The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright 2022 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

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Chapter 107

Forgiving Sin is not Approving Sin

“Seventy times seven…”

Many people have heard that phrase, from this passage.

Matt 18
21) Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?”
22) Yeshua said to him, “I don’t tell you until seven times, but, until seventy times seven.

Based on that, many people think Christ instructed His followers to accept and approve a sinner’s sins. A thief can continue to steal, an adulterer can continue to adulterize, a killer can continue to kill and a Christian must forgive all those sins without mentioning repentance. God loves the sinner so you’re supposed to forgive him while he keeps sinning. That’s how you show love to a sinner, it is thought.

This general approach of no repentance and change shapes the policies of the Democrats’ cities. When a cop shoots a criminal, it’s the cop’s fault. When a criminal shoots a cop, it’s the gun’s fault. Their solution to crime is not to stop the criminal behavior but just to get rid of the police.

That thinking is similar to forgiving sinners while they continue to sin.

This is particularly relevant today, when society is full of the worst sins of humankind, yet the “liberals” demand that “alternative lifestyles” be accepted. This is the same as saying that if you get rid of the police, there are no crimes. This trend is seen in the nation and the world, and also in most churches.

Again people think that because Christ said to forgive seventy times seven, a Christian must accept and approve unrepentant sins. If Christ expected others to accept and approve sin, then surely He would also expect Himself to forgive, accept and approve unrepented sin.

Matt 11
20) Then he began to denounce the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done, because they didn’t repent.
21) “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
22) But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.
23) You, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, you will go down to Hades. For if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which were done in you, it would have remained until this day.
24) But I tell you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom, on the day of judgment, than for you.”

Capernaum and Sodom did not repent. They didn’t stop sinning. They are not forgiven and will face judgment.

Christ sent His disciples out to preach that people should repent. Those who refused to repent were to receive worse judgment than Sodom.

Mark 6
7) He called to himself the twelve, and began to send them out two by two; and he gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
8) He commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, except a staff only: no bread, no wallet, no money in their purse,
9) but to wear sandals, and not put on two tunics.
10) He said to them, “Wherever you enter into a house, stay there until you depart from there.
11) Whoever will not receive you nor hear you, as you depart from there, shake off the dust that is under your feet for a testimony against them. Assuredly, I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city!”
12) They went out and preached that people should repent.

Christ’s whole message was based on repentance.

Matt 4
17) From that time, Yeshua began to preach, and to say, “Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

Peter’s first message to the first flock was to repent.

Acts 2
38) Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Yeshua Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Paul’s message in Athens, the paragon of paganism, was to repent.

Acts 17
30) The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent,
31) because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.”

God commands all people everywhere to repent. Those who do repent under the blood of Christ will be forgiven. Those who do not repent will be judged for that.

So when Yeshua told Peter to forgive seventy times seven times, He was not telling him to approve the practice of sinning. In Luke, Yeshua reaffirmed what He had said to Peter but with further instruction.

Luke 17
3) Be careful. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.
4) If he sins against you seven times in the day, and seven times returns, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”

So instead of approving sin, Christ told His disciples to rebuke the sinner. Then if the sinner repents – that is, if he stops practicing sin – we are commanded to forgive him.

Yeshua also gave an example of repenting and then forgiving.

Matt 18
15) “If your brother sins against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained back your brother.
16) But if he doesn’t listen, take one or two more with you, that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
17) If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly. If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector.

A sinning brother without repentance is not to be forgiven but is to be treated like a lowly IRS agent.

Forgiving a sin does not mean approving sin. Forgiving a sin itself implies that the sin is wrong. Otherwise it wouldn’t need forgiving. The sin is forgiven when stopped.

That’s the way it was with the step-mother lover in Corinth. Paul and the assembly did not forgive, accept or approve the sinner while he continued sinning. Once he stopped the sin, then he was forgiven and accepted.

Forgiving sin without repentance of sin is approving the sin. To approve sin is to disapprove of God, who condemns sin.

Again the message of the world, the message of Satan’s mind, is to approve and accept all sins. They’re not even called sins by them.

As an example, let’s say we are close to someone who is practicing terrible sin, perhaps adultery as the Corinthian step-mother lover was. Fornication and adultery are so common today that it’s the rare person who does not encounter it among family, friends and churches. We have the choice of letting the person know that is wrong, or just going on like normal and act as if nothing is wrong. If that’s what you do, that’s approving adultery.

The thinking is that God loves everyone, so I just need to love him, too, and accept whatever he does. So the adultery is accepted, the adulterer is approved, and everything is hunky dory. Nobody gets bent out of shape.

This happens in church congregations all the time. In any one small congregation it may only happen once every so many years, but in all congregations as a whole, it happens continuously. As in the Corinth congregation, this whole process is viewed as good. Forgiving and approving the adultery is seen as an expression of God’s love. Therefore the sin, the adultery, leads to goodness – the goodness of God forgiving the adultery.

In Protestant theology, this is called grace.

Paul called it baloney.

Rom 3
5) But if our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God, what will we say? Is God unrighteous who inflicts wrath? I speak like men do.
6) May it never be! For then how will God judge the world?
7) For if the truth of God through my lie abounded to his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?
8) Why not (as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), “Let us do evil, that good may come?” Those who say so are justly condemned.

Let’s examine that verse by verse.

5) But if our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God, what will we say? Is God unrighteous who inflicts wrath?
That is, if our sin leads to God’s goodness when He forgives our sin, is God then wrong to punish us for sin, because after all, our sin did lead to goodness?

5) I speak like men do.

In other words, that’s the way people think.

6) May it never be! For then how will God judge the world?

7) For if the truth of God through my lie abounded to his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?

If sin leads to good, then God can’t judge people for being sinners. So sin doesn’t really lead to good. Sin leads to suffering and death.

8) Why not (as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), “Let us do evil, that