Forgiveness: God’s and the
Christian’s business? / Book, Ernst Panzer 00, page 55ff
The Good Samaritan: is it the
man set upon by robbers who determines who his neighbor is? / Reply Dr.
Monika v. Sury 00, 2005-09-27
Who is "my neighbor" in the
Bible? / Commentary, Doris Höger 00, 2011-01-16
Table: The Ten Commandments of God
and these of the Catholic Church.
Forgiveness ‒ even
if the guilty person does not want to be forgiven at all? / Commentary
Doris Höger 01, 2011-01-16
"And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our
debtors."
I can well imagine that you have been able patiently to
accept what I have said so far. But strictly speaking it leaves you with a
certain feeling of discomfort. Perhaps you are even inclined to breathe a
sigh. Above all because this kind of approach goes against our sense of
justice. The gospel has told us that we have to focus on righteousness and
on justice. And in this case, it seems, we are expected to put these
standards from us again. We ourselves struggle to behave properly. Others do
not, and as a result they incur debts in relation to us. And now we are
supposed to forgive them, just like that. This means giving over
righteousness and justice and letting ourselves be treated unjustly, and
even accepting it! And just that is what goes so much against the grain,
against our sense of justice. And it is precisely this that for the most
part makes it so hard for us to forgive others.
But now, if we want to get over this hurdle, we must proceed to reckon up
the debt correctly. So we can ask the question – How is debt actually
reckoned, in the eyes of God? How can he forgive, at all?
Now there is one thing that we must be clear about before all others: in the
eyes of our God, grace does not come cheap. It is a blatant distortion when
preachers tell us that "God’s business is forgiveness". No, with our
God there is no such cheap business. On the contrary, before our God was
able to forgive at all, and to make it possible for him to forgive us now,
there had first to be a redeeming sacrifice offered for the clearance of all
debt and the forgiveness of all sin. As we know, Our Lord and Savior offered
this sacrifice on Golgotha. It was only as a result of this sacrifice that
the thrice-holy God was able to grant a general amnesty, and that he can
forgive us now. But now the Son of God has atoned for the sins of the whole
world, that is to say he has paid for them all with his dear blood, and now
he can forgive all debts – yes, forgive all sins and debts and be gracious
to the sinner.
But then in order to receive personally, in the sight of God, this freely
offered gift of grace, the debtor still needs to show understanding on his
part, to acknowledge that he has sinned and to ask for forgiveness. As the
apostle John tells us in his first epistle: "If we say that we have no
sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness." (Jn1,8+9). So there you are – there must be understanding,
acknowledgement and the request for forgiveness! That is the way
indicated to us if we wish to attain to forgiveness either in the sight of
God or in the sight of men. This is the way in which it is made possible
through the redeeming sacrifice of Our Lord on Golgotha.
+) This extract has been taken from the book by E. Panzer: "Jesu
Reichsgebet – Das Vaterunser" ["Jesus’ Prayer for the Kingdom – the
Our Father"], published by Philadelphia-Verlag [Philadelphia Publishing
House].
(Ernst Panzer / https://www.philadelphia-verlag.com)
At the end of his commentary on the fifth petition of the Lord’s
Prayer, Mr Panzer here points – quite correctly and with great clarity – to a
circumstance which many biblical commentators, whether consciously or
unconsciously, ignore completely – namely, the simple fact that forgiveness is
always a debt the recipient must seek for, if he wishes to have it. It is
intrinsic to the nature of forgiveness that it can only be granted in response
to the request of the offender. But then it is an obligation incumbent on
Christians to forgive, based on the fundamental principle that he who asks for
forgiveness, receives forgiveness. Christian believers too must themselves bring
their guilt before God in prayer and ask forgiveness for it, and may then
accordingly count on its being forgiven.
Just as those dubious preachers whom the above author refers to suppose that it
is God’s "business" to forgive, so in some circles we find the widespread
view that because of this commandment every Christian is obliged to forgive each
and every debt that is owed to him, immediately and without waiting for any kind
of utterance on the part of the transgressor. So people get the idea that this
is a kind of general charter entitling anybody to do injury to Christian
believers and in all cases – as it were automatically – to receive forgiveness
for it.
But this completely overlooks the fact that in every case forgiveness can only
be a response to a request – namely, to the request for forgiveness. As long as
this request finds no expression, forgiveness cannot occur either – in the same
way as you cannot give an answer to a question when the question has not once
been asked.
And this principle is completely scriptural, as we can see if we look at the
relevant biblical passages. There we have first of all that prayer that the Lord
himself taught us:
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Mt 6,9 Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who
is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 6,10 ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be
done, On earth as it is in heaven. 6,11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread.
6,12 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
6,13 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [[For
Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.]]’ 6,14 "For
if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you. 6,15 "But if you do not forgive others, then your Father
will not forgive your transgressions. Mt 6, 9-15;
The main point of this, of course, is that we will only have our
debts forgiven by God if and to the extent that we likewise forgive our debtors
their transgressions against us. But then at all events it must be made
unmistakably clear that in praying this prayer we are really giving expression
to our request that our debt be forgiven. And thus the same is true for our
debtors as well, by analogy with the logical implications just outlined -
namely, that we can only forgive them for their transgressions if they
explicitly request or ask us to do so.
Let us now take a look at various statements relating to forgiveness that the
Lord left for our instruction. First of all there is Peter’s famous question,
"How often should I forgive my brother?"
Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?
Mt 18,21 Then Peter came and said to Him,
"Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to
seven times?" 18,22 Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to
seven times, but up to seventy times seven. Mt 18,21-22;
And here there is no doubt at all that this "up to seventy times seven" does not mean 490 times, but quite simply "always". Every believing Christian, then, must forgive his brother who sins against him, over and over on repeated occasions. But in what follows after this, the commentators often fail to pay sufficient attention to the parable which the Lord here relates to Peter by way of illustration.
So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me.
Mt 18,23 "For this reason the kingdom of
heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.
18,24 "When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand
talents was brought to him. 18,25 "But since he did not have the means to
repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and
all that he had, and repayment to be made. 18,26 "So the slave fell to
the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me
and I will repay you everything.’ 18,27 "And the lord of that slave
felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. 18,28 "But that
slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii;
and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’
18,29 "So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with
him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ 18,30
"But he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay
back what was owed. 18,31 "So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened,
they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had
happened. 18,32 "Then summoning him, his lord sad to him, ‘You wicked
slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.18,33 ‘Should
you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had
mercy on you?’ 18,34 "And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to
the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. 18,35 "My
heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive
his brother from your heart." Mt 18,23-35;
We see that in both cases the debtor pleads with the creditor in
the very same words, saying "Have patience with me". So it emerges here too,
without any doubt, that the Lord by no means thought of forgiveness as being
based on the watering can principle – on the contrary, forgiveness must always
be asked for by the guilty party. This is the one condition – but also the only
condition – of forgiveness: it must be asked for.
Now it is perfectly true that this just is not such a simple matter for some
Christians. But this is the very point where the realization we arrived at just
now can help us to get the better of this problem. Many years of experience have
shown that those of our fellow human beings who have done injury to others when
acting out of absolutely evil intent can hardly ever bring themselves to utter
an apology, let alone a request for forgiveness. At most we may meet with such
utterances as "I’ll be a devil and apologize!" as was heard on the lips of
a prominent German politician not so long ago. But this means that we are not
obliged to forgive them either. With all those who transgress against us and who
do not shrink from taking this step, on the other hand, we can be certain in
most cases that they regret their act and so are really deserving of our
forgiveness.
One last thing remains to be said on this topic: the request "Forgive us our
debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" might be interpreted in such a
way as to suggest that not just a quantitative comparison is meant (God forgives
me to the extent that I also forgive), but that a qualitative dimension
is to be taken into account as well (God forgives in the same way as I
also forgive). And this could also mean, amongst its other implications, that if
I forgive only in response to a request, God too will only forgive me in
response to my request. But if I forgive without being asked to do so, then God
likewise will forgive me without my asking for forgiveness.
This interpretation would admittedly be covered, semantically speaking, by the
foregoing passage in Mt 6,10, where we read: "… Your kingdom come. Your will
be done, on earth as it is in heaven". This is plainly a qualitative
comparison: may the will of God be done on earth in the same way as it is in
heaven, and the same Greek word is found here ("hos" = as) as occurs in the
passage we are considering (as we also…). On this basis the type of God’s
forgiveness would depend on the manner in which we forgive – on our being asked,
or without our being asked.
But as is shown us by the first epistle of John, we cannot find any substantial
scriptural confirmation for this view.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins.
1Jn 1,7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself
is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His
Son cleanses us from all sin. 1,8 If we say that we have no sin, we are
deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 1,9 If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. 1,10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar
and His word is not in us.1Jn 1,7-10;
This is the way the Lord proceeds: he forgives us our sins, if
we confess them. The scriptural precondition for forgiveness by God is therefore
that we recognize our guilt and confess our guilt – then we can count on
receiving forgiveness. And in human interaction the case is similar.
But these days it is in any case only among Christians – if at all – that
forgiveness is any longer mutually asked for and granted. Among worldly
individuals even quite obvious faults are hushed up, as in their view an apology
would be the same as an admission of weakness on their part, and so such a step
is not even considered. But as we have already stated, the consequence of this
is that they just cannot be forgiven, and so in the last resort they will be
held responsible and must bear the guilt before God for this fault, whether it
be a major or a minor offence.
And just as the Christian obligation to forgive guilt is often generalized in a
way that cannot be justified, so also the Lord’s parable of the Good
Samaritan, in his teaching about our "neighbor", is often interpreted back
to front, consciously or unconsciously, so that it says the very opposite of
what the Lord actually meant to say.
Here now is the full text of the parable:
The good Samaritan
Lk 10,25 And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the
test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
10,26 And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to
you?" 10,27 And he answered, "you shall love the LORD your God with
all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all
your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." 10,28 And He said to him,
"You have answered correctly; do this and you will live."
10,29 But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my
neighbor?" 10,30 Jesus replied and said, "A man was going down
from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and
beat him, and went away leaving him half dead.
10,31 "And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw
him, he passed by on the other side. 10,32 "Likewise a Levite also, when he
came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 10,33 "But a
Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt
compassion, 10,34 and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and
wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and
took care of him. 10,35 "On the next day he took out two denarii and gave
them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you
spend, when I return I will repay you.’
10,36 "Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the
man who fell into the robbers’ hands?" 10,37 And he said, "The
one who showed mercy toward him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go and
do the same." Lk 10,25-37;
This "Law" of which the Lord speaks here in Lk 10,26 is the Torah, the book of Moses (specifically, Deut 6,5 and Lev 19,18), to which he also refers in Mt 22,37-40.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Mt 22,35 One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a
question, testing Him, 22,36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in
the Law?" 22,37 And He said to him, "‘You shall love the LORD your
God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your.’ 2,38
"This is the great and foremost commandment. 22,39 "The second is like
it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Lev 19,18). 22,40
"On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." Mt
22,35-40;
As the Lord here states, on these two commandments – that of
loving God, and that of loving our neighbor – depend the whole Law (all the
commandments of God) and the Prophets. Consequently it is a matter of the utmost
importance that we should interpret these sayings correctly and understand what
they mean. And yet this parable of the good Samaritan, with its accompanying
statement pointing to the identity of our "neighbor", is probably the one
that has been most frequently misunderstood as a result of the superficial
consideration of things so often met with in the world, and it continues to be
subject to misunderstanding. This misunderstanding does not – just to rule this
out in advance – have anything to do with the recommendation that we should be
compassionate and willing to help. This of course is right and proper, and it
emerges quite clearly from what the Lord says at the end of the parable in Lk
10,37.
The misunderstanding is rather based on an incorrect interpretation of the
answer to the lawyer’s question. And some commentators get tangled up in the
text of the parable, and answer at great length the question why the priest and
the Levite – by contrast with the Samaritan – did not help the man who had been
set upon, without paying the attention that it merits to the actual question of
this parable, namely "Who is my neighbor?" or "Whom must I love as myself?"
The common opinion – which is naturally picked up and put about by all kinds of
social institutions – is that we are here being urged by God to love all the
poor and needy as ourselves, and by acting out this love of ours to take steps
to see that the help and support they need be given to them.
But if we look at this passage a little more carefully, we find that its import
is actually somewhat different. For here we find, in the concluding question
made by the Lord to the lawyer, the following:
"Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who
fell into the robbers’ hands?"
The question being asked, then, is who is to be seen as a neighbor – meaning the
neighbor of the man who had fallen among robbers. This should then be the answer
to the lawyer’s question in Lk 10,29, "And who is my neighbor?" "
But at the same time this is a specification of the identity of our "neighbors"
as referred to in the second commandment – the one following on the command to
love God – and for us Christians it points to those people whom we should love
as ourselves. And here we can see in the above question of the Lord’s – and in
the answer of the lawyer – a certain divergence from the common interpretation.
The Lord asks who proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among robbers. And
the lawyer answers, "The one who showed mercy toward him". It follows that
it is not the man in need of help who was the neighbor of the Samaritan, but the
other way around – by helping the victim, the Samaritan showed himself to be the
neighbor of the man who had been set upon.
But from this it follows that here it is not the "Samaritans" – the kind and
helpful souls – who are being commanded to love the poor and needy "as
themselves". Certainly they should be compassionate and should help such
people. After all, this is the way in which they show proof that they really do
love those in need. But it is those same needy people who have been helped who
are being urged here, on the basis of this commandment of God’s, to love their
helpers "as themselves".
And here we can also see how this differs from the secularized understanding of
this passage. While the latter endeavors – by turning the literal sense back to
front – to give the impression that this parable casts the victim of the robbers
as the neighbor of the Samaritan, and postulates that the poor of the whole
world are the "neighbors" of those who are better off, the Lord here means
on the one hand a quite personal form of helpfulness in our immediate
environment, and on the other commands those who have been helped to love their
helpers "as themselves".
So according to the words of the Lord in this parable, the commandment that we
should love our neighbor comes to this: Love those people who have helped you,
and show love to them in the same way as they shown love to you by giving you
help. Love of our neighbor, then, is not a category of compassion, but rather
one of gratitude.
And it is easy to see that this commandment does not just apply to the poor and
needy. It applies to us too, who are not needy, inasmuch as we too should be
personally grateful to all those who have helped us in the course of our lives -
parents, brothers and sisters, relations, acquaintances, friends and even
strangers who may have assisted us in an emergency situation – and should love
them as we love ourselves. They are all our neighbors.
Finally we might be inclined to ask the question what "loving (…) as you
love yourself" is actually supposed to mean. But the answer to this should not
be too hard to find: everything which I allow myself – from the material things
which I provide for myself to the faults that I tolerate – all this must I allow
to my neighbor either in a material or in an ideal sense. And this at the same
time gives us an answer to the question that has to do with proportionality:
what I cannot afford or do not wish to allow to myself, on the basis of this
definition I do not have to accept in my neighbor either. .
With his final admonition in the above passage, in Lk 10,37, "Go and do the
same", the Lord is at the same time making it plain to the lawyer that his
question was incorrect. It should not be the question "Who is my neighbor?"
- rather the question should be, "To whom can I be a neighbor?"
As we can see, this law is the commandment to us human beings that we should
love one another. First of all, by helping the needy and so showing them clearly
that we are their neighbors; and then again, when someone has helped us, by our
seeing this compassionate helper as our neighbor and so loving him in return,
also and especially because of the fact that he has helped us.
This is what Paul yet again makes plain to us in the epistle to the Romans.
Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Rom 13,9 For this, "You shall not commit
adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,"
(Ex 20,13-17) and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this
saying, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Lev 19,18)
13,10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of
the law. Rom 13, 9-10;
And here the circle closes again, returning once more to the
first commandment, that of the love of God. For if we love the person who treats
us mercifully, then it follows automatically that we will also love him who from
the very beginning has been merciful to us, in that he has created us and shows
new mercies to us every day by letting the sun continue to shine on the just and
on the unjust.
And this is the very thing which ever since the time of Adam and Eve humanity
has paid little heed to. If the first human beings when faced with the choice
whether to believe in God or in the devil had asked themselves who was actually
their "neighbor", who it was who had directly created them and placed all
that was around them on earth for their benefit, then they would of necessity
have realized that it was God who had the best intentions towards them and not
Satan, who himself is only a creature of God and up to that point in time had
not stirred a finger to help them.
And so we can also understand what lies behind this statement of the Lord’s in
Mt 22,39, where he tells us that these two commandments, of loving God and
loving our neighbor, are "like" one another, and that on them depends the
whole of the Law and the Prophets.
I read the text in the following way: it is not the person
who helps who determines who he is a neighbor to – rather it is the person
who is helped who determines whom he regards as a neighbor. 2. An important
point here is that it is a SAMARITAN who helps (or so I assume) a Jew – "Go
and do the same" was I would guess a slap in the face for the scribe, not
just because a Samaritan was being held up to him as an example, but because
he was being told to the same – to come to the help of people with whom he
had nothing in common. We are not automatically "neighbors", we become
neighbors as a result of our concrete actions (1 Joh 3,18). We may well
suppose that the man set upon by robbers came to a radically different
opinion of Samaritans as a result of this incident. Both have learned a
lesson. The scribe, that a person in need – whoever he may be – is my
neighbor. The man set upon by robbers, that a stranger can be closer to me
than one of my own people.
Dr. Monika von Sury – Royal Line info@royalline.ch
/ https://www.royalline.ch/d/traduction.asp
I am happy to find that we are here in complete agreement on the
fact that the Samaritan in this story is the "neighbor", and not the man set
upon by robbers, as the Catholic church, some other official churches and of
course too all social welfare organizations – out of not entirely unbiased
motives – would like to persuade us.
In interpreting this passage people often get caught up in philosophical
disquisition. Why did the priest and the Levite pass by, why was it the
Samaritan, of all people, who rendered help, what did the victim think or not
think and so on. This is all very interesting, and of course we can spin out
arguments on these lines and it will all certainly contribute to the background
to this parable.
But as you confirm in your remarks above, the parable is first and foremost
concerned with the second commandment, and the question which the scribe
addressed to the Lord at the start of the discussion: "And who is my
neighbor?" – and the Lord’s answer:
The one who showed mercy toward him.
Lk 10,36 "Which of these three do you think proved
to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?" 10,37
And he said, "The one who showed mercy toward him." Then Jesus
said to him, "Go and do the same." Lk 10,36-37;
The implication may also be inferred from your argument above ("it
is the person who is helped who determines whom he regards as a neighbor")
that it is the person who is helped who, in accordance with the second
commandment, must love his neighbor (i.e. the Samaritan) as himself – as opposed
to the opposite position, that helpers should love the needy (incorrectly
designated as their "neighbors"), which has so many advocates worldwide.
All the same, I do not see, as you do, the needy person as an active party who
is able to determine who is the neighbor he should love and who is not. This
would mean, after all, that an ungrateful contemporary of ours could ask for all
the help that he can receive without being compelled to see anyone as his
neighbor. And just this is the situation with which we are presently confronted,
as a result of this commandment’s having been promulgated through the world in
an inverted sense. In some countries of the Third World all the help that the
West can offer will be snapped up, but these people do not feel in the least bit
obligated by this. On the contrary, the helpers are actually robbed or even
murdered, like the missionaries in the Sudan, the monasteries in South Africa
and Indonesia and the members of aid organizations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So it cannot lie in the power of decision of the needy to determine who their
neighbor is – rather it is the decision of the helper to grant support to these
people which fulfills this commandment of the Lord’s, and so makes him the
neighbor of the person in need.
So your formulation
"it is the person who is helped who
determines whom he regards as a neighbor"
should actually read:
"the person who renders help as a result
becomes the neighbor of the man set upon by robbers".
So it is the Samaritan who, by actively providing help, becomes
the neighbor of the man who fell among thieves. And when we are told in the
second commandment that "You shall love your neighbor as yourself", this
means in consequence that you should love as yourself those who have become
your neighbors because of the way in which they have helped you.
Love of our neighbor.Like the incorrect interpretation of the "least
of my brothers" in Mat 25,40, the complete reversal of the biblical concept of
"love of our neighbor" by churches, preachers and aid organizations is one of the
biggest deceptions, practiced with a view to stimulating compassion in credulous
contemporaries and accumulating funds from donations with minimum effort. Anyone who doesn’t take this to heart is
supporting the godless, idol worshipers, criminals and terrorists!
So that is what this parable of the Lord Jesus tells us. And it also
says – if some one comes to you personally or you meet them personally
and they ask you personally for your help or you see that they are
personally in need of help, then, as a correctly believing Christian, you should
personally help them. And they should then love you (based on Mt 22,39)
personally out of gratitude, in the same way as they love themselves. Anyone who doesn’t take this to heart is
supporting the godless, idol worshipers, criminals and terrorists! Now this is something quite different from those charity campaigns
for refugees whom we never get to know, and who do not have any idea who has helped
them. And in this context most of the money is not spent on the refugees themselves,
but goes to the salaries, logistical operations and other expenses of these "aid
organizations". |
I have read your website with great interest. A few
questions suggested themselves, which I would like to discuss with you, if
you have the time and inclination.
I cannot agree with your interpretation of the love of one’s neighbor in
the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus Christ repeatedly stressed in his
teaching that we should "love one another". Love all your brothers and
sisters, do good to all your fellow human beings! HE definitely did not ever
say, love only those who have done good to you, because they are your
neighbors.
In his Commandments God tells us as follows:
The 8th Commandment: "You shall not bear false witness against your
neighbor." (You shall not lie).
The 9th Commandment: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house;"
The 10th Commandment: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife… or
anything that belongs to your neighbor." (Ex 20/1-17)
Is this "neighbor" a different person, or is it the same neighbor who is
meant with reference to the love of one’s neighbor? If it is the same
neighbor, then I wonder ‒ according to your interpretation, I suppose
this would have to be understood as saying: You shall not bear false witness
against people who have done good to you. It follows that it would be OK to
tell lies to anyone else… And you would be allowed, then, to covet all
married women who are not married to your friends or to men who have done
good to you.
How does this interpretation fit in with the following words of Jesus
Christ?: "For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was
thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you
invited Me in; I was naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited
Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me." Then the righteous will ask him:
"Lord, when did we do this for you?" Jesus’ answer was as follows: "To
the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least
of them (of your fellow human beings), you did it to me."
But then he will also say to the many other people on his left: "Depart
from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for
the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat;
I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you
did not invite Me in; I was naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in
prison, and you did not visit Me." And they too will ask him: "When is
this supposed to have happened?" And he will answer them and say, "Truly
I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of
these, you did not do it to Me."
Thank you for your visit to Immanuel.at and for your interesting
comments.
First of all let us get one thing straight. When you write, "Jesus Christ
repeatedly stressed in his teaching that we should ‘love one another’. Love
all your brothers and sisters," here we are in complete agreement. These are
all statements made by the Lord. But your following conclusion ‒ "Do
good to all your fellow human beings!" ‒ is in my view not a statement
of the Lord’s, so you would have to refer me to the biblical passage where you
have found these words.
This equation of the brothers and sisters of the Lord with "all human beings"
is based on a superficial consideration of the text in question. The Lord tells
us in quite concrete terms who, out of all human beings, he regards as his
brothers and sisters:
Whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister.
Mt 12,49 And stretching out His hand toward His
disciples, He said, "Behold My mother and My brothers! 12,50 "For whoever
does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and
mother." Mt 12,49-50;
Here I surely do not need to adduce proof of the fact that about 95% of humanity ‒ which is today some 6.5 billion people ‒ fail to fulfill this criterion. As our Lord Jesus Christ has already said:
The gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
Mt 7,13 "Enter through the narrow gate; for the
gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many
who enter through it. 7,14 "For the gate is small and the way is narrow
that leads to life, and there are few who find it.Mt 7,13-14;
So only those people should be seen as brothers and sisters of
the Lord who do the will of His Father who is in heaven. That means we are
concerned here with correctly believing Christians. These are the people whom
our Lord urges to love one another ‒ not, by any means, "all
their fellow human beings".
(See also Discourse 99: "The
Last Judgment: who are "these brothers of Mine, even the least of them" in
Mt 25,40?")
This incorrect view of things ‒ "all human beings are
brothers in Christ" ‒ has been largely disseminated in recent years by
the Catholic church. In the first instance this was surely an unintentional
error, because the church at the time, like many Catholics today, had failed to
understand the background to this text. Later, though, it was a matter of
calculation ‒ with a view to acquiring more members. People would then
make a hefty cash donation for the sake of this "brotherhood", which would
immediately make them "brothers of the Lord".
Nowadays the Catholic church has switched to a different approach. Under the
banner of interreligious ecumenism, they try to get control of people by way of
their religion. Here the Catholic church opens itself to all religions, so that
they can all then be received into the bosom of the "one unique Catholic
church".
(See also Discourse 91: "Interreligious
Ecumenism: Are the Religions Merely Different Paths to Salvation?")
Ms. Höger then writes:
"HE definitely did not ever say, Love only those
who have done good to you, because they are your neighbors."
I am afraid you have evidently not read my explanations of the
parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37) in Discourse 18 above with
sufficient attention to detail. Nothing is said there to the effect that
Christians should "only" love those who have done good to them.
This parable is not concerned with love as such, but rather with a particular
quality of love. Here the scribe asks the Lord whom we should identify as being
our "neighbor" in the commandment "You shall love your neighbor as
yourself" (Lev 19:18). And now, as has also been shown above, it emerges that
in this parable the Samaritan, the helper (not the man in need of help!), is the
one who the Lord’s statement points to as being our neighbor.
And when we now bring these two statements together, we find it made mandatory
for Christians ‒ and only for Christians!! ‒ to see those people who
have helped them as their neighbor, so in accordance with God’s commandment
they are obliged to love this neighbor as they love themselves. And this "loving
as you love yourself" is not just the run-of-the-mill "love" of today
which covers and dumbs down everything from sex to family relationships to the
"love" of money, power or fame.
It is rather that special kind of "love of
oneself" which individual human beings treat themselves to, in a quite
personal and exclusively personal way. According to this commandment of God’s,
this is the very love that we must also extend to our neighbor ‒ to those
who help us.
And then Ms. Höger goes on to advance a highly interesting argument. She quotes
the Ten Commandments from Ex 20,1-17:
"In his Commandments God tells us as follows:
The 8th Commandment: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
(You shall not lie).
The 9th Commandment: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house;"
The 10th Commandment: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife… or
anything that belongs to your neighbor." (Ex 20/1-17)
And here again there is a connection with the Catholic church.
For centuries this church has kept one commandment from its members. Right up to
the present ‒ as the table shown below reveals ‒ the second
commandment, forbidding idols and the worship of idols, has been deleted by the
Catholic church from the Decalogue, for reasons that are easily understood; and
then ‒ because this had after all reduced the number of the commandments
to nine ‒ the tenth commandment was broken up into two separate
injunctions.
The manifesto "Dominus Jesus" of the Catholic
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith postulates that "the Catholic Church is the one unique church
that makes salvation possible" As is shown below, however, it is just this church
which has falsified God’s commandments, so as to deceive the
congregation of the faithful. It suppressed the second commandment,
so as to hush up the fact that worship paid to idols made of stone
and wood (the saints and madonnas) is expressly forbidden in the
second of these Ten Commandments given by God. |
The Ten
Commandments
|
The Ten Commandments
|
(See also Discourse 32: "Commentary
on the manifesto "Dominus Jesus" of the Catholic Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith.")
The Apostolic Succession of the Catholic church?Catholic priests who in thousands of cases worldwide
have dispensed the "transformed" eucharist with their
hands in the Mass have proceeded, with those same hands, to abuse
and violate children (1Cor,6:9). Catholic bishops who earlier had
blessed the "sheep" of their flock, have gone on to be
arrested for corruption (Vatican Bank, see report in Der Spiegel
of 6.28.2013). ![]() Of course it is true that you find black sheep everywhere. But when the "very reverend" violators are shielded and hidden in the ranks of the church for decades, and even corrupt "shepherds" holding office as bishops have to be unmasked by the police, this shows up the organization itself as being altogether without conscience, depraved and corrupt (Mt 7:16-20). Having the face to speak of the "Apostolic Succession", in the light of these facts, is the most egregious insult to the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. |
And when we now look at the passages quoted by Ms. Höger above,
they are an exact reflection of this distorted Catholic sequence of the God’s
commandments. Whereas, in
the original text of the Bible, the tenth commandment covers the coveting both
of the property and of the wife of a man’s neighbor in a single commandment
(Ex 20,17), Ms. Höger is clearly quoting from a Catholic Bible, where these two
criteria are split up into two commandments, the ninth and the tenth ‒ by
reason of the fact that the Catholic Bible suppresses the 2nd commandment with
its ban on the worship of idols and omits it entirely.
But now our commentator argues, in connection with the last two (or in the eyes
of the Catholic church, the last three) commandments and with a view to
clarifying the identity of the "neighbor" referred to here:
"Is this "neighbor" a different person, or is
it the same neighbor who is meant with reference to the love of one’s
neighbor? If it is the same neighbor, then I wonder ‒ according to your
interpretation, I suppose this would have to be understood as saying: You shall
not bear false witness against people who have done good to you. It follows that
it would be OK to tell lies to anyone else… And you would be allowed, then, to
covet all married women who are not married to your friends or to men who have
done good to you."
To understand better what is going on here, we must take a quick
look at the history of the Ten Commandments. They were handed over to Moses by
God on Mount Sinai, and constituted a code of behavioral rules for the people of
Israel in its 40 years of wandering in the desert and thereafter. The Israelites
were at that time already a people of several thousand families, and envy and
greed were not foreign to them either, as we can read in the Bible.
These commandments applied exclusively to God’s people of Israel ‒ not
by any means to any of the peoples of the heathen. We can see this in the fact
that God gave his people the land of Canaan (the Israel of today) for their own
at the end of their wanderings in the desert. But this country had already been
long occupied by various other peoples, and the Israelites were first obliged to
conquer and drive out these peoples in order to take possession of the land (Ex
23:20-33). And that, now, would be a direct contradiction of the 10th
commandment ‒ "You shall not covet… anything that belongs to your
neighbor." ‒ if this "neighbor" were to be understood as meaning "all
your fellow human beings".
He shall not exact it of his neighbor and his brother, From a foreigner you may exact it
Deut 15,1 "At the end of every seven years you
shall grant a remission of debts. 15,2 "This is the manner of remission: every
creditor shall release what he has loaned to his neighbor; he
shall not exact it of his neighbor and his brother, because the LORD’S
remission has been proclaimed. 15,3 "From a foreigner you may exact
it, but your hand shall release whatever of yours is with your brother.
15,4 "However, there will be no poor among you, since the LORD will surely
bless you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to
possess, 15,5 if only you listen obediently to the voice of the LORD your God,
to observe carefully all this commandment which I am commanding you today. Deut
16, 1- 5;
But in his parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus now showed the
Jews that for the Jews ‒ that is, for all the descendants of Jacob, to
whom God gave the name "Israel" ‒ this Old Testament "neighbor"
has been given a more precise definition as a result of the incarnation of the
Son of God. From this time on, our neighbor is no longer one who belongs to the
people of Israel but rather any person who acts as a helper towards one of the
body of true believers.
The Lord always made it clear to the Jews that true faith is not to be found in
those persons who make a great song and dance about it and who, like the
scribes, present themselves in the sight of men as being particularly "holy"
‒ with the help of long robes, special head coverings and other such
fripperies. These people were actually described by the Lord as "serpents"
and a "brood of vipers".
You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?
Mt 23,27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear
beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all
uncleanness. 23,28 "So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but
inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 23,29 "Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and
adorn the monuments of the righteous, 23,30 and say, ‘If we had been living in
the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding
the blood of the prophets.’ 23,31 "So you testify against yourselves,
that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 23,32 "Fill up,
then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. 23,33 "You serpents,
you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? Mt 23,27-33;
Those people have true faith, on the other hand, who love God and pray to God in their hearts, without any kind of publicity.
But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret.
Mt 6,5 "When you pray, you are not to be
like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on
the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they
have their reward in full. 6,6 "But you, when you pray, go into your
inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and
your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Mt 6, 5- 6;
And in the same way the Lord spelled it out to the Jews in the parable of the Good Samaritan that a person’s being outwardly a priest or a Levite, one who speaks a lot and gives himself airs in the assembled congregation, does not necessarily mean that he is merciful and a person of right belief in his heart. And that applies to the Christians of today as well. As Gottfried Daniel Pomacher, an Awakening preacher from Wuppertal, once said:
"Christianity does not consist in words but rather
in the power of the Holy Spirit in the believer. The pillars of the temple are
not those who attract the admiration of their hearers with their public
utterances of ‘Lord, Lord’, but rather those who – at home, in the stillness
of their own room, and without any audience – address their prayers to the Lord:
these are the ones who really support the congregation."
Which of course is why the Lord in fact tells us:
Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.
Mt 7,21 "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord,
Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My
Father who is in heaven will enter. Mt 7,21;
At the same time this parable also demonstrates that our
neighbor is not to be identified as "all our fellow human beings". Our
neighbors are always those persons who prove to be helpers in relation to
correctly believing Christians. Whether Christians or non-Christians, they are
our neighbors because they have stood by us. All other fellow human beings are
not our neighbors!! But we cannot automatically infer, either, that these
neighbors of a Christian are themselves true believers and are saved.
This is because as Paul writes, in 1Cor 3,11-15 below, on the day of the Last
Judgment it is not the work of a person which is the important thing for the
verdict, but rather the "foundation" on which he has built these works. And
this foundation is purely and solely faith in Jesus Christ and his vicarious
sacrifice on the cross for our sins. If anyone has this foundation, his works
will be rated. And even if he should prove not to have any works at all, he will
still be saved, "yet so as through fire".
But all others who do not have this foundation "which is Jesus Christ" can
point to whole heaps of works, but they will all be burned up as useless, and
the Lord will say to them: "Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal
fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels."
For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
1Cor 3,11 For no man can lay a foundation other
than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 3,12 Now if any man
builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,
3,13 each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it
because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the
quality of each man’s work. 3,14 If any man’s work which he has built on
it remains, he will receive a reward. 3,15 If any man’s work is burned up,
he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
1Cor 3,11-15;
(See also Chapter 13: "The
Last Judgment")
At the end of her commentary above, Doris Höger also refers to
the text about the Last Judgment in Mt 25,35-45.
"How does this interpretation fit in with the
following words of Jesus Christ?
‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you
gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and
you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to
Me.’
Then the righteous will ask him, ‘Lord, when did we do this for you?’
Jesus’ answer was as follows:
’To the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of
Mine, even the least of them (of your fellow human beings), you did it to Me.’"
And as we can see from her interpolation in the biblical text,
in the brackets in the last line, Ms. Höger is actually well aware of the weak
link in her interpretation. Here again what is happening is a generalization of
the terms, with the Christian faithful being put on an equal footing with
godless persons. When the Lord says in the above-quoted passage (Mt 12,50), "For
whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and
sister and mother," then of course that applies here as well.
So it is the least of his brothers ‒ the rightly believing
Christians of the whole world who do the will of the Father ‒ who are
being talked about here, and not "your fellow human beings", including all
godless persons, idol-worshipers, dangerous criminals and mass murderers
worldwide.
And that also applies, of course, to the second part of this biblical passage
which Ms. Höger quotes:
"But then he will say to the many other people on
his left:
‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been
prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing
to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and
you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison,
and you did not visit Me.’
And they too will ask him: ’When is this supposed to have happened?’
Then he will answer and say to them:
’Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of
the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’"
With "one of the least of these" in the last line the Lord
is referring back to the first passage (Mt 25,40) where he identifies these "least"
persons as his brothers who do the Will of the Father. On repeated occasions it
is a matter of interest to see how "selectively" some people read their
Bible. Although the statements are there in black and white, they will be
overlooked, suppressed, reinterpreted or purely and simply denied and deleted.
On the matter of "forgiveness". Here your website gives
the following interpretation: we human beings ought first of all to ask for
forgiveness, and only then will forgiveness be granted. (to another human
being, not to our heavenly Father, for that is, in my opinion, a big
difference)
Here again I take a different view: "He who conceals a transgression (one
who can overlook faults) seeks love…" (Prov 17/9). "A man’s
discretion makes him slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook a
transgression (faults of other people)" (Prov 19/11). Forgiveness is one
of the most difficult things that can be asked of us human beings.
But Jesus Christ gave us an example of how we have to behave. When he was
crucified, he asked God to forgive the tormentors who had put him to the
torture: "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing"
(Luke 23/34). These people hadn’t asked Jesus for forgiveness
beforehand!!! Other examples: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them!"
(Acts 7/60). Paul too forgave his fellow human beings when they abandoned
him out of cowardice. He said, "At my first defense no one supported me,
but all deserted me; may it not be counted against them (2.Tim 4/16).
"So, as those who have been chosen of God (God has chosen you too ‒
he wants you for his Kingdom), … put on a heart of compassion, kindness,
humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another and forgiving
each other…" (Col 3/12).
I would be very pleased if we could get into a good dialog, from which we
might both, being led by God’s hand, benefit for the salvation of our
souls.
We do not have to forgive our Father in heaven for anything. He
forgives us in his grace. But we have to ask him to do so, in the Lord’s
Prayer. Someone who doesn’t ask God for forgiveness of his sins quite simply
does not receive forgiveness. And when the Lord’s Prayer then goes on to say,
"And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors," this means
that we too must forgive if those who are in debt to us ask us to do so. That is
to say that any person who wants to obtain forgiveness must actually request it.
But I would still like to engage here with the first part of your sentence,
where you quote me as concluding that we human beings ought first of all to ask
for forgiveness, and only then will forgiveness be granted. And you state:
"Here again I take a different view…"
Now here we must first of all expressly point out that the
injunction that we should mutually forgive one another applies exclusively to
correctly believing Christians. The godless would first of all have to ask God
to be forgiven for their not having believed in him. And here we can also
recognize that we should always ask for forgiveness from that person towards
whom we have acquired a debt. From God, if we have sinned against God; from
human beings, if we have sinned against human beings.
But if we now take Christian faith as our point of departure ‒ and I think
I can infer from your statements that you too are a Christian ‒ why should
a Christian be so reluctant, if he has incurred a debt to a person, to ask this
person for forgiveness??
Doesn’t this also cast a certain light on the prayer life of this Christian?
Our daily prayer, after all, necessarily includes our asking for forgiveness for
our sins. Or do you not have any sins for which you would need to ask the Lord
for forgiveness? But wouldn’t that show a certain lack of humility?
The view that forgiveness should happen quietly and in secret, and without the
knowledge or the will of the guilty party, does however suggest a quite
different suspicion. Namely that what is at stake here is not forgiveness, but
on the contrary, the request for forgiveness. It is not the unrequested
forgiveness of guilt which is here the father of the thought, but rather the
unwillingness of the guilty person for his part to ask for forgiveness, because
he does not want to face up to his guilt, and so he makes use of this trick
‒ based on the idea that the damaged party’s forgiveness should in any
case be a "blank check", so to speak ‒ with a view to soothing his
conscience.
And seeing it in this light, we can correct the assertion contained in the
commentary above:
"Forgiveness is one of the most difficult things
that can be asked of us human beings"
in as much as it is evidently not forgiveness, but the request
for forgiveness, which some people find to be the most difficult thing that can
be expected of them.
As already explained in an earlier part of this Discourse, we as Christians have
a mandatory obligation to forgive our brothers (our Christian brothers and
sisters!). The
Lord himself tells us in Mt 18,21-22;
Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?
Mt 18,21 Then Peter came and said to Him, "Lord,
how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven
times?" 18,22 Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven
times, but up to seventy times seven. Mt 18,21-22;
And here we can have no doubt that this "up to seventy times seven" means not 490 times, but purely and simply "always". So every believing Christian must forgive his brother who sins against him over and over again. But there is no way that the Lord means a forgiveness "in secret", for which the guilty person has not even asked ‒ as we can recognize from the parable which is appended to this commandment of the Lord’s:
So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me’
Mt 18,23 "For this reason the kingdom of
heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.
18,24 "When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand
talents was brought to him. 18,25 "But since he did not have the means to
repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and
all that he had, and repayment to be made.
18,26 "So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before
him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.’
18,27 "And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and
forgave him the debt. 18,28 "But that slave went out and found one of his
fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to
choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’
18,29 "So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with
him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ 18,30
"But he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay
back what was owed. 18,31 "So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened,
they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had
happened. 18,32 "Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked
slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 18,33 ‘Should
you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had
mercy on you?’ 18,34 "And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to
the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. 18,35 "My
heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive
his brother from your heart." Mt 18,23-35;
We see that in both cases the person in debt "…fell to the
ground… saying ‘Have patience with me’". So here again it emerges
plainly from the context that the Lord was in no way thinking of forgiveness
based on the watering can principle, but rather insisting that forgiveness must
always be requested by the guilty party. This is the one, but also the only
condition for forgiveness: it must be requested.
How in the name of everything in the world do some Christians evidently find it
so difficult to ask for forgiveness when they have made themselves guilty in
relation to a brother or sister? ‒ The more so in view of the fact that
the Lord has given them an assurance that they will be forgiven.
And then we find the most peculiar comparisons advanced, as in the above
commentary by Ms. Höger:
"He who conceals a transgression seeks love (who
can overlook faults)" (Prov 17/9)
He who "conceals a transgression" may possibly seek
affection. But in some Catholic monastery schools where the children have been
subjected to abuse by the "Fathers", people may well have concealed
transgression so as to "seek affection" towards those pedophile priests, but
this only prevented the matter’s being cleared up ‒ while continuing to
expose the children for years to the perverse lusts of these so-called "men of
God".
"A man’s discretion makes him slow to anger,
and it is his glory to overlook a transgression (of other people)." (Prov
19/11)
And when a person overlooks a transgression, it may well redound
to his glory. But if an error of treatment of this kind results in the father of
a family having his leg amputated, so destroying the entire family’s means of
support, this "glory" is not going to be a whole lot of use to the persons
involved.
"But Jesus Christ gave us an example of how we
have to behave. When he was crucified, he asked God to forgive the tormentors
who had put him to the torture: ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not
know what they are doing’ (Luke 23/34). These people hadn’t asked
Jesus for forgiveness beforehand!!!
This biblical passage too is repeatedly brought forward by
people who have not read the text properly. Our Lord did not himself forgive his
murderers (any more than Stephen did in Acts 7:60); rather, he prayed the
Father to forgive them. First of all because murder is not a sin that
human beings are able to forgive. The life of a every human being belongs not to
him but to God. It is God who has given it.
And on the other hand, too, because these Roman soldiers who crucified the Lord
were innocent. These people had absolutely no idea that they had just crucified
the Son of God. They were simply carrying out orders. The real guilty parties,
though, were the scribes of the Sanhedrin and Caiaphas their High Priest, who
had condemned Jesus to death and handed him over to the Romans (Jn 19:11). And
these people were most certainly not forgiven by the Lord, when he said to them:
Mt 23,33 "You serpents, you brood of vipers,
how will you escape the sentence of hell?
Jn 8,44 "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do
the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not
stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie,
he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Probably Ms. Höger, with her Catholic doctrine of "universal
forgiveness", would have been inclined to forgive these people as well? And
then she goes on to quote another biblical passage:
"So, as those who have been chosen of God
(God has chosen you too ‒ he wants you for his Kingdom), holy and
beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and
patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, …"
(Colossians 3/12-13).
Yes ‒ "and forgiving each other" ‒ that means,
"ask each other for forgiveness and forgive each other mutually". For we
have to forgive ‒ the Lord has already enjoined us to do so, after all, in
Mt 18,22, so there isn’t any question about that. It follows that Paul’s
injunction here refers rather to the request for forgiveness!
The Lord himself gave us instructions as to how we should behave toward a
brother who has sinned.
If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private.
Mt 18,15 "If your brother sins, go and show
him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
18,16 "But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so
that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. 18,17
"If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he
refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax
collector. Mt 18,15-17;
If he faces up to his guilt and repents what he has done, then
he will be forgiven; if not, "let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax
collector".
As the late lamented Ernst Panzer wrote in his first commentary in this
Discourse:
"Insight, acknowledgement and asking for
forgiveness! That, then, is the path indicated to us,
if we are to receive forgiveness either from God or from human beings."
(See also Discourse 75: "Must
Christians love their enemies?")
The biblical Christian forgiveness of sins.If your brother sins, and returns to you, saying, ‘I repent’, forgive him. Lk 17,3 "Be on your guard! If your
brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 17,4 "And
if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven
times, saying, ‘I repent’, forgive him." Lk 17,3-4; Like love of our neighbor, forgiveness is another of
those commandments of the Lord which have been taught to people by the
Catholic church for centuries in a completely incorrect form. The Lord
tells us here, in Lk 17,2-4, that we must forgive our brother 490 times a day.
And this has been interpreted – and continues to be so – as meaning that a
Christian must forgive all other human beings for everything, always and
everywhere – according to the motto: "all people are brothers". For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother. Mt 12,46 While He was still speaking to the crowds,
behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him.
12,47 Someone said to Him, "Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are
standing outside seeking to speak to You." 12,48 But Jesus answered the one
who was telling Him and said, "Who is My mother and who are My brothers?"
12,49 And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, "Behold My
mother and My brothers! 12,50 "For whoever does the will of My
Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother."
Mt 12,46-50; So this is that "brother" whom we have to forgive. And
thus all the ungodly and idolaters of this world are excluded from this
commandment! "If he returns to you, saying, ‘I
repent’, forgive him". To those who have been guilty of us, we are obliged to forgive only if they are Bible-believing Christians and
thus brothers in the Lord, and repent and expressly ask us for forgiveness. And this is something we are hardly likely
to experience in today’s godless society. Even among Christians it tends to be the exception rather
than the rule when a brother returns to us, repents and asks for our forgiveness. |