Crusader War College

Link: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1167467656238&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The post below this one refers to an article by Jonathan Rosenblum at JPost.com regarding Saddam's execution and the moral bankruptcy of those who mourned it, but not the murder of his victims.

However, there was a sentence in the article that pointed out something that should have been so patently obvious that I felt it necessary to address it separately. In light of a post made yesterday, I have bolded the sentences that I found significant, and add several preceeding paragraphs to provide some context:

The contrast between Jewish and Christian attitudes to forgiveness was recently highlighted by the response of an Amish community to the cold-blooded murder of five schoolgirls and the serious wounding of 10 more. At the funeral of one of the slain girls, her grandfather spoke and said of the perpetrator, "We must not think evil of this man." The neighbors and friends of the victims' families professed to feel no hatred towards the girls' killer.

In contrast to the Vatican's cheap sympathy for Saddam, the attitude of the Amish, at least, manifests spiritual grandeur. They offered forgiveness to the murderer of their own children and grandchildren, not to the mass murderer of distant victims.

Jews too are instructed to hate the sin and not the sinner. But sometimes the two are inextricably bound, as in Saddam's case. And often, easy forgiveness of the sinner diminishes the horror of his crimes. As Rabbi David Gottlieb of Baltimore pointed out in the wake of the Amish tragedy, even God Himself does not forgive sins committed against a fellow human being until the victim's forgiveness has been secured. No one can confer forgiveness on behalf of the victim, and all the more so when no forgiveness was sought.

Well doh! *flagellates self with wet noodle*

There is an incident where a bedridden man sought healing from Jesus. Some friends brought him to the house were Jesus was teaching, found the way blocked, then proceeded to vandalize the man's house by making a hole in the roof big enough to let their friend down through it in front of Jesus. When Jesus forgave the man's sins, the Pharisees rightly believed that only God could forgive the man's sins, since Jesus was not the victim of the man's sins. Where Jews and Christians part company in this parable is that Jesus explicitly claimed to be God by right of having the power to forgive sins. The claim was sealed by his healing of the man. This story was so important to establishing Jesus' claim to divinity that it is cited in the synoptic Gospels. (It also establishes that the man's ailment was caused by his sin.)

However, despite the sharp difference between Jews and Christians that Jesus Christ represents, it should be pointed out that Jesus DOES act as the Jewish God does: he does not forgive sins done against others if forgiveness is not asked of him. He forgave the soldiers for crucifying him, but not for crucifying the two thieves on either side of him. We are told that the disciples and Paul preached so that men would repent of their sins, ask for forgiveness, and live a new life. When Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive his brother, he conditioned it on the fact that the brother asked forgiveness after each offense. We can assume that Jesus forgave this man's sins only because he could NOT ask the victim forgiveness in some way, and he forgave the repentant thief because the thief could not reasonably be capable of asking forgiveness of all the people he wronged. And he forgave those who crucified him since, regardless of whether he was resurrected or not, they would have no ability to ask for forgiveness even if they wanted to.

Finally, if God automatically hands out forgiveness of sins, even if not asked, then why have US forgive men their sins?

People yammer about "cheap grace": what about cheap forgiveness? More importantly, what value is there for forgiveness that is extended by someone who is not the victim? The grandfather could forgive the murderer of his granddaughter for the sorrow he created in him, but the grandfather cannot forgive the murderer for the murder, SINCE HE WAS NOT THE ONE MURDERED. It is mere presumption that God would heed what the grandfather said.

While there is something to be said about the psychological side of forgiveness on the part of the one doing the forgiving, there seems to be a distinct reluctance to even talk about the requirment that the offender ASK for forgiveness.

Mr. Rosenblum finishes with the following paragraph:

Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is also "a time to hate." Would we really wish to live, asks Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby (an observant Jew), in a society in which no one gets angry when children are slaughtered, a society in which there is an instantaneous dispensation for the most horrific acts of cruelty? I would not. And that is why I was glad to see Saddam hanging at the end of a noose.

I agree.