Exegeting Forgiveness

Abstract

"Before embarking on a fecund exegesis of key New Testament (NT) narratives in forgiveness, it will be helpful to make two important distinctions and to describe the different views. The first distinction is between God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of each other. The NT itself implies this distinction in such verses as Mt. 6:12, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” While praying for God to forgive our sins against him, we acknowledge that we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. For our purposes, we will refer to the former as “vertical forgiveness” and the latter as “horizontal forgiveness.” Another helpful distinction is between God’s initial forgiveness that occurs at conversion and God’s ongoing forgiveness that occurs throughout the Christian life. Initial forgiveness entails repentance and results in the forgiveness of all our sins (cf. Col. 2:13; I Jn. 2:12). Since this forgiveness results in salvation, we will call it “salvific forgiveness.” There is another kind of forgiveness that a believer seeks through the regular confession of sins (cf. Mt. 6:12; Acts 19:18; James 5:15; I Jn. 1:9). Since this forgiveness results in ongoing spiritual cleansing, we will call it “sanctifying forgiveness”"