37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
-Acts 2:37-38, NIV
Repentance is always part of the equation when it comes to forgiveness.
To find God’s forgiveness, Peter instructs the Jewish people on Pentecost to repent and be baptized. They had to take action. The “proof” of repentance was sealed in the act of a public display via baptism.
It is not rocket science:
No repentance. No forgiveness.
It is truly that simple.
We cannot divorce one from the other. And we cannot just jump to forgiveness without reference to repentance, if we are committed to biblical forgiveness.
Ironically, the many Christians have the discussion about forgiveness in marital infidelity situations backwards. They pressure the faithful spouse to forgive without any reference to Cheater repentance. This is unbiblical.
Does God forgive us if we refuse to repent and turn to Him?
No. I think this passage from Acts 2 is clear about that. God requires that His people forsake their sin and turn to Him for forgiveness (see I John 3:4-6).
So, that begs the question:
Are we really fostering forgiveness or some worldly, abusive philosophy when we pressure faithful spouses to forgive with no repentance in the cards from their adulterous abuser?
I think it is the later.
We are being held captive by the hollow philosophies of this world, in my opinion (see Colosians 2:8).
Now, do I recommend that we–faithful spouses–carry the offense until they repent, which may be never for some of us?
No.
Forgiveness looks like entrusting the injustices we suffered to a good, just God. Ultimately, when the Cheater wronged us, they wronged God. We can trust Him to handle the situation and move on with our lives.
We might need to make the choice to do this over and over, again. I know I did. The injustices were deep. And I needed to exercise my faith in trusting my hurt and those injustices to my good God and perfect Father.
In these cases, we are yielding our “legal” claim to God’s. We are accepting that God may deal with them in mercy and grace as He does us when we repent. God may also damn them for refusing to repent, too. But we no longer have to decide which it will be as we are NOT God.
