“The people of Nineveh will stand up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, for they repented of their sins at the preaching of Jonah. Now someone greater than Jonah is here–but you refuse to repent.”
-Matthew 12:41, NLT
Does repentance seem necessary for forgiveness (and salvation) according to these words from Jesus to the religious folk of his day?
Absolutely. Yes.
Without a doubt, these words make the order of repentance before forgiveness crystal clear. The people of Nineveh would have perished apart from repenting.
Forgiveness did not come first! Repentance did.
God is not “bitter” for requiring us to follow this order. Is He?
Jesus is not teaching us to sin by teaching us how God forgives in these instances. Is He?
God apparently does not forgive those who refuse to repent.
I point these words out because they are words from Jesus. They are words that need to inform how we think about forgiveness in the context of unrepentant cheaters.
Forgiveness is available to all. It is available to the religious people in Jesus’ day. However, that forgiveness is without effect for them if they refused to repent of their sins.
For us as faithful spouses, I believe the furthest we can go on the road of forgiveness with some cheaters is to entrust them to God. God will then decide whether or not they are refusing to repent (and ergo, they are in the same camp as those religious people in Jesus’ day).
To break the relationship between repentance prior to forgiveness is to teach an unbiblical forgiveness as these words (Mt 12:41 AND Lk 17:3) from Jesus illustrate!
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*A version of this post ran previously.
