Eric Johnson, who has helped me so much as a supervisor in many different ways. The warm and loving care he showed me made Southern Seminary a place where I could feel God's love and the life of the Holy Ghost. Cheong has thoroughly studied Christian forgiveness, so his writings have helped me so much.
I would like to dedicate this work to family and friends who have prayed for me and supported me financially. This very fact has given me strength to fight and gain victory over sin, and has led me to honor God and stay in His presence. The two people I thought about the most as I neared the end of this work were my father, who died while I was in the PhD program, and my mother, who is in Korea.
My father was one of the most supportive people for my Ph.D studies, and I am happy because I feel he is smiling at me watching me in heaven. Most of the time it was fun, like a picnic in the spring, but there were also times when it was difficult and terrifying.
INTRODUCTION
Christian God-like human forgiveness in the NT (Ephesians 4:32; Col 3:13) should follow the same pattern: the unconditional granting of forgiveness (Mark 11:25) and the conditional obtaining of forgiveness and reconciliation through repentance (Matthew Luke 17:3). -4). This relationship is a good starting point for understanding the revelation of God's forgiveness in the OT (Anderson & Bishop, 1999). This inwardly focused concept of sin can be related to the NT concept of divine forgiveness, which transforms the soul of the recipient of God's forgiveness into a God-like forgiver (Bulkeley, 2005; Emerson, 1964; Piper, 2012; Best, 1985).
This implies that God's forgiveness produces a cleansing of the person who is defiled by sin. In the Bible, sin is associated with diseases, such as sickness or wounds, and God's forgiveness of sin brings. The basis of the similarity between divine and human forgiveness is the fact that mankind was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27).
Conditional forgiveness, the main form of divine forgiveness in the Old Testament, seems to have already been planted in this age, for only those who show signs of repentance receive God's forgiveness. To understand God's forgiveness in the Mosaic age, we must first understand the concept of sin as the object of divine forgiveness. When Israel received God's forgiveness in the wilderness, Moses and Aaron effectively interceded on their behalf (Lev 16; Num) rather than the people themselves accepting guilt (Boda, 2009).
The distinguishing feature of God's forgiveness in this age is that repentance becomes the central condition for divine forgiveness. These different emphases therefore cast a different light and help to understand God's forgiveness in the OT in a different way. Jesus' universal scope of God's forgiveness was very offensive to many of the Jews of his day.
The best passage to understand God’s forgiveness through Jesus’ atonement is Romans 5:6-11, which is part of a broader section of Paul’s teaching
Since Jesus' atonement is the fulfillment of the atonement in the OT (Heb 9:24), it must be understood in this light. Thus, divine forgiveness in the NT reflects the attitude of the offended, which initiates the process of forgiveness regardless of the offender's compliance with any request. The wrath of God (ὀργή) denotes God's wrath, punishment, or judgment upon human sin in the NT (BDAG).
According to Paul, believers, even though they have already been justified, will still be saved from God's wrath in the future. In fact, "it is the cross that shows that God is just in the very act of forgiveness." Thus, redemption in the NT much more clearly than in the OT reveals God's grace or love as the cause of God's forgiveness.
This is a remarkable development of the atonement in the New Testament compared to the Old Testament. This shows that Jesus' concept of sin is different from that of the Old Testament or the Jewish tradition. The universal and internal development of the concept of sin in the NT implies that the concepts of atonement and divine.
As we have already explored, even in the OT, where repentance was a requirement, divine forgiveness is about God's just and forgiving character (Ex 34:7). As in the Old Testament, repentance remains an indispensable condition for obtaining divine forgiveness. Christian human forgiveness, therefore, is primarily offered unilaterally and unconditionally to the offender.
Consequently, God's people are required to follow a higher moral standard than in the OT (Heb 1:1-3). In the OT, the duty of the repentant sinner to satisfy God's justice was critically important in the process of securing divine and human forgiveness. The active role of human sacrifice is the most remarkable change in forgiveness in the NT compared to the OT.
Whenever you stand praying, forgive (ἀφίημι), if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your
Thus, forgiveness in this passage is about the victim's unconditional forgiveness of a perpetrator, regardless of the perpetrator's reaction. Thus, contrary to Adams (1994) and Sande (2004) who believe that forgiveness here means simply being willing to forgive, Jones (2012) correctly labels this forgiveness as "attitudinal, heart, or dispositional forgiveness", which takes place in the victim's heart without repentance. of or contact with the perpetrator (p. 132). This prayer (Matt 6:12-15) implies that the perpetrator (Luke 11:4) has a debt that must be repaid to the victim as a creditor.
Then, if the offender apologizes and asks for forgiveness, the victim can say, "I forgive (ἀφίημι) you" (Luke 17:3-4). The offender may repent and apologize to the victim, and the victim may then tell the offender that she forgives him (bilateral forgiveness). Or the victim and the perpetrator may never engage in an open discussion about the wrong (because the perpetrator is dead or otherwise incapacitated, or because he does not believe he has done anything wrong, or because he is not sorry for having done it wrong, or for some other reason), while the victim still forgives the perpetrator.
For example, the victim may only give interpersonal or both interpersonal and interpersonal forgiveness to the offender who refuses to apologize. Consequently, although unconditional human forgiveness may appear to take many forms, only one model remains, consisting of the victim's unconditional granting of forgiveness and the offender's conditional attainment of forgiveness upon repentance, resulting in reconciliation. In other words, this model emphasizes the independent roles of victim and perpetrator.
Secondly, however, there is also the problem of human forgiveness by the victim of the unrepentant brother under church discipline. Here, in the conversation between Jesus and Peter, there is no mention of a condition for the offender to repent prior to the forgiveness of the victim. Therefore, Matthew 18:15-17 must be understood in connection with the following passage about the unlimited forgiveness of the victim.
The NT thus offers explicit teaching on human forgiveness and the role of the victim in this process, while at the same time adhering to the OT tradition of emphasizing the duty of the offender to repent in order to receive forgiveness. The victim's forgiveness of the perpetrator is therefore closely related to how he understands himself. Thus, forgiveness is a voluntary gift from the victim, as well as a virtuous act of surrendering the right to repayment by the perpetrator.
