(when they won’t repent)
I was dismayed when a radio pastor said that although our world wants to shield the victims, they still have an obligation to forgive their attacker (abuser, oppressor, etc.) The pastor referred to unrepentant attackers. I was concerned about the pastor’s tone of voice and the use of the word “obligation,” as though the victim was partly to blame for the attack.
I want to substitute the term “right” for obligation and instead say, “The victim has the right to walk away from the unrepentant attacker, forgive him, and hand him (or her) to God, so God can punish him.” Yes, we can have God’s love for the abuser, but I wanted to add the phrase, “Walk away from the attacker,” because many, many offenders do not repent in their hearts nor do they admit to how very, very much damage they caused. When they grit their teeth and grudgingly say, “I’m sorry,” or offer it with a careless laugh or smirk, they prove their lack of remorse and lack of compassion for their victim.
I am appalled by how many offenders demand reconciliation without repentance. I worked at a large Christian organization, and some men sexually harassed us, the younger women (I was very young them.) One said, “I’m sorry you misconstrued my good intentions towards you.” One of the organization’s leaders demanded I accept this as an apology and as such forgive what the man had done and then take the man back as a friend. The offender had touched me in indecent places and said inappropriate things to me and several other women.
How could a Christian leader condone this, and as long as this man gave a false apology, we the young women, were supposed to take him back as a friend, and accept his hugs again, with his traveling hands? Have God’s love for him and forgive, yes, but reconcile and condone? Never. That “leader” condemned me and the other women who refused these terms of reconciliation, as we wisely should have refused. He claimed our unwillingness meant we had not forgiven. Romans 8:33 says, “Who dares condemn us whom God has chosen for his own? No one. For God himself has given us right standing with himself.” We knew we were right, but we had to abandon our careers there, because of the hostile environment.
God never calls us to an “obligation” to offer the kind of “forgiveness” men like those at this organization demanded. Their demand did not offer true repentance. Our reconciliation would have meant we were condoning the sin of these men (for there were a number of men who had touched us inappropriately and told us things about their sex life we did not want to hear.) Thus I come back to my prior statement, “The victim has the right to forgive and then walk away from the unrepentant abuser and hand him to God so God can punish him.”
We know forgiveness is commanded by God, so true believers must forgive, but only in the right way, not the way so many perverts and abusers demand. Forgiveness is easy and fast when the person in the wrong did something small. As such, in this post, I am not referring to small offenses people commit to hurt others. We have all been rude or impatient or even selfish. But I am referring to the huge wrongs some people commit. True repentance and restitution has been lost by too many “modern” people. Punishment for crimes today, especially in California and much of the West coast, has become minimal. Criminals get out with light sentences and go back and commit even worse crimes. They are not sorry, and they do not want to pay back their victims.
Reconciliation cannot occur without restitution. Too many Christians think we should not expect the abuser to pay back the victim. Because Jesus forgave all our sins, some people think they can take and take and never pay back their victim (Psalm 37:21, “The wicked borrow and do not repay.”) They do not even work on their moral character to show kindness where they once used scorn, to encourage and lift another up, where they once tore down their victim, to examine how they hurt their victim and hear the victim tell the many hurts, losses and suffering he caused her (or she caused him.) These abusers want “cheap forgiveness,” that costs them nothing while it costs the victim so much.
In true repentance that leads to reconciliation, the abuser has to listen, even for weeks or months, to the victim’s pain and suffering (longer times when the abuse was over a long, long time.) It is insane and cruel to assume a long-abused victim heals instantly. She may need professional counseling if the abuse was excessive.
Some men commit affairs and assume their quick apology means the wife forgets his crime. An excellent, Christian counselor on the radio echoed my words that healing takes time, and the victim has a right to share how deeply she was hurt over time too. This abuser must listen until the victim heals. The abuser has to hear the many ways he hurt his victim. But many people refuse to do this work. They may receive the victim’s forgiveness and her release from taking revenge upon him, but they have no right to demand to reconcile with their victim without this “restitution” of the soul.
It was the radio pastor’s words “obligation to forgive,” that gave the illusion that the obligation included reconciliation. I am dismayed when people say we must pray for God to bless the abuser’s well being or success or riches. No, this distorts the blessing we pray for enemies. We do not pray they get more money and power. To bless them we pray God would convict them of their sin so they could surrender to God and not harm others. If we pray for their profit, they can and will use it to harm more people. We pray for their salvation, that they don’t go to Hell. There must be restitution. Without their repentance of sin before God and true turning around, they will go to Hell. This is how we can love our enemies and it is also a way God loves them. We share God’s heart to want them to repent so they do not burn in Hell.
Yes, we can give water or a meal to an evil person, as it says in the Bible (Matt.5:44, “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”) But we cannot be close friends with an enemy. We must pray that this person repents, not that he or she becomes wealthy or receives physical blessings, because these will be used to hurt others. As Scripture says in Matt.10:16, “Be as wise as a serpent, but as gentle as a dove.” When people don’t repent, we forgive and then we hand them over to God and do not reconcile with them. We don’t demand true repentance. We simply tell them what we expect, and if they do not truly repent, we silently walk away. We do not argue with them.
We can know God is not pleased with their behavior either. He will punish them far more than we ever could. I was considering this as I read about David’s dilemma with his enemies (who were not sorry for what they were doing to David), in 2 Samuel 22:7-8 “In my distress, I cried out the Lord; yes I cried to the Lord for help. He heard me from the sanctuary; my cry reached his ears. Then earth quaked and trembled. The foundations of the heavens shook. They quaked because of his anger.” Look up this chapter, and then look at all the powerful and scary things God did in his anger towards David’s enemies in the verses 9-17 of chapter 22. In verse 15, David says of God: “He shot his arrows and scattered the enemy; with great bolts of lightning he routed them.” David adds these reassuring words, “You save the humble, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low.” This chapter has powerful descriptions of how God went after David’s enemies, because he was in distress, and because these enemies had not repented but kept hurting David.
It is far worse for our unrepentant accusers to fall into God’s hands than for us to hold a grudge against them or for us to try to take revenge upon them. We can safely (though perhaps gradually) let go of any anger we feel towards those who do not repent of how they hurt us. We know God is far better at taking revenge (Deut.32:35 says so, as does Romans12:19, “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay.”) So even when someone will not repent of his or her sin against us, we can trust God that that person’s fate is far worse than any bad deed we could do to him or her. Remember Hebrews 10:31, “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.” For us to fall into God’s hands is a wonderful thing—not so for the unrepentant evil doers.
So we have a full assurance we are not refusing to forgive when we are wise enough to see that someone is not truly repenting of his or her sins. We can be wise in how we interact with others, but we must share this message with the younger gals. The other young women and I suffered under unjust condemnation for standing up to an abuser. This was not the first time I suffered such condemnation. I was only a teen when I did not trust a man who was important in my father’s church. I was rebuked, but I did not back down. That man went on to molest some of the teen girls (while I was still a teen too.) I did not trust the man. So let us encourage the younger gals that if they sense something is amiss, they must pray and then trust God’s spirit urging them away from someone, even if he (or she) insists on saying, “I said I am sorry. You have to reconcile with me.” We can forgive, but when these people continue to hurt us, we have a right to forgive and also walk away. We have God’s reassurance he will care for us as we forgive, and God will deal harshly with those who do not repent. God loves us and cares for us.
Thanks for sharing with us in this post. I hope it encourages you that the natural desire for revenge can be assuaged by knowing God handles revenge against our enemies for us. We can live at peace with our enemies, but at times a great distance from those enemies.