19 May 2024 John 20:19-23
“Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” John 20:19
In the so-called “Big Pentecost” of Acts 2:1-11 the gift of the Holy Spirit is about public proclamation of the mighty acts of God, in which the curse of the Tower of Babel is reversed, and everyone can hear the message of salvation in words they can understand. The so-called “Little Pentecost” of John 20 is about a slice of that, a slightly deeper dive into one of the mighty acts of God.
According to John, the gift of the Holy Spirit is the gift of being welcomed into the inner life of God, and there we find that the defining drama of the inner life of God is the drama of mercy. We are given leading roles in the distribution of forgiveness: “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained” (John 20:23). We can forgive, or we can withhold forgiveness.
The New Testament speaks with more than on voice about the drama of forgiveness. On the one hand, the New Testament appears to teach in many places that repentance precedes forgiveness: “Repent, therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out” (Acts 3:19). So forgiveness is withheld until sinners repent. On the other hand, the Apostle Paul teaches that forgiveness eternally precedes repentance: “God proves His love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The price was paid for our sins while we were still enemies of God. So if God does not withhold forgiveness, we are never justified in withholding it ourselves.
If you’re on the outside looking in, this contradiction seems insurmountable. There is no way that these claims can both be true in the same way at the same time. But if you are participating in the inner life of God, the contradiction vanishes, because there you find that God does not just show mercy, God is mercy. God is mercy from the foundation of the world. As long as there has been God, there has been mercy, which is to say that mercy is eternally available. There has never been a time, there is not now a time, there will never be a time when mercy is withheld. If we do not receive that mercy, therefore, it is only because we have never claimed it. Repentance is how we claim it. Repentance is how we say Yes.
When we participate in the inner life of God, we find that we don’t withhold mercy either, that if we do withhold it, the holding back hurts us, and has no effect on the person we are withholding it from. If any have injured me, I cannot injure them back by not forgiving them, and by holding on to their ill will toward me, I am only injuring myself further. By making mercy available, on the other hand, I deny to their ill will any power to injure me further. I decline to give that injury any more power over me. If the sinners who injured me repent, they also can participate in that mercy. Mercy, it turns out, is the real power. Repentance is how they say Yes.
It is tempting to think that, because the universe is so complex, God therefore must be infinitely more complex. According to the New Testament, however, God is infinitely simple, as John himself says: “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” (I John 4:8). From the inside we can see that God does not have attributes, but God is His attributes, summed up in the infinitely simple, “God is love.” From the inside it is as clear as it can be that mercy is always available, has always been available. There has never been a time when forgiveness was off the table. All we have to do is claim it. Repentance is how we say Yes.
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