righteousness), he cuts off the full work of forgiveness. We can still lay down our ill will; we can hand over our anger to God; we can seek to do him good; but we cannot carry through reconciliation or intimacy.

Baloney! Reconciliation is not always possible, but forgiveness can and, in many cases, must be granted unilaterally and unconditionally.

For instance, some of us need to forgive people who are now dead and some of us need to release entire groups or even nations from their trespasses against us.

The only alternative when reconciliation is not possible or desired by our opponents, is to unilaterally forgive whether our opponents repent or not. How else can we love our enemies?

This writer appears at times to confuse forgiveness and reconciliation as synonymous. They aren’t.

He also asserts, dogmatically, that we are called to forgive the way God forgives: conditionally. There is a vast difference, however, between God and us: He has no debts!

Not to forgive is to ignore the immeasurable debt we owe God, and to stay in bondage to our offenders and to the past.

Yes: His forgiveness is conditional–upon forgiving all others! Christ made it clear that failure to forgive from the heart will disqualify us from receiving God’s forgiveness.

So, the primary condition we must meet, the main sin of which we must repent, in order to be forgiven by God, is grudge-holding. It is completely forbidden by Christ. A mere willingness to forgive does not fulfil the commandments of Christ and His apostles.

Willingness and effort to reconcile with others is required, but that is very different. Reconciliation can only be achieved when all parties agree to reconcile, even if they simply “agree to disagree” and “bury the hatchet.”

If withholding forgiveness (holding grudges) is encouraged by this book, it is extremely dangerous.

I have studied the matter of forgiveness for many years. I have found no published book that gets the matter more biblically accurate than Chris Brauns’ book, Unpacking Forgiveness.

The notion of “unconditional forgiveness” has become widely accepted among evangelicals. Brauns addresses this false notion well. Prior to reading Brauns’ book, I recently had occasion to write a short essay to counter the false notion of “unconditional forgiveness” because of its widespread embrace in circles where I live. I called the initial draft of the essay “The Sin of ‘Unconditional Forgiveness’”(http://tinyurl.com/qx2olk). I have since rewritten it entirely with a view to publication under the title, “A Biblical Primer and Grammar on Forgiveness of Sin.”

Great discussion on your blog!

One reason it is difficult to accept is that it seems like it puts the Christians in a place where they carry around a list of offenses that must be acknowledged and brought up every time we encounter a person who has offended us, but I don’t think that is the case. I think we can still be genuinely loving to people who have wronged us even if the issue has not been dealt with.

On the other hand, I think we often want to forgive without dealing with the issue because dealing with the issue might force me to own up to some things as well. Basically, if I just let it go, then I never have to deal with the log in my eye.

Any thoughts on this? Seems like I always see push-back when I have taught or seen someone else teach the idea of conditional forgiveness so I have wondered what might be driving the objections.

That said, I thank God that God is sovereign and God is good and that God never makes mistakes, and that God is fulfilling all things for his own glory.