Forgiveness Restores Communion

Authentic forgiveness is more than absolution of guilt. Based on the Trinitarian idea that God is a communal being, L. Gregory Jones argues that confession and forgiveness should take place communally. God, through his self-giving communion, is willing to bear the cost of forgiveness to restore humanity to communion in his eschatological kingdom. In response, human beings are called to embody forgiveness, with the aim of restoring communion between God and humankind, and with one another, seeking to remember the past truthfully, repair brokenness, heal division, and reconcile relationships.
 
Jones confronts the tendencies, both in the church and in other social contexts, to see the world either as “lighter” or “darker” than it is. To see the world as lighter than it is means the tendency to trivialize forgiveness by making it therapeutically easy, without dealing with repentance and justice. Dietrich Bonhoeffer polemicized against such “cheap grace.” He resisted, among other things, preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance, and communion without confession. Sin cannot be overlooked or forgotten but, instead, must be confronted and judged in the context of forgiveness. To see the world as darker than it is, on the other hand, is to view forgiveness as impossible because violence is seen as the ultimate master of us all.
 
Jones resists the notions of either grace without judgment or judgment without grace, of either forgiveness without repentance or repentance without forgiveness. Grace without judgment is cheap grace that does not result in transformation of lives; judgment without grace holds others accountable but results in unbroken cycles of violence. Forgiveness without repentance invites continuity of sin, while repentance without forgiveness can lead to despair and self-destruction. To confront the tendency to trivialize authentic forgiveness, Jones asserts, “When we fail to see and embody this forgiveness in relation to particular lives, specific situations, and concrete practices, we too easily transmute the notions of judgment and grace, forgiveness and repentance, into abstractions that destroy rather than give life.”

- John C. W. Tran, Authentic Forgiveness: A Biblical Approach, 2020.