…is the title of a chapter in a book that I’ve referred to before called Bold Love, by Dan Allender. It has helped me to better understand relationships , especially difficult ones. I want the “staggering feast.”
A second key to biblical restoration is withholding forgiveness from an unrepentant person while pursuing reconciliation. Many will no doubt say, ‘Forgiveness is absolutely unconditional; it does not depend on the response of the offender; it is a gift from the offended.’ I agree. Forgiveness cancels the debt of the undeserving. But forgiveness is also passionately expectant. We cancel the debt in order to invite the offender to return from the pigpen and join us at the banquet table. A forgiving heart does not settle for a stain on beauty; it aches for the return of the offender to the house of God and the heart of the offended.
But entry is conditional. I may invite you to my home for dinner, but I will not let you in if you are wearing filthy shoes. The door is open and I desire for you to enter, but entry is not a given if you have not chosen to repent and take off your shoes. My part is to offer and hold firm to the principles of beauty in order to truly invite you to the freeing taste of repentance. When your head is lowered and your heart is broken over sin, I am privileged to invite you to a staggering feast.
Bold Love, p181
I’ve read this through a couple of times now, and I am not totally sure I am understanding it correctly. Is he encouraging Christians to withold forgiveness as a means to the end of restoration of relationship?
If so, I am not entirely sure I can agree with this. This is just my meager understanding of Scripture talking, but the way I understand Christ’s instructions on forgiveness – we are to forgive because we have been forgiven. What sin could somone commit against me that I have not also, in some way, committed against God? Who am I, then, to withold forgiveness from anyone when Christ did not withhold it from me?
I can see witholding trust from someone, just as I can see witholding full relationship. We are not instructed by Christ to re-establish those connections with those who have sinned against us. But always there must be forgiveness. Again, that’s the way I am understanding Scripture.
(Please know I offer these comments in SO not a challenging way. I completely respect your viewpoints and perspectives and I just want to clarify the author’s point here.)
Hi Megan, I’m glad you wrote this. Yes, his phrase “withholding forgiveness” is alarming, but what he intends, (from the context of the entire book) I think,is to challenge the idea that we, as Christians, should just be “nice” and gloss over offenses and call that forgiveness. Our intimacy with Christ is dependent on our contrition, and our intimacy in human relationships is also dependent on an acknowledgment of offense and a sorrow for the pain it caused the other person. Like you said, we are not called by Christ to re-establish relationship with a person who is unwilling to do this, but we do forgive them unconditionally.
I think of Prov. 19:19 “A man of great anger shall bear the penalty, for if you rescue him, you will only have to do it again.
Loving someone does not mean allowing them to continue in their sin. Rather, loving someone is forgiving them, yet offering, by rebuke,withholding relationship, etc. an opportunity for redemption, transformation, and true relationship with us and with the Lord.
Here’s another quote: “Love, in many cases, is a covering over the offense with long-suffering patience. But even when love covers over the dead remains of a vicious comment, it does not pretend or naively hope things will be fine once we get through the current unpleasantness and return to a more comfortable status quo. Love may pardon and offense, but it does not ignore the ugliness and arrogance that blights beauty.” p.184
I have a friend whose father heaps abusive comments on her whenever they are together – you’re fat, you’re ugly, you’re lazy, and then expects full respect and a desire to be with him every time she gets a chance. She needs to forgive him each time, but she can lovingly communicate that those things hurt her, and she will now limit her time with him until he ceases to make these hurtful comments. This is a way of loving him, though he may not experience it as such.
Thanks, Melanie, for that insight! I am completely understand and get that perspective. You are so right – I think we do sometimes think we should just forgive and then act like everything’s just fine, that this is what Christ would have us do. But I agree with what you are saying – that is NOT what Christ calls us to.
I guess this is a subject close to my heart because I’ve had to walk it out in an intense way in my relationship with my father in the past few years, and admittedly, I did not always choose a healthy, biblical path.
Thanks for touching on the topic and for taking the time to respond so thoroughly!