{"id":519,"date":"2008-06-08T21:13:54","date_gmt":"2008-06-09T01:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/2008\/06\/08\/no-unforgivable-people\/"},"modified":"2008-06-08T21:13:54","modified_gmt":"2008-06-09T01:13:54","slug":"no-unforgivable-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=519","title":{"rendered":"No Unforgivable People"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are no unforgivable people.<\/em><\/p>\n

Should we forgive even those who refuse to repent?\u00c2\u00a0 Consider once again God’s forgiveness, which serves as a model for ours.\u00c2\u00a0 There are people who think that in relation to God, repentance comes before forgiveness.\u00c2\u00a0 But that can’t be right.\u00c2\u00a0 God doesn’t angrily refuse forgiveness until we show ourselves worthy of it by repentance.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, God loves us and forgives us before we repent.\u00c2\u00a0 Indeed, before we even sinned, Jesus Christ died for our sins.\u00c2\u00a0 God’s forgiveness is not reactive — dependent on our repentance.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s original, preceded and conditioned by absolutely nothing on our part.\u00c2\u00a0 We can do nothing to become worthy of it for the same reason we can do nothing to earn any of God’s gifts.\u00c2\u00a0 Before we do anything, before we even exist, God’s giving and God’s forgiving are already there, free of charge.\u00c2\u00a0 God doesn’t give and forgive conditionally.\u00c2\u00a0 God’s giving and forgiving are as unconditional as the sun’s rays and as indiscriminate as raindrops.\u00c2\u00a0 One died for all.<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0 Absolutely no one is excluded.<\/p>\n

Why should we <\/em>forgive unconditionally and indiscriminately?\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t do it simply because a law demands we do so.\u00c2\u00a0 We forgive because God has already forgiven.\u00c2\u00a0 For us to hold any offender captive to sin by refusing to forgive is to reject the reality of God’s forgiving grace.\u00c2\u00a0 Because Christ died for all, we are called to forgive everyone who offends us, without distinctions and without conditions.\u00c2\u00a0 That hard work of indiscriminate forgiveness is what those who’ve been made in the likeness of the forgiving God should do.\u00c2\u00a0 And . . .\u00c2\u00a0that hard work of forgiveness is what those who’ve “put on Christ” are able to do.<\/p>\n

— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, <\/em>p. 179-180<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are no unforgivable people. Should we forgive even those who refuse to repent?\u00c2\u00a0 Consider once again God’s forgiveness, which serves as a model for ours.\u00c2\u00a0 There are people who think that in relation to God, repentance comes before forgiveness.\u00c2\u00a0 But that can’t be right.\u00c2\u00a0 God doesn’t angrily refuse forgiveness until we show ourselves worthy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forgiveness","category-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}