Hi,
I have a question about forgiveness.
Its clear in the scriptures that God doesn’t forgive unless a human repents, and repentance means to feel deep remorse AND stop the sin and go the other way.
My X wife remains in her adulterous relationship. I believe that a human divorce does not make her relationship with her adultery partner OK in Gods eyes. I believe that it is eternal adultery.
If she should return to The Lord she would need to leave that man even if they are married as the marriage would be completely invalid (no marriage at all ) in Gods eyes. Even if she returns to The Lord AND he accepts the Lord and they both thus repent I think they might be able to continue their relationship but only if I am remarried or dead.
So , since they both live in unrepentant sin every second of every day then they are not forgiven by God and have no salvation. Now what I am suppose to do with this ? How do we forgive when God doesn’t? I believe that we need to forgive 70x 7 etc etc as Jesus said but what if the person doesn’t stop the sin?
Thanks for your advice and insight,
Eric
Dear Eric,
You are correct that her eternal destiny looks bleak as she continues in unrepentant sin (see Hebrews 10:26-27). That said, I believe we ultimately do not know people’s destiny as God alone holds this knowledge. We can, though, look at actions–like ongoing sin–and believe their eternal prognosis looks bleak based on the Bible’s teachings.
What do you do with this in regards to forgiveness?
I believe forgiveness in these situations looks like giving the debt to God to handle. In other words, it is entrusting our hurt and the injustices we suffered to our good, just, and wise God.
This is not a denial of the wrongs suffered.
Rather, we choose to hand them to God for Him to handle. As far as we are concerned, we relinquish our right to revenge to God. We choose to move forward as opposed to being held by anger to the past.
Forgiveness is a process much like grief.
When we have suffered deeply wounding wrongs, this process takes considerable time as it is a deep hurt.
I found it helpful to write out the wrongs committed against me. Then I could choose to give them to Jesus. I had to do this internally many times before I started feeling free of the anger and hurt from them.
The journey to healing begins by first acknowledging that we have been wronged. I cannot forgive something unless I first acknowledge that it was wrong. We forgive wrongs, not non-events.
One final point: trying to figure out our cheater’s eternal destiny is energy better spent on our own healing and relationship with God. They have stolen enough of that energy and do not deserve more.
I hope that helps!
Thanks Eric & DM!
I needed DM’s reminder this week! I still struggle with the same thing as X continues down the road of sin telling everyone how happy he is with his new life with affair partner/ wife. I was so worried about his salvation and my kids that I added that stress onto everything else I had to deal with. I was more worried about him than my own health crisis!
I even asked X what the Bible says happens to someone who follows sin unto completion. He knew. He even told me, “It brings death.” When I asked him what death was, he hesitated before he answered that correctly and said, “Death is separation from God.” His actions after that was like the Rich Young Ruler; X turned away & chose to continue down path of sin rather than choosing repentance & God. Of course, he blamed me for all his failures & stress in his life as he did so!