Is God’s Forgiveness Conditional? – Bradley Jersak

Revisiting Forgiveness:

Over the years, I’ve had to repeatedly revisit the theme of resentment and forgiveness, not as an interesting puzzle to be solved, but as a heart issue I need to face for myself. Hard experience brings me back to the Scriptures, to my past, and to my practices, sorting through what forgiveness means, what it is, and what it isn’t. A highlight reel of my pondering includes these posts:

Today I’m back in Matthew 5-7, reading Jesus’ foundational sermon yet again, where I’m challenged personally and theologically by the force of these words:

“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15)

Conditional Forgiveness?

On the face of it, Jesus appears to describe the Father’s forgiveness as conditional on ours. By starting my sentence, “On the face of it,” I could sound like I’m saying, “Jesus says this, but when you look more closely, he doesn’t mean it.” So many times, that exactly where we go. We immediately resist the force of the text—why?

  • Maybe we’ve been tormented by reading those words literally.
  • Maybe they sound so harsh to those who’ve experienced grace.
  • Maybe they seem misaligned with Jesus words and actions elsewhere.
  • Maybe we get it but wished he had said it differently.

After all, the Gospels show us Jesus forgiving and healing people prior even to repentance. We see the mercy of God cleansing away sin in a way that generates a loving faith response—unconditional grace overflowing from divine compassion. We see Jesus pronouncing forgiveness to the unrepentant conspirators and torturers involved in his crucifixion. And we have the witness of Paul, forgiven by Stephen and converted by Jesus while still an enemy and murderer of the Jesus people, as he testifies in Romans 5. God’s forgiveness is revealed (as it already had been in Hosea) as both unconditional and generative.

With all of that loaded into our experience of the beautiful gospel, Jesus’ words in the Matthew 6 seem incongruent. So our impulse can be to rush into explaining how he doesn’t really mean what he says and bending over backwards to avoid inferences of a straightforward condition. We want to help people interpret Jesus’ words so they don’t offend our sensitivity to obligations, expectations, and commands. In other words, we race to rescue Jesus from sounding religious. And in doing so, in our apologies for his brazen choice of words, we presume to correct him.

Perhaps a fifth and more insidious factor is at play in our resistance:

  • Maybe we’d rather not forgive and secretly resent being told we must.

Don’t Evade. Undergo.

I want to suggest another approach to this text that solves the real problem Jesus is confronting. The real problem from his point of view—not ours. And it’s so simple:

The real problem is not that Jesus has slipped into a conditional forgiveness that misrepresents his Father and is misaligned with his own gospel practice. The real problem he’s addressing in context requires the full force of his warning: hypocrisy. Specifically, the hypocrisy of claiming to be his disciple—a representative of the Jesus Way—while relating to others in ways completely contrary the path he’s called us to follow. That’s hypocrisy. That’s Christless religion.

In this sermon, he confronts the hypocrites (‘actors’) who claim ‘Lord, Lord’ but don’t follow his Way of radical forgiveness and enemy-love. They cannot and must not presume to call themselves disciples. Jesus calls out his opponents in the Pharisee party, the Sanhedrin, and the Temple establishment who claimed to speak for God and represent his Law. They don’t. And as Matthew repurposes the Sermon in shaping his Christian community, neither do those who presume the Christian label while living with hearts filled with resentment and exuding judgment.

What is God to do? Think about that word forgiveness as ‘release’… that as we release others from our judgments, God releases us from our judgments (that is, the accusing conscience). And if we don’t release others, God won’t release us from our accusing conscience (the tormentor of Matthew 18:34). I know that feeling, despite knowing God isn’t my accuser. And I’m grateful for that promise in 1 John 3:20: “Even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts” (1 John 3:20).

So for me, it’s not about how we can evade the force of these words by reminding ourselves that he’s not speaking literally or that he’s using hyperbole. Even if that’s true, interpreting Jesus’ words in order to avoid their impact is missing the truth.

Don’t Avoid. Obey.

Rather, the wise person who builds their house on the rock is the one who hears these words and puts them into practice. The message is simple: to follow Jesus is to submit to the weight of his words, not by deflecting them but by renouncing unforgiveness and following Jesus in the scandal of radical forgiveness.

Jesus delivers this message in the strongest tones precisely because he sees how our first reflex and instinct is to justify our resentment and unforgiveness while expecting to live guilt-free ourselves in the grace of God. There’s an urgent truth to his rhetoric that reveals that the cruciform path of loving, blessing, and praying for those who treat us as enemies is the one way to avert destruction and the temptation to hatred and death-dealing. The disciple who leaves that path—especially in the name of righteousness or faithfulness or justice—is on a perilous and self-destructive road.

So Jesus finds language that shows the truth that in clenching our fists and closing our hearts to the other, we are closing our hands and hearts to God’s mercies. God’s mercy endures forever and his forgiveness extends to all… AND that forgiveness does not penetrate the stony heart set against the other in grudges. OR when it does, the fruit will be radical repentance for our resentment and newfound grace for our offenders. Jesus seems to be saying, “You just can’t expect both at once—the hammer for your offender and the feather for you. To assign your enemy to the land of the Law while you remain in the kingdom of Grace… no, it doesn’t work that way.”

Hearing Jesus’ “Therefore”

In other words, to really HEAR Jesus’ words on forgiveness, we don’t ask, “What did he really mean?” but instead, “How shall I OBEY his “therefore.”

What is the obvious “therefore” of following his Way in submission to his voice?

1. Ruthless repentance for every shadow of resentment and malice harbored in our hearts.

2. Radical forgiveness for every record of wrong we’re holding against the other, releasing responsibility for their sins to the only just Judge on whose throne we have no right to sit.

3. Praying that the Lord will show those who offend you the same mercy we want for ourselves, daily and by name if necessary until our obsession is lifted from us (i.e., we are released … which is literally what forgiveness means).

“Do this,” Jesus says elsewhere, “and you will live.”

Don’t worry. I don’t much like it either. Forgiveness is a cross. But to paraphrase Tolstoy, if you think the dying involved in enemy-love is hard, try living a lifetime in the hell of resentment. No comparison. Cheery? Meh. But so Good.

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