Answers to Arielle on Forgiveness

I'm thinking further study might be necessary, though. I'm not certain that you've covered this as fully as needs to be done.
For one thing, though we are commanded to forgive, the Redeemed are also instructed to put unrepentant sinners out of their midst and not to have fellowship with them. In this case, forgiveness would not absolve them of the consequences of their misdeeds.
What of all those that repent of their sin and become Redeemed, yet still suffer from the physical consequences of their sin?
Arielle

You are correct I did not cover the issue of forgiveness fully. I was speaking more along the lines of who can forgive rather than the ramifications of forgiveness. So lets go a little further in our discussion. Most of Arielle’s questions are based around my statement that forgiveness releases the guilty from guilt and consequences. When I wrote that, I was thinking eternally not temporally, but lets get on to Arielle’s questions.

First is on the subject of the unrepentant sinner and removing said sinner from fellowship. At first this seems a little tricky but if we look at it more closely it is not. Removing an unrepentant sinner from fellowship is an act of the church leadership (sort of a semi-governmental type of thing) and does not actually require that the leadership to be the offended party. There are set guidelines for it in Mathew 18, and actually has little to do with forgiveness. Forgiveness for the Redeemed is for the most part a singular personal action, whereas the act of removing someone from fellowship is supposed to be a last ditch effort to bring the unrepentant sinner to repentance and should be performed by someone in authority in the church who is not personally involved.

So what about suffering the physical or temporal consequences of sin? That is a difficult question to answer. But may have more to do with ultimately giving glory to Yeshua than we see at first glance. For some it is a reminder of where they came from and for others it can serve as a warning of what sin can do to a person’s life. Others such as those dying from a disease brought about by their old sinful lifestyle it may simply hasten going Home to the Father. There are many reasons Yeshua will not remove the temporal consequences from the Redeemed, but we can be rest assured none of them will fail to bring Him glory in the end.