Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God.
-I Peter 3:18a, NLT
You can forgive a cheater without the cheater being forgiven.
This is a paradoxical truth about forgiveness. Both are true. You have truly forgiven your cheater. However, the cheater is not forgiven.
How is this possible?
It is possible in the same way that Jesus forgave the sins of the entire world. Yet not everyone is forgiven.
The cheater only enters forgiveness if he or she acknowledges the need for this gift and thereby receives the gift. A gift does them no good if they refuse to receive it.
But that does not mean you did not give the gift.
You forgave, truly.
The cheater just refused the gift.
They did not receive the forgiveness that you offered, because that would mean acknowledging the need for the gift. That requires humility on their part.
To accept the gift would require recognizing they incurred a debt that you graciously forgave. Some cheaters will never acknowledge that.
So, some cheaters–while actually forgiven by the faithful spouse–will never enter that state of forgiveness.
Something is incomplete in the process of forgiveness without a response. It is complete in the sense that the wronged party no longer is tied down to the roll of judge and executioner. We are free to live our lives without the burdens of anger and bitterness tying us to our past.
God is now the collector of debts and will deal with the wrongdoer as a good, wise, merciful, and just Judge.
Yet the forgiveness process is incomplete in the sense that forgiveness begs a response:
Will the forgiven accept the gift or reject it?
The answer to that question determines whether or not the person is forgiven.
That is why we can forgive our cheaters yet our cheaters might never be forgiven. The ball is in their court, so to speak.
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