Unholy Charade - Jeff Crippen

Unmasking the Domestic Abuser in the Church

Author: Jeff Crippen Page 37 of 88

More Thoughts on Forgiveness: Part 4

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On April 13, 2022

In Biblical Teaching

[This is the fourth installment from our friend’s essay on forgiveness. Many thanks to her once again] –

Another aspect we see in God’s forgiveness is that it does not remove consequences in this life. David sinned twice, with Bathsheba and when he numbered the people. Both times God forgave him, but also gave him some kind of consequences afterwards. Saul of Tarsus persecuted the church and after he repented, he ended up getting the persecutions he inflicted on others. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. God forgave Moses when he disobeyed, and gave him consequences. God really does have a way to make sure that no one gets away with sin or makes light of sin. He’s incredibly just, while He forgives. This is how we show GRACE to someone who has sinned. The cancer must be rooted out, not ignored.

To sum it all up to this point, God’s forgiveness teaches us that it is a transaction between two parties, that it’s essentially a pardoning of guilt, it requires repentance and justice—the debt must be paid for, it does not eliminate consequences, and it leads to reconciliation—of some kind.

This is the part that gets tricky with people relationships. There is room for discernment here because there are situations where a relationship should not be restored. It is possible to violate a person so deeply that it would be unwise to restore that relationship. For example, rape or adultery against another person— if by some miracle the perpetrator repents this does not mean that the two people involved need to be friends or in any kind of relationship again. If such a person does repent, I would consider it “reconciliation” to merely acknowledge the offender’s genuine repentance if the evidence is there.

Or a situation where someone is getting divorced for being abused. Let’s say hypothetically the abuser repents, even then the fact that that marriage covenant was violated so horribly to the core, it would be right for the offender to accept the consequences of the divorce permanently. If it were even possible for the abuser to repent in that case, and gets saved for real this time, I would consider it “reconciliation” to think of this offender as no longer an enemy. That’s it. Sometimes being on good terms with a person is also reconciliation, especially if after many years of separation they have moved on. How we apply this requires wisdom, but the relationship is affected in some way, and it needs to be left up to the offended person to decide what to do with the relationship.

[To be continued]

More Thoughts on Forgiveness (Part 5)

More Thoughts on Forgiveness: Part 3

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On April 11, 2022

In Biblical Teaching, Counseling, Evil

We continue with our friend’s very helpful essay on forgiveness – what it really is, who actually forgives, and just what forgiveness requires. As you know, this is a subject which is so often twisted and misapplied, to the enablement of the wicked and the detriment of the oppressed. Many thanks once more to our sister in Christ:

The reason for the need for forgiveness is obviously guilt resulting from our rebellion. This tells us something that’s key here and which has an impact on the meaning and necessity for forgiveness. Sin puts a breach in relationships — which is why relationships get awkward when we are sinned against. Our sin against God cuts off our fellowship with God. In His justice, He must punish us, unless He has a way of forgiving us. But even then He must still hold His justice, which means someone has to be punished in our stead. There’s no way around this. Genuine forgiveness addresses genuine guilt. It is only because of Christ that God can be just and at the same time the justifier – of the one who has faith in Jesus.

If God cannot leave guilt unaddressed, then neither should we when we forgive. The guilty person needs forgiveness because he’s guilty. God does not forgive in a vacuum or because He “needs to heal”.

God has no need to forgive in order to feel better about Himself.

The guilty person needs something here. God’s forgiveness is for the sake of the offender – it is not self-focused on the part of the one who forgives.

The goal for forgiveness is “let [the sinner] return to the Lord”. So the ultimate purpose for forgiveness is restoration of the formerly broken relationship, or reconciliation, through repentance and justice being met.. While forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation, it is two sides of the same coin, just like faith and repentance are not the same, but you can’t have one without the other. This is something that gets tricky in human relationships, (because we can’t change people the way God can) but from God’s standpoint, when God forgives someone He also reconciles with that person. This does not mean that we need to reconcile with unsafe people. This raises the bar for what forgiveness should look like, but this also raises the bar for how we ought to deal with sin. If we take sin lightly, we will treat forgiveness lightly.

Which is why…another aspect we see in God’s forgiveness… is the prerequisite for it that must be met. The guilty person must forsake his sin, and return to the Lord. Repentance is a prerequisite, and especially genuine repentance, for that matter. We can’t fake it with God. There are no exceptions to this. Every single person who repents, God forgives, and essentially becomes a Christian. Every single person who does not repent ends up in hell, forever unforgiven. So the more correct way to say it is: when God forgives a sinner He reconciles with a CHANGED person.

God does reconciles with His FORMER enemy—but he’s an enemy no longer— and never with an unrepentant sinner. It’s repentance that makes forgiveness possible and that CHANGE of heart that makes reconciliation possible.

More Thoughts on Forgiveness (Part 4)

Making Little of Abuse

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On April 6, 2022

In False Teaching

This is a quote from the Reformation Heritage Study Bible. There are a series of good articles at the back, but the essay on “Being a Good Wife” ends with this paragraph after a discussion of the godly wife:

Some men are difficult to respect and submit to; their wives have the challenging task of rising above their behavior and taking the high road of obeying God (1 Peter 3:1-2). Such a wife is not a doormat, she may not enable or approve sin, but she exercises tough love. She will need to pray for fortitude. She hopes and prays he will be sanctified by her example (1 Cor 7:10-17). Blessings will follow the godly wife when she follows God’s plan for marriage, and those around her will be blessed as well.

Difficult to respect and submit to. A challenging task. Rise above his behavior. Obey God. Can you guess what the author of this article would say about divorcing an abuser? Stay with him. Endure the abuse. But don’t enable or approve of his sin. What? In fact, it’s her job to save him.

So her marriage is one in which she is bound to a man who is “difficult,” whose behavior is sinful, who requires her to plead with God for courage to stay married to him, and yet it is God’s plan that she remain in that bondage.

I cannot find the identity of this article’s author listed anywhere, but the General Editor of this study Bible is Joel Beeke. I appreciate much of Beeke’s writings but more than once I have seen this very kind of teaching from him when it comes to marriage and family.

A Wonderful Article: A High View of Marriage Includes Divorce by Rebecca VanDoodewaard

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On April 4, 2022

In Biblical Teaching, Getting Free

The following link is to a really great article which was posted on Barry York’s blog, Gentle Reformation (gentlereformation.com). Rebecca is the wife of a history professor at Puritan Theological Seminary, so it was very encouraging to me to read this. It is dated back in 2017 but a friend just called my attention to it. Thank you Rebecca!

So, here you go. Click Here to Read.

More Truths about Forgiveness (Part 2)

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On March 30, 2022

In Biblical Teaching

Here are some more thoughts on this matter of forgiveness that help us dispel the confusion we have so often been hampered (and guilted) by. Once again we thank our friend who sent her essay to us:

First of all, when God forgives, what does He actually do? The Biblical language for forgiveness (or the withholding of forgiveness) is –

  • who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; forgiving iniquity and transgression;
  • He will by no means clear the guilty; pardons all your iniquities,
  • wipes out your transgressions; Passes over rebellious act
  • Retains His anger
  • Cleanses us from all unrighteousness

So from a Biblical standpoint forgiveness essentially is a pardoning of sin, a clearing of the guilty, a removing of debt or wiping out transgression. And because God’s forgiveness of us entails our salvation, there is a sense in which no one can forgive sins but God, and the people were [logically] right to marvel that Jesus would say this, although once they witnessed the power of God in Jesus’ healing of the man, they were accountable for believing.

I believe this means that there is a sense in which we represent God’s forgiveness when we forgive another person, so we better get this right. We do not have any right to invent our own version of forgiveness, (just like we can’t redefine ‘love’!) And because in God’s economy our forgiveness is directly tied to our salvation, then His forgiveness of us will inevitably lead to our reconciliation to Him. The Gospel in a nutshell is forgiveness of sins so we can be restored to God. Obviously we’re not going to save anybody when we forgive, but this is good to keep in mind, just to lay down the foundation for what forgiveness is —and isn’t—and to keep in perspective the depth of the powerful transaction between sinner and God in forgiveness.

Having a Biblical definition of forgiveness is important so that we don’t diminish God’s attributes. If we think of forgiveness only in terms of how we feel, or the relinquishing resentment or bitterness or revenge —then what does that say about God? Isn’t it right for a Holy God to punish sinners? Or are we saying that if God does not forgive then that means He “wants to hurt the person back”? Why should He forgive? For Himself—so He can feel better? Is God giving up something when He forgives, like His “right” to avenge? IF He forgives us is it because He has “let go of grudges” or because His rightful wrath was fully satisfied? Or to use Corrie Ten Boom’s other famous words (inserting God into her equation) does God “set the prisoner free only to realize the prisoner was God”? Do we realize that when we make such nonsense statements about forgiveness we say something distorted about God’s character?

And to play this out in our relationships, if it’s all about how we feel and what we do in private then we not only change what Biblical forgiveness is, but we’d have to forgive no matter what the offender did. And guess who is going to benefit from that? The predators. Because, after all, it would be sin to be resentful, bitter, and vengeful. And guess who gets blamed for that all the time. The victims. Which is actually so backwards! So when we twist forgiveness into something it’s not, it will mar God’s character and only backfire on innocent people while the guilty go free. But if we define forgiveness Biblically and we think in terms of pardoning transgression—the same way God forgives, then it would force us to deal  with the sin, rather than ignore it, and put some “boundaries” around how or when forgiveness is extended. We would need certain conditions to be met because it would be wrong to forgive sin without the removal of guilt first.

More Thoughts on Forgiveness (Part 3)

More Helpful Truths About Forgiveness

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On March 28, 2022

In Biblical Teaching, False Teaching

Luk 5:20-21 And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” (21) And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Col 3:11-13 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (12) Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, (13) bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

We have all fallen prey at some time to false teachings on this subject of forgiveness. I hope that all of us have now come to see truth and clarity in this matter – what forgiveness really is, that it does not always include restoration of relationship, and so on. But this business still causes all kinds of grief and trouble to victims of evil that it still helps to be reminded of what God really has to say about it.

One of our friends sent me her thoughts and research on forgiveness and she did an excellent job. I want to share some of the things she discovered in Scripture. Many thanks to her! This is how her essay begins:

Corrie Ten Boom said ‘forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred.’ Corrie Ten Boom was wrong. This has absolutely no basis in Scripture whatsoever. The Bible NEVER speaks of forgiveness this way.

Most people’s idea of forgiveness comes from the New Age/ New Thought Movement or Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. I recently saw a couple definitions of forgiveness and the person attempted to use Scripture. This person essentially said ‘forgiveness is a giving up of the right to hurt the other person back’ or not ‘entertaining fantasies of vengeance against the hurtful person.’ The Scriptures given were Col 3:13, Prov 15:1 -which has nothing to do with forgiveness and Matt 6:14.

Even Scripture that tells us to forgive, many times is used in complete isolation from the rest of the Bible, and we end up with a version of forgiveness that sounds more like something Oprah Winfrey would say, not what God Himself would do. The best way to understand forgiveness is to know what God’s forgiveness looks like and to look at what the Bible as a whole teaches how this is carried out. I believe God is the original author of forgiveness. So rather than going to the dictionary for its definition, we need to go to the Very One who made forgiveness possible, Jesus Christ Himself. When God forgives, what does He forgive, and to what purpose and how does that inform our forgiveness of others?

Now, what our friend is getting at here is that definitions are very important. Just what do we mean by “forgiveness”? Because, think about this carefully, there are really at least two aspects of forgiveness. There is 1) the forgiveness which the Colossians passage (above) is speaking of – a forgiveness which we exercise, and 2) There is ultimate forgiveness which ONLY God can grant. So when we start talking like WE can grant forgiveness, things get very muddled and damaging if we fail to be precise in what we mean. Most teaching and talk among Christians these days on this subject is muddled.

Our friend goes on (after quoting quite a number of additional scriptures that speak of God’s forgiveness) –

If we truly want to understand forgiveness we have to look at God’s forgiveness first, to lay a foundation, because forgiveness is imbedded in God’s attributes. If we distort forgiveness in any way, we will end up distorting His character and the Gospel. The way it plays out when God forgives us, generally will play out in the way we forgive others. I say, generally, because there’s not going to be an exact 100% 1:1 correlation. But we have to begin with God.

First of all, when God forgives, what does He actually do? The Biblical language for it is…

who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; forgiving iniquity and transgression;

He will by no means clear the guilty; pardons all your iniquities,

wipes out your transgressions; Passes over rebellious act

Retains His anger

Cleanses us from all unrighteousness  

So from a Biblical standpoint forgiveness essentially is a pardoning of sin, a clearing of the guilty, a removing of debt or wiping out transgression. And because God’s forgiveness of us entails our salvation, there is a sense in which no one can forgive sins but God, and the people were right to marvel that Jesus would say this when they didn’t know He’s God. (I believe this means that there is a sense in which we extend God’s forgiveness when we forgive another person, so we better get this right. We do not have any right to invent our own version of forgiveness, just like we can’t redefine ‘love’!)

This is enough food for thought for now. I will continue to present her essay to you in portions in the next few blog posts. But let’s leave off here today and really digest the points she has made. When someone tells us “you must forgive your abuser,” quite often – whether they realize it or not – they are acting as if we must clear the record of the wicked person’s evil and treat them as if their evil has been atoned for. In other words, we are being told that we are to be a kind of Christ to the wicked, bear their evil upon ourselves, and thereby atone for their sins. Because, you see, that is the ONLY way God in Christ forgives sin. But we are not Christ.

…to be continued

More Truths about Forgiveness (Part 2)

I Bet All of You Will Recognize this Scenario

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On March 23, 2022

In Abusers, Evil

Miranda Devine very recently published a book exposing evil. It is titled Laptop from Hell and it is about President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. You may have read about this infamous laptop with its trove of evidence which is looking more and more like will result in indictments – and more.

But what I want to do here is show you an excerpt from chapter 5, entitled – It’s Over. Hunter’s now ex-wife (they were married some 20 years) emailed him in 2016 and this is how her message went:

I’m leaving you because you are having an affair and you have been emotionally abusive. I forgave you for cheating before, I tried to help you get sober and you made it clear, throughout the past year, that you didn’t want to be with me. You didn’t want my forgiveness and you didn’t want my help with your recovery.

I cannot control how you will twist what has happened over the past year – how you will try to make it my fault – which seems as cruel as the cheating.

Devine writes:

That is indeed what Hunter did to Kathleen, his wife of 22 years, when he told the world his version of the disintegration of their marriage in his 2021 memoir. By his account it was Kathleen’s failure to forgive him at his hour of greatest need, right after his brother’s death of brain cancer in 2015, that triggered his spiral into drugs and adultery. Finally, she drove him into the arms of his brother’s widow, Hallie, the only woman who understood his pain.

Kathleen would come to believe that the affair with his sister-in-law began within days of the funeral. At first, he made her feel ‘crazy’ for doubting him.

I could write a list here of all the abuser tactics and their effects on a victim which are evidenced here in just these few paragraphs. But I will just let you all draw up the list in your comments. This is just a sample of what Hunter Biden’s evil antics have been that are documented in this book – attested to by evidence on his own computer! And, as you can imagine, as they say – the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

NOTE: If you want to read a thorough expose of an abuser – the power and control, lying, self-justified, poor-me kind you all have known – then read this book. Or if you can’t stomach it all (the corruption’s tentacles reach around the globe and into the highest places), just read this 5th chapter and keep it handy to show people the schemes and mentality of evil that you faced from you abuser.

What Kind of People Go to Hell?

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On March 21, 2022

In Churches/Church Response

Revelation 21:6-8,” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. (7) The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. (8) But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

What kind of people will populate Hell?  Or, more precisely, the Lake of Fire?  The answer would surprise most people.  The Apostle John lists some of them here:

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God Gives Vengeance to the Afflicted and Rescues us from Men of Violence

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On March 16, 2022

In Supporting Victims

Psa 18:46-50 The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation– (47) the God who gave me vengeance and subdued peoples under me, (48) who delivered me from my enemies; yes, you exalted me above those who rose against me; you rescued me from the man of violence. (49) For this I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations, and sing to your name. (50) Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever.

I am sure that you have days – perhaps many of them – when you just feel like quitting. Your thoughts run something like this:

  • My abuser seems to win every time
  • People believe him, not me
  • He has treated me with violence, yet he prospers and I have nothing
  • Maybe everything really is my fault, just like so many people are saying

I can’t read your mind, but I know how this kind of thinking goes because I have those very same thoughts many times too. King David had those days too, if you will read more of the Psalms you will see it to have been the case. And yet here in Psalm 18 David shares a great victory with us. God had given him vengeance. He rescued him from the man of violence. But the Lord does not only do this for people like David. Notice that last line –

Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever.

And to his offspring. Offspring is “seed.” Who is the seed of David? The Lord Jesus Christ! And all who are in Christ by faith are also David’s offspring. You see it in Romans 4 where Paul shows us that Abraham was the father of all who are of faith, David being one of them. We are Abraham’s seed. We are, you might say, David’s seed as well.  And that means that we are heirs of all the promises God made to them.

The point is this: don’t despair. Don’t give up. Fix your eyes on Jesus and believe His promises. Because I can tell you this by the sure authority of God’s own Word: the day is coming when God will give you vengeance and when he will deliver you from the violent man. He will do it. I don’t know when. I don’t know how. But he is going to do it because if you are in Christ, God has set His love on you just as surely as he set it on King David.
He is coming. He is coming. Your day is coming.

Little gods – the wicked demand worship

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On March 14, 2022

In Abusers, Evil, Getting Free

Act 20:29-30 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; (30) and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.

We know that the fundamental motive of Satan is – “I will be like the Most High.” He tempted Jesus to worship him. He usurped God’s Word in the garden. He is the spirit of antichrist, setting himself up in the temple and declaring he is God.

It is not surprising therefore that his diabolic servants do the same. You see it here in Acts 20 when Paul warns the people at Ephesus to be on guard. Right from among themselves savage wolves would arise. And their motive? To draw away the disciples after them. Looking for a following. Looking for worshipers to worship them. They are like their father the devil.

You know that domestic abusers seek power and control. Translate that. Domestic abusers seek to be worshipped. They view themselves as gods. Like Nebuchadnezzar of Daniel’s day, they command the orchestra to play and for their select targets to then bow down in worship. Or else. Victims are still being cast into the fiery furnace for refusing to do so (and Christ still meets us in that furnace).

Narcissists, sociopaths, abusers – they are little gods. They fashion themselves into deities and view themselves as such. Think of Diotrephes in 3 John who “wanted to be first.” Churches are so often infested by these idols and so often end up giving them what is due only to Christ – worship.

So let’s beware. Let’s be wise. When we sense pressure to bow down (and that pressure, as you know, can be very covert and unseen – but felt), we can know that something is very wrong. The Spirit of the Lord always, always, always draws our attention to Christ, never to a man. He leads us to obey Christ and we find, as we do, that Jesus’ yoke is easy. The yoke of a false god is oppressive, always accompanied by threats and fear.

Gal 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

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