Should We Learn to “Forgive Ourselves”?

00:00:05.000 | Eric writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, I've heard many times how we are to forgive ourselves,

00:00:10.000 | but I can't find a biblical text to back this statement up.

00:00:14.000 | Where are people getting this idea of forgiving ourselves from?"

00:00:19.000 | Well, I share Eric's perplexity about the language of self-forgiveness.

00:00:24.000 | I've never preached that anybody should forgive themselves.

00:00:28.000 | At least, I don't remember ever saying it.

00:00:31.000 | And I've never used it as a way of dealing with my own self-hatred or condemnation or whatever that it's supposed to deal with.

00:00:41.000 | And the reason is mainly, I don't think it's in the Bible.

00:00:46.000 | And the reason I don't think it's in the Bible is that I think it would be intrinsically confusing about the nature of forgiveness if it were.

00:00:55.000 | Maybe the reason the Bible doesn't think in these categories of self-forgiveness is that to have forgiveness,

00:01:02.000 | you need a person who has been wronged and a person who did the wrong.

00:01:08.000 | So, I insult you, you are insulted.

00:01:12.000 | Now, apologies and forgiveness can happen.

00:01:16.000 | I can say to you, a different person, "I'm sorry."

00:01:19.000 | And you can say to me, a different person, "I forgive you."

00:01:23.000 | But when we talk about forgiving ourselves, who's the one doing the wrong and being wronged?

00:01:31.000 | Ordinarily, when someone talks about forgiving himself, he means forgiving himself for something he did to somebody else.

00:01:39.000 | So, Jack insults me and then apologizes, and I forgive Jack.

00:01:46.000 | Then why would Jack forgive Jack when Jack didn't insult Jack?

00:01:52.000 | That's how forgiveness works, and that's what I mean when I say it would be intrinsically confusing.

00:01:56.000 | It breaks down the clear categories of what forgiveness really is about.

00:02:02.000 | It starts to muddy the waters of what forgiveness really is—a wronged person forgiving a person who wronged him,

00:02:09.000 | not a wronging person forgiving a wronging person.

00:02:14.000 | That doesn't make sense.

00:02:16.000 | But those who use this confusing way of talking are really dealing with something real.

00:02:24.000 | They're trying to get at something, right?

00:02:27.000 | And what is that?

00:02:28.000 | Well, when I search biblically to try to find where's a biblical paradigm to deal with what these folks, I think, are really trying to deal with,

00:02:37.000 | the closest I can find is 2 Corinthians 7, 8-10.

00:02:43.000 | So Paul has found the Corinthians at fault.

00:02:48.000 | They've sinned, and he's written a tough letter to call them out on it and to summon their repentance,

00:02:53.000 | and they do repent, and he's clearly forgiven them, that he's not holding it against them.

00:02:59.000 | And here's what he writes, "Even if I made you grieve with my letter," so he stung them with his rebuke,

00:03:08.000 | "I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it. I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting."

00:03:20.000 | So, in other words, they saw they're wrong.

00:03:23.000 | They apologized to the appropriate person.

00:03:26.000 | They received forgiveness.

00:03:28.000 | Then he goes on, "For you felt a godly grief so that you suffered no loss through us.

00:03:36.000 | For godly grief—remorse, sorrow for something you've done—godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret,

00:03:48.000 | whereas worldly grief produces death."

00:03:54.000 | Ponder what Paul means by godly grief and worldly grief,

00:03:59.000 | the one leading to repentance and life, and the other leading to death.

00:04:05.000 | I think this is very close to what people are dealing with when they speak of the need to forgive themselves.

00:04:12.000 | They mean they need to move through worldly grief over sin to godly grief over sin and beyond into life and freedom.

00:04:24.000 | And the difference is a grief that leads out of death-giving self-condemnation to life-giving acceptance of God's—and in this case, Paul's—no condemnation.

00:04:39.000 | The biblical way out of death with this so-called self-forgiveness is to humble ourselves and admit we have no right to take the role of judge and pronounce the death sentence on ourselves.

00:04:54.000 | That's pride to think that we can hear God's verdict of not guilty or our friend's verdict of not guilty—that is, "I forgive you"—and refuse it.

00:05:05.000 | We refuse it and set ourselves up as the new judge and pronounce a death sentence over ourselves.

00:05:13.000 | The biblical problem with that is not a failure of self-forgiveness. That's not a biblical category.

00:05:19.000 | It's an arrogant failure to trust in the free verdict of God. No condemnation.

00:05:27.000 | So my closing word is, let's humble ourselves and step down off the judge's seat and let God be God in his pronouncement of no condemnation.

00:05:42.000 | Amen. That's a great word, Pastor John. Thank you.

00:05:45.000 | We are now closing in on 700 episodes in the Ask Pastor John podcast archive now at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:05:54.000 | There you can listen to our most popular episodes we've played, and you can search all the episodes we've recorded.

00:06:00.000 | You can send in a question to Pastor John. You can download the apps that we have. You can subscribe to the podcast feed.

00:06:06.000 | You can do all of that from the landing page at DesiringGod.org.

00:06:10.000 | And tomorrow we will be back with John Piper. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.

00:06:15.000 | [end]

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Should We Learn to “Forgive Ourselves”?

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