Forgiveness, Repentance, and a Theology of Atonement

Forgiveness lies at the center of the theology of atonement. As we discuss what it means to develop a theology of atonement versus a singular theory of atonement this year at Prelude, inevitably our discussions will include what it means for God in Christ to forgive us of our sins. This will inevitably lead to discussions of the role repentance plays in our theology of atonement, for undoubtedly repentance and forgiveness are linked. But how are they linked?

I've recently been interacting with a book entitled Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, by Miroslav Volf. This book is packed with thought-provoking ruminations on giving and forgiving, God's grace and our embodiment of that grace in our lives, all in a simple, accessible, and engaging style. Volf is a superb theologian, and his personal biography illuminates his ideas as they concern forgiveness and grace. A Croatian, he lived through the unspeakable violence of civil war and genocide, the loss of family from this atrocity, and so his theology has real-life girth. There is much I could post on from this book in terms of the topic at hand -- atonement -- but I'll offer some thoughts on forgiveness and repentance.

My understanding of the link between forgiveness and repentance throughout much of my unbringing was this: I repent in order that God might forgive me. God's forgiveness was a theoretical offering waiting to be made actual by my repentance. Hence, the so-called sinner's prayer, as I prayed it and understood it, was that I was asking for God's forgiveness. I contend this understanding is not far from what many of our students probably hold.

The implications of a such a view for the atonement are quite significant. If repentance is a precondition for forgiveness, then Christ's life, death, and resurrection are not ultimately efficacious. What makes Christ's self-offering efficacious is my repentance. God forgives because I asked God to. My decision to ask God for forgiveness matters most for the atoning work and person of Jesus Christ. In such a scheme the gospel, it seems to me, becomes less than good news because God's forgiveness ultimately depends upon me. Did I really repent? Was my repentance sincere enough as to warrant God's forgiveness? These questions, and others, plagued me, and I suspect they plague some of our students. But, this is to get it backwards. Repentance is not the precondition for God's forgiveness, rather, it is the proper response to God's forgiveness. We have so emphasized the response that we have turned the gospel of the good news of God's indiscriminate forgiveness, into a gospel of a decision. Why?

I'm sure there are many responses to this question of why, but I think one that often gets overlooked (by some anyway) is that we don't truly understand forgiveness. We think purely in transactional terms. I pay with repentance; God gives forgiveness. But sin is foremost a relational category: it disrupts our relationship to God, our self, the world and others around us. This means forgiveness is foremost a relational event. Volf puts it like this, "We forgive in order to take care of a wrongdoing, but a wrongdoing always happens between people, not just in thoughts or actions of an individual" (p. 181). God reveals Godself as forgiving as God reveals Godself in Jesus Christ as God-for-us. God's forgiveness is the restoration of relationship between God, humanity, and the world in Jesus Christ.

So, what of repentance? Clearly the New Testament accounts for some type of response, and often calls this repentance (the greek word is metanoia, which literally means a U-turn, to head straight in the opposite direction than one was going). If God has already forgiven us, and forgiveness is not preconditioned by repentance, then what is the point of it? Why repent?

Repentance does not, in fact, create the condition for our forgiveness. God's inbreaking into our world as a babe in Bethlehem creates the condition for our forgiveness. Repentance, does though, bring my lived reality more into conformity with the reality of God's forgiveness. That is to say, repentance is absolutely essential as a response to God's forgiveness. Notice, it is not a condition for forgiveness, but a response to God's forgiveness. Repentance does not, as it were, make God forgive me. God forgives me, therefore I repent. The so-called sinners prayer should emphasize thanksgiving for forgiveness, not asking God for forgiveness. It is our relational response to God's relational movement towards us in Christ. Forgiveness and repentance are fundamentally relational because the gospel is fundamentally relational.

How would such an understanding change the way you present the gospel to your students? How many of your students do you think would be surprised to hear the gospel explained in this way? 

Erik Leafblad

Comments

[Bible Quiz]

Erik,

I haven't read the book, so my only exposure to it is what you have said.

Based on that, I have several questions:

Are you teaching universalism when you use terms like 'God's indiscriminate forgiveness'?

Will all men be forgiven and enter heaven whether they receive Christ or not?

Certainly one cannot repent (turn from sin) until they have received Christ.

But from my viewpoint, your discussion focuses, I think, on a strawman presentation of the gospel (i.e. we are saved if we repent).

I think most evangelical churches teach we are saved when we receive Christ, and as a response to God's gift of Christ (as you note) we repent.

The gospel is a gospel of decision, the decision to receive Christ; to bow the knee to Him. Would you not agree?

------------------

Further, your quote from Volf regarding sin as 'relational' would seem to present a view opposite that of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

Sin is not always between people.

Sin, as Jesus made clear in the Sermon on the Mount, is often in the thoughts (lust, hatred etc) of an individual whether another person was aware of it or not. Do you agree with Christ on this point?