Don: Last week we read from Isaiah 43:25 that god forgives and forgets our sins for his own sake. Psalm 23 says “He leads me through the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” The notion that god does some of what he does for his own sake is common in both the Old and the New Testaments, but particularly in the Book of Psalms. Scripture talks about god forgiving, leading, calling people, creating, and judging, all for his own sake. Other examples:
Psalms 25:7:
Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
According to Your lovingkindness remember me,
For Your goodness’ sake, O Lord.
Psalms 25:11:
For Your name’s sake, O Lord,
Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.
Psalms 31:3:
For You are my rock and my fortress;
For Your name’s sake You will lead me and guide me.
Psalms 79:9:
Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name;
And deliver us and [d]forgive our sins for Your name’s sake.
Psalms 106:8:
Nevertheless He saved them for the sake of His name,
That He might make His power known.
Psalms 109:21:
But You, O God, the Lord, deal kindly with me for Your name’s sake;
Because Your lovingkindness is good, deliver me;
Psalms 143:11:
For the sake of Your name, O Lord, revive me.
In Your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble.
Isaiah 43:25
“I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake,
And I will not remember your sins.”
Isaiah 48:9-11:
“For the sake of My name I delay My wrath,
And for My praise I restrain it for you,
In order not to cut you off. “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
“For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act;
For how can My name be profaned?
And My glory I will not give to another.”
The same idea is raised in passage after passage. It is mentioned again near the end of the scriptures, in 1 John 2:12:
I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake.
There is evidently some profit to god through his acts of forgiveness. Is there any insight to be gained if we combine the concept that god forgives us for his own sake with the concept that he cannot forgive us if we do not forgive others? (–see the Sermon on the Mount in Matt. 6.) Some passages refer to god acting for the sake of righteousness, of truth, of love, and so on; but these are synonyms for, or at least attributes of, god himself. In totality, scripture paints a picture of an active god intervening not only for the salvation of mankind, but also for his own sake.
David: The test of the value of a scientific theory is its “explanatory power”–the extent to which it explains something about the world that we did not know before. The theory of Process Theology, which posits that god is both Being and Becoming, has the power to explain these concepts, it seems to me. For god–for capital-G Goodness–to fulfill the process of Becoming and thereby achieve Being, he needs an infinity of acts of small-g goodness to accumulate.
Robin: By “his name’s sake” does he means his reputation, his character, or what exactly? When asked “Whom shall I say sent me?” he replied: “Tell them the I Am sent you.” He also calls himself Alpha and Omega. What is his name, and how does “his name’s sake” differ, if at all, from “his own sake”?
David: If “god” means Goodness, then it is for the sake of goodness, and all the attributes of goodness, such as love and forgiveness.
Alice: Maybe god wants to be glorified for doing Good–for forgiving, for leading us in the path of righteousness, and so on. It helps his reputation. In the Old Testament, he took the Israelites to the promised land, he renewed their status as his people, for his own sake.
Robin: God gains reconciliation with us.
Alice: God is setting us the example that it is in one’s own interests–it is to one’s own benefit–to forgive.
Don: Yes, if forgiving can benefit god, then it can benefit me also. But isn’t there more to it than that?
Alice: To me, the Lord’s Prayer implies that if we don’t forgive others, we break an important cycle.
Jay: We tend to think of forgiveness as benefiting the sinner. But surely that must be meaningless to a god who cannot sin and therefore never needs forgiveness. Forgiveness “for his sake” is therefore about the person who forgives, not about the person who is forgiven. This changes the dynamic from specific actions to full behavioral modification through a focus on reconciliation, community, sharing god’s grace, and so on. The only requirement for being able to forgive is that other people are able to forgive. It’s not about showing contrition, or apologizing. It’s about wanting god’s kingdom to become manifest.
Ada: Does god really have the ability to be stern–to be unforgiving?
Jay: That is an interesting question. The passages calling for forgiveness for god’s sake contrast with those of the Old Testament god calling down fire and brimstone on the sinner’s head.
Don: Clearly, in the end, not everyone is forgiven. The devil is not forgiven; evil is destroyed. So there is judgment, with some not being forgiven. The Lord’s Prayer also implies a limit to god’s forgiveness–it’s only there if you have forgiven your enemies. This does seem to contradict the notion that god must forgive for his own sake.
Robin: There seems to be a difference from god’s perspective, illustrated by the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18, between a sinner and a wicked person. It is the wicked who will be destroyed. So what is the difference between a sinner and a wicked person?
Jay: It does seem, as Process Theology might say, that the kingdom of god is in the process of Becoming. But once the process is complete and the kingdom is in Being, there are things that cannot exist within it and which therefore must have been weeded out during the Becoming process. Once the kingdom is fully realized throughout the earth or the universe or however we describe it, elements that exist today can no longer exist.
One of those things is wickedness. It is not so much that it will be destroyed, as that it simply cannot exist in a kingdom of god whose purified air would be toxic to it.
So how do we define wickedness? Is it defined by attributes such as unforgiveness, jealousy, lying? We have defined the kingdom of god as having the opposite attributes, have we not?
David: The statement in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come” seems to me to support the process theological argument.
Don: The idea that god and his creation, Fallen Man, must eventually be unified suggests that until then–in other words, for as long as we remain estranged from him–god is necessarily incomplete. That does not imply that he lacks omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, but it suggests that the lack of reconciliation leaves him unfulfilled; that, perfect as he is, there is something missing when his creation is estranged from him. It seemed god’s intent before the Fall that he and wo/man would live together in unity and harmony. When the kingdom comes, that unity will be restored.
Alice: That would explain why he forgives us “for his own sake.” God’s fulfillment is not possible without his fulfilling grace.
Kiran: The father in the prodigal son story (whom we take to mean god) was unhappy to be estranged from the prodigal, because he loved him. Why else would he miss him? Why else is god so adamant about going after the one sheep lost from the herd of 100? In reciprocating the love of our father by returning to him and accepting his love, we make him happy–hence it is “for his sake” in that sense.
On the other hand, Satan, who disagrees with god intellectually and ideologically, evidently dislikes being in God’s presence, therefore heaven must be Satan’s personal hell. Does god want to destroy the wicked because he does not like them? Or did he let Satan go because he loves him?
Robin: Even in puny human terms, if you cannot forgive someone you cannot really love them. Love and forgiveness are bound together in a loving relationship.
David: God’s love is assumed to be so much greater than ours that it must be impossible for us to describe it. We know his grace because we experience it, we feel it; but I am not sure we really can feel his love except obliquely and partially, though his grace and forgiveness. The full force of his love is what I imagine we will feel when the kingdom of god is fully realized. From that point on, his forgiveness and grace will not be needed.
Robin: 1John 2:15-17 says:
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
Alice: …and the will of god is that we forgive one another. It seems that god is doing all the work. All we have to do is follow and believe.
David: It’s not quite so easy! We are also expected to love and forgive and turn the other cheek… things we sometimes find very hard to do.
Mr. Singh: God loves and provides for everyone, even for those who worship idols. Even so, everyone forgets the creator–even Christians, whose bible tells them countless times not to forget him.
Jay: It is as impossible for the wicked to live in the kingdom of heaven as it would be for humans to live underwater. In both cases, the environment is inimical to a certain way of living. In the kingdom of god one has to love, forgive, and share grace. If one cannot do those things, one cannot exist.
David: To me this issue highlights one of those irreconcilable contradictions that show the bible up as being the flawed work of flawed men. God has to be either all-forgiving or not, but the bible has it both ways. I am all for the quantum mechanics of a god who is both Being and Becoming; but that he is simultaneously cruel and kind, all-forgiving and unforgiving, goes too far even for me!
Jay: I think that god strives for complete reconciliation with everyone and is therefore unstinting in his forgiveness and grace. The question is whether one can accept them and live in the environment that comes with acceptance. To me, this is about the unpardonable sin–the denial or rejection of God’s forgiveness. It is probably not a conscious denial–it simply follows from the way one has led one’s life and adapted to an environment so different from the kingdom environment that they cannot live in the latter.
Alice: So it is not a matter of consciously resisting god’s will?
David: In the parable of the wheat and the weeds, nobody tries to convert the weeds, to turn them into good plants. They are doomed to remain what they are and will be judged as such at The Harvest, when they will be thrown into a fire. But what sort of a judgment is this? They are guilty simply by virtue of being what they were ordained to be from the moment they were sown (with no say in the matter of being sown!) [Postscript: And why would a forgiving god throw them in the fire? It’s one thing to deny them entry to his kingdom, but something else to destroy them, or so it seems to me.]
Jay: They are of the enemy, not of the creator.
David: That then negates god’s omnipotence. Who created the enemy, if not god?
Robin: Scripture has many verses avowing that god is the creator and has ultimate power over all. The wicked are those who refuse to accept this, who cannot reconcile to god’s claim to being god.
Don: Unforgivable sin is contextualized within the concept of a healing. In the ministry of Jesus, forgiveness is often synonymous with physical healing. Some people come to him for physical healing, but the first thing he does is forgives them. I also want to examine further the notion of forsaking forgiveness in the context of a forgiving god.
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