Eureka Christian Church

Reflecting Christ's Light from Our Doorsteps to the Ends of the Earth

Questions about Sin

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Will God forgive me?

Will God forgive me for whatever it is I have done, or must I continue to suffer?

We  might re-frame the question this way: If I repeatedly hurt myself or another person, or, for example, if I relapse into the very thing I told myself I would never ever do again (and that I told my loved ones I would never ever do again); given just how deep my regret is, and given just how much damage it’s done to my relationships, will I ever feel the feeling of forgiveness again? Will I ever feel again what it feels like to be whole? Will I ever feel restored or reconciled to the person I’ve hurt (or to myself)? 

A theologian once said, sin and forgiveness run “horizontally” and “vertically.” Sin and forgiveness involve both our relationship to God and our relationships with other people. On the one hand, when we hurt people we care about (or when we do harm or hurt to ourselves) God unfailingly forgives and draws close to us when we ask. But this doesn’t negate or erase relational damage. In a vertical sense, we are always accepted and loved by a God whose spirit nourishes every possibility of life within us. This is true even when we cause pain, feel regret for it, and in the aftermath struggle to accept or love ourselves. However, in a horizontal sense, relational healing and forgiveness take time. Relational healing is a process. Meaningful relationships weather powerful storms, but they are fragile when trust is broken. When a relationship is damaged or a wound reopened, healing is a long and winding path. It requires love, time, honesty, and re-building the foundations of fidelity or trust. Depending on the damage caused, the path doesn’t always lead where we expect or want. Sometimes reconciliation keeps a safe distance, especially when the damage caused is cyclical or abusive.  Horizontal forgiveness, especially for serious relational damage or pain, is long-haul soul care.

What about when I know I’m forgiven horizontally and vertically, but I continue to struggle (internally) with my regret? What about when I’m unable to forgive myself?

Suffering is painful, especially if it is regret. But suffering is also the soul’s attentiveness to the deep feelings that pass through us. As Henri Nouwen might say, suffering is a place where we encounter ourselves laid bare. When suffering is unrelenting, we need to seek help. But when suffering is redemptive or meaningful, it can attune us to the possibility and hope of healing and wholeness in God’s bright and loving future. God’s forgiveness does not cease. The judgment of God is that forgiveness and love have the final say. But it’s also true that healing from deep spiritual or relational hurt is like healing from a severe physical injury. Wounds need to be dressed, bathed, cleaned, and redressed through the habits of attentiveness, listening, honesty, hope, and trust. Healing and forgiveness aren’t feelings only; they are a process.

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Will God stop forgiving me one day if I repeat my sin?

Will God stop forgiving me one day if I repeat my sin?

One way to think about the question is to put it this way. Does God’s forgiveness run out? If I do the same thing again (which I promised myself and God I wouldn’t do), will God stop forgiving me for it?

On the one hand, Jesus seems to teach that forgiveness is at the center of God’s nature, and God’s forgiveness doesn’t run out. No matter how many times I sin (or act in contrary ways to the love and humanity of God revealed in Jesus toward myself or another person or the world), God’s arms are open. This, for example, is the main point of Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). The love of God doesn’t give up on us; it waits for us and celebrates our homecoming.

Divine love is boundless and eternal. Divine love is enough to accept us and welcome us even when we struggle to accept and love ourselves. The judgment of God seems to be that forgiveness and love have the final say.

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What are the unforgivable sins?

What are the unforgivable sins?

This is a thoughtful question, and it’s one the church has wrestled with for a long, long time. In the New Testament, Jesus says (Mark 3:29) “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” What should we make of this? Does Jesus draw a line in the sand when it comes to God’s forgiveness and love? I thought God’s forgiveness and love were boundless?

Let’s start with context for the passage. In chapter 3, Jesus is just beginning his public ministry. Crowds begin to follow him. They marvel at his teachings and healings. He calls his disciples. Word of his healing and love spreads. Other religious leaders take notice of him (along with Jesus’s family). Feeling afraid, they wonder about the source of his otherworldly power. His family and some of the religious leaders conclude that Jesus must be possessed by an unclean or evil spirit. They confront him. Jesus’s response takes the form of a logical argument: Really people? Would an evil spirit do holy things like heal and restore life? “Can Satan drive out Satan? A house divided against itself cannot stand!” In other words, he says, if evil were to do good things like giving and restoring life and sharing God’s forgiveness and acceptance and home with folks who long for it most, then evil would be contradicting itself. Therefore, the power at work here (to heal and give life) is divine power.

Given the context for this strange teaching–“whoever speaks ill against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin”–what might Jesus mean?

Jesus might be saying this: “Listen up people. If anything is unredemptive, it is the refusal to accept God’s Spirit of acceptance, or the refusal to accept that God accepts the world (especially the marginalized) in love. We “quench” or “douse” this Spirit when we refuse to accept God’s radical acceptance and love for the world. When we call evil good, and good evil, our soul hungers-on for liberating grace and wholeness, and we contribute to others’ hunger too. The eternal judgment of God is that healing and wholeness have the final say, not fear and exclusion.”

Still, is Jesus saying there are sins so terrible God will not forgive them? For example, if I say bad things about God, or if I speak badly of the Holy Spirit who heals and restores life, or if I struggle to get with the program of God’s radical acceptance, then am I out of luck if I later wish I hadn’t said or done those things? Does God’s forgiveness and acceptance end when I’m mad or angry and then through my fear I say angry or mad or hurtful things about God or God’s life-giving Spirit? If this were the point Jesus was making in the text then the apostle Paul would have certainly been out of luck. If anybody did unforgivable things that doused the Spirit of life, it was Paul. But that’s not how his story goes. Paul needed to encounter the living Christ for the scales to fall from his eyes. Maybe the only unforgivable (“eternal”) sin is a world without the possibility of forgiveness and acceptance, but that’s not the world God made. Like Paul, when we try to fashion a world like this for ourselves, God saves us.

When I was young, I remember being taught to think that Mark 3:29 was Jesus drawing a line in the sand of God’s forgiveness. Don’t step out of line, or God will eternally punish you. But God in Jesus is not a God of fear and enmity. In Jesus, the eternal judgment of God is that healing and wholeness have the final say, and the Spirit of healing and wholeness never stops seeking to nourish every possibility of life within the soul.