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The Wickedness of Unforgiveness

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What is our unforgiveness really saying?

Every person reading this has at some point in their life been sinned against. Sometimes it's minor and easier to deal with and sometimes it's bigger and causes deep wounds. Our response to the person sinning against us probably says more than we may think.

I want to focus in on the idea that along with the unforgiveness there’s this sense that we want to continually punish that person for what they’ve done. None of us do that right? If you don’t think so then consider the person you’ve not forgiven and ask yourself how you treat that person. Do you ignore? Do you retaliate? Either one of these is you handing out punishment for the crime. In the two scenarios below I’m not referring to consequences for actions which are good but rather us continually punishing someone who has sinned against us.

If the person who sinned against us is a Christian and we want to punish them further we are showing that we think what Jesus did on the cross wasn’t sufficient. Though God determined that his spotless Son would be brutalized and murdered as payment for all of their sins my punishment of them shows I don’t think that’s true. That may have been enough for you God but I need to punish them as well.

How about the unbeliever who’s sinned against us? God has seen fit that the just punishment for the unbeliever is eternal conscious torment in Hell. Think about that…eternal, conscious, torment. God has determined this is the proper punishment for their sins. Is God’s punishment inadequate that he needs my help?

Thanks to Voddie Bauchman Jr. and others for their thoughts on this subject.

Soli Deo Gloria,

 

Greg Huber